Man, 19, charged with fentanyl distribution and rape after FIT student's dorm death

Mixed · 2Federal prosecutors announced on Thursday 15 October 2026 that a student at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) died after being drugged with fentanyl and raped in a Manhattan dorm room in March. 1 2 Mixed · 2Moises Freire, 19, of the Bronx, is charged with distributing a controlled substance with intent to commit rape, distribution of narcotics resulting in death, and conspiracy, according to an indictment described by NBC News; Brian Peralta Cabrera, 18, of Queens, is charged in the drug conspiracy. 1 2 Mixed · 2Prosecutors say that on March 18 Freire brought the drug to the students' dorm room, told one woman it was pure cocaine and falsely said it contained no fentanyl, though he knew it was fentanyl, had obtained it from Peralta Cabrera and had described it as "poison". 1 2

Mixed · 2Both women lost consciousness almost immediately after taking it, and prosecutors say Freire raped one of them while the other lay unconscious nearby; Freire was not an FIT student. 1 2 Mixed · 2NBC News reports the indictment says he took naked photos of the woman and sent them to friends; the AP account says he sent photos of the unconscious women to others. 1 2 Mixed · 2Prosecutors say he waited about 45 minutes before contacting campus security and then said the women had drunk too much. 1 2

Mixed · 2Campus security found the women and gave emergency aid before both were taken to hospital. One regained consciousness; the woman who was raped fell into a coma and died on March 21 from complications of acute fentanyl intoxication, according to the indictment and the AP. 1 2 Right · 1Freire and Peralta Cabrera were first arrested in March and pleaded not guilty to an initial set of charges that did not include the rape allegation; they remain in federal custody and had yet to be arraigned on the new indictment, the AP reported. If convicted they face a mandatory minimum of 20 years and a possible life sentence. 2 Right · 1A third defendant, Harry Rosales Pino, pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy to distribute narcotics resulting in death and serious bodily injury and is due to be sentenced in December. 2

Right · 1At an April hearing, Freire's lawyer Mitchell Schwartz called the death a tragedy but said Freire was not trying to ply the students with drugs and described events as "dumb teenager things"; Judge Sidney Stein replied that giving someone fentanyl is not that. At the same hearing, prosecutor Ariana Bloom said Freire admitted in a written statement to campus security that he had sex with the woman and realised afterwards that she was unconscious. 2 Mixed · 2Christopher Roberts, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York Task Force Division, said the allegations were "beyond disturbing" and that college should not be a place where "predators exploit their vulnerability". Lawyers for the two men did not immediately comment, and FIT had not responded to requests for comment. 2 1 Left · 1NBC News places the case amid what it calls a national reckoning over sexual misconduct on college campuses, citing a lawsuit against Cornell University and a reported assault near the University of Chicago. 1