
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 1, 1994                    TAG: 9406010479 
SECTION: LOCAL                     PAGE: D3    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT 
DATELINE: 940601                                 LENGTH: NORFOLK

THREE DRUG KINGPINS GET LIFE IN PRISON IN TORTURE, KILLING

{LEAD} Three drug kingpins who were convicted of torturing and killing two people have been sentenced to life in prison without parole, plus 45 years.

The three men - Jean Claude Oscar, 34; his brother, Frantz Oscar, 27; and Arnold Mark Henry, 25 - were the first defendants to face a possible death penalty in Norfolk federal court in modern times.

{REST} They were charged under the federal drug-kingpin law, which permits capital punishment for people convicted of murders committed as part of a continuing drug enterprise. A jury convicted the men of murder and drug conspiracy in February but rejected the death penalty for them. U.S. District Judge Henry C. Morgan imposed the life sentences last week.

The Oscars and Henry were New York transplants who set up a violent crack-cocaine ring in Hampton Roads in early 1991. Prosecutors said the three were responsible for the torture and execution-style murders of Alma Marie Baker, 33, and Wayne Anthony Ashley, 38, both of Norfolk, in March 1993.

Investigators broke up the gang after the bodies of Ashley and Baker were found in Newport News and Hampton.

{KEYWORDS} MURDER TORTURE DRUG GANGS DRUG KINGPIN TRIAL SENTENCING

by CNB