THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 16, 1994 TAG: 9412160566
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON AND LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 158 lines
Members of an interstate drug gang that allegedly dealt up to $122.8 million in crack cocaine and killed or maimed seven people along the East Coast have been indicted for drug conspiracy by federal authorities.
Drug quantities and income from street sales indicate it is probably the largest interstate cocaine ring ever prosecuted in Hampton Roads.
Eight people alleged to be gang members have been arrested; 13 more were being sought Thursday by law enforcement officials. One member, Terrance G. James of Newport News, could be charged with capital murder, prosecutors indicated.
The 62-page indictment, unsealed late Wednesday in U.S. District Court, describes a cut-throat gang that relied on extortion, murder and beatings to control clients and customers. Although most business occurred on the Peninsula, the gang's activities ranged from Miami to New York, records show.
According to the indictment, drugs sales, violence and related money laundering occurred since 1989 in Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk, Williamsburg, Virginia Beach and Richmond.
Police have said the gang moved drugs from Miami and New York to Richmond, then to the Peninsula, where they virtually controlled the drug market. Profits were then laundered through a pest-control business in Queens, N.Y., owned by one of the gang leaders' sisters, records show.
The gang has been linked to four murders since 1990 in Lorain, Ohio; Norfolk; Newport News; and Philadelphia.
Sometimes, according to the indictment, the gang goofed: in 1992, they planned to kill a man who torched a leader's Lexus, then shot the wrong guy. In 1991, they beat one of their own for losing $120,000. That same year, their hit man was killed while trying to open business in Washington, D.C.
The indictment charges that the gang sold at least 5 to 15 kilograms of cocaine a week from summer 1990 to January 1994. A kilogram of crack cocaine conservatively sells for about $45,000 on the street, according to local police estimates.
Through it all, the gang lived in high style. Their taste in cars included a BMW, a Sterling, an Acura and a Lexus, most purchased with cash from Hampton Roads dealers.
In November 1991 alone, they put down $15,000 in cocaine profits for a 1991 Acura Legend and another $13,000 for a 1990 Lexus. Their taste in firearms included Cobras, Glocks and Smith and Wessons, most obtained through straw purchases in the Miami area.
By the time the gang was being investigated this year, sales had allegedly occurred in Queens and the Bronx in New York; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Charlotte, N.C.; Columbia, S.C.; and Lorain, Ohio.
The gang members were enamored with technology. In 1993, the gang had an electronically controlled hidden compartment installed in at least one of the cars used for drug- and money-smuggling.
The compartment could only be opened by a precise sequence of operations, such as starting the engine then hitting the air conditioner before turning on the radio.
In fact, police already had one car impounded before discovering that about $1 million was hidden in a secret compartment. It was only when an informant told authorities that the shocked police found the money.
According to the indictment, the business was allegedly headed by three men, Robert Bruce Gillins, Paul Ebanks and Samuel B. Kelly. Gillins made an initial appearance in federal court Thursday; Ebanks and Kelly are still fugitives.
Although authorities could not track most of the profits, at least part of the money was laundered through a termite- and pest-control firm run by a New York woman, Annette Gillins Kelly, believed to be Kelly's wife and Gillins' sister.
Annette Kelly is alleged to have deposited drug funds into business accounts of Bugmaster Termite and Pest Control, Inc. and Nu-Look Auto Services, Inc., in New York City. Nu-Look also serviced and repaired cars used to transport drugs up and down the East Coast, the indictments said.
The business began in the spring or early summer of 1989 when Gillins, Ebanks and Kelly traveled to the Peninsula from Queens to establish a distribution network, the indictments said.
By June, distributions had begun from a Days Inn near Hampton Coliseum. Within a year, the violence had begun with an attempted murder in Lorain, Ohio. The gang's alleged hit man, Ivan Gibson, tried to kill a man suspected of snitching to police about the gang.
By January 1991, the gang had spread to Norfolk, where other New York gangs had already set up shop.
Ivan Gibson was called in again, the indictment says, and on Jan. 25 of that year shot and killed Isaac S. Freeman, who was shot in the head with a handgun, police said. His body was found in his car that night on Hale Street, two blocks from what police later called ``the biggest crack house'' in the Lindenwood neighborhood.
Profits were up, but there were also losses. In the winter of 1991, gang member Bernard King paid about $120,000 to a Colombian woman for several kilograms of cocaine. But the woman didn't deliver and ran off with the cash.
Gang members couldn't find the thief, so they beat King instead. Soon afterward, King's mother came up with a $30,000 down payment on the absconded funds to protect her son, records indicate.
Court records suggest that by 1993, King was back in the gang's good graces.
That February, narcotics agents raided two apartments in Norfolk's Park Place, crippling a group led by a Bernard King and his brother, Louis.
By that point, Bernard King was wanted in New York for attempted murder, according to a search warrant affidavit. Louis King, whom police said was known as ``Trigger'' for his habit of shooting people, was arrested. Bernard was never charged.
But 1992 would be the gang's bloodiest year. On Jan. 13, 1992, alleged hit man Ivan Gibson was shot and killed in Washington, D.C. by business competitors while trying to open business there. The murder was never solved, but gang members suspected a Newport News man, Gregory Woodard.
Six weeks later, on Feb. 26, Terrance Gerard James allegedly shot and killed Woodard in Newport News in retaliation for Gibson's murder. Police issued warrants for James' arrest, but he was at large until recently.
In July, Gillins, Kelly, Ebanks and other gang members met in Philadelphia and allegedly put out a contract on the life of Alvin Baker, who reportedly abducted a woman associated with the gang and torched Gillins' Lexus.
The following Oct. 9, the conspirators accidentally shot and wounded Kerry Lawrence, an innocent bystander, whom they mistook for Baker. Two weeks later, they got the right man, records state - shooting Baker to death in his car.
By 1993, the gang had apparently established a near-monopoly on the Peninsula and, with fewer competitors, violence was apparently down. Still, there were incidents. In November of last year, Gillins and two other members allegedly beat an unidentified gang member for taking money.
Gillins was arrested this year for Baker's murder, court records show. He was apparently arrested in New York, then transported to Philadelphia. Local law enforcement authorities were surprised to see the amount of protection placed on Gillins when he was moved. Arresting authorities apparently feared he would be the target of retaliation from other gangs.
Eight of the gang members will be arraigned on Tuesday in federal court. They include: Gillins, John Austin Edwards, Terrance Gerard James, James Cousins, Anthony Renard Wynn, Anthony Merrick, Morris Eugene Hayes, and Daphne Elizabeth Hayes.
Thirteen other alleged gang members are still being sought. They are: Ebanks, Kelly, Leonard Philpott Lewis, Alfred Cleveland, Anthony Moore, David Harry, Jeffrey Maillard, Cleamon Anderson, Maurice Lloyd Gray, Robert Andre Wilmot, Bernard King, Annette Gillins Kelly and Camille Ford. ILLUSTRATION: Map
DRUG DISTRIBUTION HOUSES
Graphic
GANG-RELATED VIOLENCE
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: DRUG RINGS DRUG ARREST DRUG GANGS
COCAINE by CNB