THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 12, 1995 TAG: 9504120412
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
Drug kingpin Paul Ebanks turned on his alleged soldiers in federal court Tuesday, outlining the roles of eight defendants who he said were former employees of one of the largest drug rings ever prosecuted here.
Ebanks, 23, a top captain in the organization, is testifying as part of an agreement in which he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic and distribute drugs from New York City to Hampton Roads.
Speaking in a near monotone, his eyes downcast, Ebanks pointed out several defendants, identifying them as men he had worked with as he helped build a small-time drug dealership into a corporate-style pyramid structure. The organization was based in Newport News, with major spokes to New York and Miami and smaller spokes to Richmond, North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio.
The organization, made up primarily of about 25 childhood friends, in-laws and other relatives from New York City, allegedly dealt up to $122.8 million in crack cocaine and killed or maimed seven people along the East Coast, prosecutors have said.
Ebanks apparently originated the Hampton Roads connection in 1989 while he was still in high school, driving to Virginia to sell small quantities of cocaine because the profit margin was higher than in New York.
As described by prosecutors and Ebanks on Tuesday, the atmosphere became increasingly violent, eventually leading to shootouts, revenge killings, arson fires and, finally, betrayal.
Ebanks is just the first of top organization leaders expected to testify in a trial likely to last two weeks. Nearly 90 witnesses have been subpoenaed.
``We will hear from leaders, managers, supervisors, mules and couriers who traveled the interstate,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Arenda Allen said during opening statements Tuesday. ``Distributors who sold, customers who bought, police who confiscated physical evidence. We will show you machine guns, silencers, semiautomatics, secret compartments and legal scales.''
Prosecutors' opening statements were followed by statements of eight defense attorneys, each representing one defendant.
Tuesday, Ebanks tracked the rise of the business from his high school days in Queens to the time he joined forces with alleged co-leaders Robert Bruce Gillins and Samuel B. Kelly. Gillins has already pleaded guilty and is expected to testify later this week. Kelly is a co-defendant currently on trial.
``I came down to Virginia the summer of '89, my last year of high school, to sell drugs with a friend,'' Ebanks said.
``Then, on my own, I eventually started bringing people down to sell drugs.''
At first, Ebanks said, they stayed in motels in Newport News and Hampton, selling in small quantities drugs they had picked up in New York City. Eventually, they rented an apartment and expanded their distribution network, Ebanks testified.
At one point, Ebanks showed jurors how the false bottom of a coffee can was used to hide cocaine and cash during interstate trafficking.
``We put it in with a bag of groceries,'' he said. ``We used fire extinguishers in apartments and air-freshener cans, fake car batteries in the garage'' to hide contraband.
As the organization grew, Ebanks said, so did the cash transactions. He described one incident in which he gave $180,000 to a business representative who took off with the cash. Ebanks kept the go-between in that incident ``under lock and key'' overnight, until business partners arrived to help take care of the problem.
They never recovered the cash, Ebanks testified, but the go-between began a sort of indentured servitude, eventually working off the entire amount.
Testimony on Tuesday alluded to business connections in Richmond; Charlotte; Columbia, S.C.; Philadelphia; Lorraine, Ohio; and Washington.
During opening statements, defense attorneys told the jury that prosecutors were basing their case on criminals with plea agreements who were testifying to save their own skins.
Some argued that the co-defendants were childhood friends, not co-conspirators. Others argued that the government might be able to show they sold drugs but not that they did so in an organized fashion.
``Just because there's Standard Drug Store and USA Drug Store doesn't mean they're part of the same chain,'' one defense attorney said.
One co-defendant, David Harry, also known as Truck, accepted a plea agreement just before the trial started and is cooperating with prosecutors. They have characterized him as an ``enforcer'' for the organization. Harry said Tuesday he was simply a bodyguard for Ebanks' alleged partner, Gillins.
The eight men who are on trial are Samuel Benjamin Kelly, John Austin Edwards, Alfred Cleveland, Jeffrey Maillard, James Cousins, Camille Ford, Anthony Merrick and Morris Eugene Hayes.
KEYWORDS: TRIAL COCAINE INTERSTATE DRUG TRAFFIC DRUG RING U.S.
FEDERAL COURT by CNB