federal grand jury has returned a new criminal indictment against once-prominent Newark lawyer Paul W. Bergrin that directly implicates him in a June 2007 bribery scandal aimed at helping a convicted felon escape gun charges.
The 138-page superseding indictment, returned last Thursday but made public today, charges Bergrin with four new criminal counts, including one which details allegations that Bergin and others pulled off a plan to use a fall guy — referred to in the indictment as “J.M.” — to confess to a gun possession charge involving a .22-caliber revolver against an alleged “criminal client” and employee of Bergrin’s law firm, who is referred as “A.W.”, federal authorities said.
The indictment says that J.M.’s false confession, made in exchange for a payment, helped A.W. get a parole-board hearing acquittal and get released from jail in 2007.
The 33-count indictment also says that once “A.W.” was released from the Essex County Correctional Facility, he returned to assisting Bergrin and others “in distributing kilogram quantities of cocaine.”
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• Trial date set for ex-Newark lawyer accused of plotting to kill witnesses

• Racketeering charges are reinstated against N.J. lawyer accused of plotting to kill potential witness
• Prosecutors go mum in case of high-profile lawyer accused of plotting to kill witnesses
• Newark lawyer Paul Bergrin, charged with murder, witness intimidation, returns to federal prison
• Star-Ledger archives: The Paul Bergrin case

Bergrin, 55, a former federal prosecutor turned high-profile defense attorney, whose legal clients included entertainers like Lil’ Kim and Queen Latifah, is facing racketeering and other charges ranging from murder-for-hire to running a high-end Manhattan call-girl operation.
His trial, long delayed because of a series of appeals, is scheduled for Oct. 11.
Bergrin’s defense attorney, Lawrence Lustberg, said in an email today that the new indictment “appears to vastly expand the charges against Mr. Bergrin, beyond what was already a massive, unwieldy indictment, piling charge upon charge in a way that will make a fair trial, as a practical matter, impossible.”
The allegations made public Monday against Bergrin contains facts and dates that mirror facts surrounding a guilty plea by Clifford J. Minor, a former Essex County prosecutor and former Newark mayoral candidate.
In April, Minor admitted to trying to help Abdul Williams, 34, of East Orange, escape .22-caliber revolver gun-possession charges in June 2007 by serving as lawyer for Jamal Muhammad, 32, of Newark, when Muhammad went to falsely confess to police that he had illegally possessed the revolver. In pleading guilty, Minor admitted he knew Williams had a string of felony convictions before his June 2007 arrest and that Muhammad would face a lighter sentence for the crime.
Minor, 68, is slated to be sentenced on July 18 in federal court in Newark for counts related to the scandal, federal authorities said.
But Monday Minor’s defense lawyer, Thomas R. Ashley, said there is no connection between Minor and Bergrin.
“There was never any interaction whatsoever between Paul Bergrin and Cliff Minor with respect to Abdul Williams and/or Mr. Muhammad, who was Mr. Minor’s client,” he said.
Minor and Bergin never had any business relationship and had never talked about Williams and Muhammad, Ashley said.
The indictment also added a count related to a murder allegation against Bergrin that says that he aided in the killing of a key witness referred to as K.D.M. who may have testified against a cocaine trafficker.
Several people originally charged along with Bergrin have already pleaded guilty and implicated him, including a Monmouth County cocaine trafficker, Vincente Esteves.
Esteves said he worked with Bergrin to plot the assassination of a potential witness against Esteves himself known as “Junior the Panamanian.” The new indictment extended the time frame for some racketeering counts against Bergrin and dropped counts related to mortage fraud and witness tampering. The indictment also named Alejandro Barraza-Castro, an alleged criminal associate of Bergrin’s.

The body of the Linden man who is said to have been shot to death over an argument with his boss over stolen ganja seeds was recovered late yesterday.
The decomposing body of 21-year-old Clifton Bonus, called Motty, was pulled from the backlands of Linden next to the location of the old Mackenzie airstrip known by locals as a marijuana farm.
Reports indicate that the man, wearing just black short pants, was dumped in a gully in the bushes, after he was shot dead.
Bonus’s killer is said to be on the run from police. An eyewitness to the killing is among two persons assisting police with the investigations. The other person in custody is said to be one of the persons on the ganja farm at the time of the incident.
Bonus was missing since last Friday, and on Sunday last relatives were reportedly informed that the man had been killed.
Both relatives and police subsequently scoured the area where Bonus was reportedly killed, but came up empty handed every time.
The grueling searches came to an abrupt end sometime before 17:00 hrs,
yesterday, after his grotesquely swollen and muddied body was discovered in a shallow grave,
Informed sources indicated that a gunshot wound was visible on one of Bonus’s leg and at the side of his head.
His body was subsequently taken to the Linden Hospital Complex wrapped in a grey tarpaulin, and later to the Wismar Mortuary.
Persons who were present at the hospital when the body was taken there for examination said that persons just stood around in shock; there was no emotional outburst or anything like that.
The eyewitness is reported to have told police that Bonus and his assailant had an argument over stolen ganja seeds last Friday. The argument escalated to the point where the man is said to have shot Bonus in the chest.
The eyewitness, who was washing dishes at the time, was threatened by the assailant to leave the area, sources told Kaieteur News.  However, the eyewitness, on Sunday, decided to tell police what he saw.
Karen Lashley, the slain man’s mother, had said she last saw her son two Mondays ago. Clifton Bonus, her only son, reportedly lived with her at Silvertown, until he moved out and went to live with the mother of his child at Nottinghamshire. The mother of his child is said to be his killer’s sister.
He reportedly worked with the woman’s brother.
Lashley said she did not know where her son worked or the nature of his job.
Karen Lashley told media operatives that when she  visited the suspect mother’s house, where her son resided until recently, one of the suspect’s  brothers blurted out, “Mommy tell the lady wha you son do she son, tell she is you own son kill she son!”

 criminal street gang member the Crips pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to charges of conspiring to conduct a racketeering enterprise related to his membership in a Pittsburgh Crips criminal enterprise, according to a report obtained by the Organized Crime Control Committee of the National Association of Chiefs of Police.

 
Nicklas Gay, 23, aka “GK,” pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Gustave Diamond to one count of conspiracy to engage in a racketeering conspiracy.   

According to the guilty plea, Gay and others participated in a pattern of racketeering activity that included multiple acts involving robberies at gun point; attempted murders; distribution of controlled substances, including cocaine, heroin and crack cocaine; and acts of obstruction of justice and witness intimidation.

According to his allocution and court documents, Gay was a member of the Northview Heights/ Fineview Crips, a criminal street gang operating out of the Northview Heights public housing facility in the Northside neighborhood, and in the nearby Fineview neighborhood of Pittsburgh. 

The gang had been operating in Northside since 2002, and in 2003 it formed an alliance with the Brighton Place Crips to expand the gang’s drug trafficking territory and increase the gang’s capability for violence.   The Brighton Place Crips is a criminal street gang formed in the early 1990s that controlled the area of Brighton Place and Morrison Street, also known as the Mad Cave, and Federal Street in the Northside area of Pittsburgh.

The Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang maintained exclusive control over drug trafficking in these neighborhoods through continuous violence and intimidation of rivals and witnesses.  Members of the gang support each other through payment of attorneys’ fees and bonds, as well as payments to jail commissary accounts and support of incarcerated members’ families.   

In addition, the Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang maintains an ongoing feud with the Manchester Original Gangsters, a criminal street gang located in the Manchester area of the Northside Section of Pittsburgh.  

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Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang members identify themselves by wearing blue, using Crips gang hand signals, and using phrases such as “Cuz,” “C-Safe,” “Loc” and “G.K.”   According to court documents, members and associates of the gang obtain greater authority and prestige within the gang based on their reputation for violence and their ability to obtain and sell a steady supply of illegal drugs.

According to court documents, Gay acted as a “hustler” or distributor of controlled substances including heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine, for the gang.   He also acted as a “soldier/ gorilla” or enforcer for the gang, providing protection for the enterprise through the commission of violent crimes.         

Also yesterday, Michael Wade, 25, aka “Swade,” and Michael Henson, 29, aka “Henne,” members of the Northview Heights/ Brighton Place Crips, were sentenced to 70 and 110 months in prison, respectively, for their roles in the criminal enterprise.   Wade and Henson pleaded guilty on February 2, 2011, and February 1, 2011, respectively, to one count of conspiracy to engage in racketeering before Judge Diamond.                

Gay, Wade and Henson are three of 26 defendants charged in February 2010 with being members of, and conducting racketeering activity through, the Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang.  This prosecution resulted from a Project Safe Neighborhoods Task Force investigation that began in 2005. 

To date, more than half of the Brighton Place/ Northview Heights Crips members who were charged in this indictment have pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.          

Gay faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.   He is scheduled to be sentenced on October 7, 2011.

Chicago police made numerous arrests this week connected to a drug-trafficking operation run by the Black P Stones street gang on the Southeast Side, authorities said at a news conference Thursday.

Among 15 arrested Wednesday morning, 13 were charged with felony criminal drug conspiracy, including the operation’s alleged ringleader, 32-year-old Eric Gauthreaux.

Authorities said he’s a reputed high-ranking leader of the P Stones and a nephew of the gang’s imprisoned co-founder Jeff Fort, who also founded the gang’s El Rukn faction.

Police said the $15,000-a-day operation dealt mostly heroin and cocaine in an area dubbed “Terror Town” that is loosely bounded by East 75th and 79th Streets, Yates Boulevard and Colfax Avenue.

“This is probably the most active (drug-dealing area) on the South Side and the most organized,” Sgt. Tom Cronin of the Chicago police gang investigations unit, which led the eight-month probe, said at the news conference at police headquarters.

The investigation also resulted in the arrests of 16 additional people who tried to buy drugs from undercover officers, authorities said. Four other suspects in the probe remained at large.

Police also seized roughly $25,000 in cash during the investigation as well as 900 grams of heroin, 125 grams of cocaine, 13 vehicles and 10 guns, authorities said. Inside Gauthreaux’s home, they said, police found clothing, hats and various types of handwritten artwork related to the Fort family or the P Stones.
 
The investigation began last September after a rash of violent crimes in the area, authorities said. The investigation was stepped up two months later after Chicago police Officer Michael Flisk, an evidence technician, was fatally shot in the area while on duty, authorities said.
 
Gauthreaux lives down the alley from where that slaying took place, but Flisk’s death wasn’t connected to the drug operation.

On May 19, however, Chicago Police Officer Paul Nauden was taken to a hospital complaining of chest pains while working on the investigation. The 46-year-old narcotics unit officer and 21-year department veteran died the following day at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

In addition to officers from the narcotics unit, those from the gang enforcement unit and Calumet Area assisted in the probe.

“There’s a reason that this area is called ‘Terror Town,’” said Brian Sexton, chief of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office’s narcotics prosecutions section. He offered a stern message for gang members who are still active in that area: “We’re not done yet.”

A young man shot dead in the back of a car just yards from his parents' home was a convicted drug dealer.
But detectives believe Dean Johnson, 20, operated on the fringe of the drugs scene and they are trying to establish a motive for his murder.
A lone gunman fired around five shots at Mr Johnson at about 9pm on Wednesday as he sat in the rear seat of a red Volkswagen Golf on Moorfield Avenue, in Clondalkin, west Dublin.
He was hit in the shoulder and head and was later pronounced dead at Tallaght Hospital.
The car was being driven by a girlfriend of Mr Johnson's friend who was picking up a group of people who were going on a night out.
Mr Johnson lived on Moorfield Avenue with his mother and father and younger brother. It is understood his mother rushed to the scene of the shooting after hearing the shots ringing out. He had a girlfriend of a few months.
One line of inquiry is that Johnson was involved in a row with gang members in the nearby Neilstown area at the weekend, but detectives have yet to establish whether the incident is relevant.
It is thought several witnesses would have seen the killer - who did not use a mask - as he fled from the scene on foot in the direction of the Neilstown Road. "There's no doubt he was seen," said one source. "It was broad daylight, there were people around."
Johnson was convicted of supplying drugs three years ago after being caught with ecstasy tablets with a street value of 30,000 euro. Because he was under-age at the time, in the eyes of the law, he was put on probation. But detectives said he was only a carrier. "He was not a big player," said one.
The murder happened about 400 metres from where two drug dealer brothers, Paul Corbally, 35, and Kenneth Corbally, 32, were shot dead last summer.

The night before he was to give his younger daughter a birthday party, Police Officer William C. Johnson went out for pizza and never came home. He died early Friday, apparently a random victim of a drive-by shooting.

Someone fired five or six shots into Texas Fried Chicken and Pizza on Thursday night, blowing out the front window, gouging bullet holes into walls, injuring two people and mortally wounding Officer Johnson, a single father of two who was off duty.

The police said that none of the three victims was the intended target, making this the sort of sudden, unexplained violence that has long been a scourge of this city.

A 19-year-old Newark man described as “a person of interest” in the case was arrested late Friday afternoon.

The shooting comes at a difficult time for the Newark Police Department and Mayor Cory A. Booker. The city laid off about 13 percent of its officers last fall. In recent weeks, Garry McCarthy, the Newark police director, left to lead the Chicago police, and federal authorities announced that they were investigating whether the Newark department had a pattern of mistreating citizens.

Mr. Booker took office in 2006 vowing to fight crime and restore trust in the department, and in his first two years, crime declined. But the murder rate rose in 2009 and 2010, defying a national decline. Crime has continued to rise this year.

“We all feel grievously wounded and harmed,” Mr. Booker said at a news conference on Friday about the slaying of Officer Johnson, a Newark native. “He was one of our own. He’s up from the bricks.”

“Do not misunderstand,” the mayor added. “We will find those people responsible for killing one of our officers. We will not let this cop killer stay on the streets.”

Carolyn A. Murray, the acting Essex County prosecutor, said that the young man who was arrested, Rasul McNeil-Thomas, faced charges in the carjacking of the vehicle that the police believe was used in the shooting, and gun possession charges, but so far has not been charged in the shooting. Officials said they were still looking for another person possibly connected to the shooting.

Officer Johnson, 45, worked in the department’s video surveillance unit, watching the streams of images from security cameras posted around the city. It may be just such cameras that help catch whoever killed him; police officials said they had the video recording from a camera at Texas Fried Chicken and Pizza, and were collecting others from neighboring businesses. The restaurant, at 250 Lyons Avenue, is a short drive from the quiet street where Officer Johnson lived, in the South Ward, near Beth Israel Medical Center. “He would come here every three days,” usually to pick up a pepperoni pie, said Adrees Nahiam, a cashier at the restaurant. “He was a really nice guy.”

Neighbors and patrons say that the restaurant, which stays open until 2 a.m., is a magnet for rowdy teenagers and young men, who are not usually shooed away, and that surrounding area has had a number of violent episodes in the past year.

“A lot of kids hang out in there,” said one neighbor, Kim Baker, 46. “It’s not that bad, but it has its moments.”

At 9:50 p.m. on Thursday, Officer Johnson was standing at the counter, apparently waiting for his order, according to officials who have watched the surveillance video.

Samuel DeMaio, the acting police director, said a vehicle pulled up in front of the restaurant with what appeared to be two people in it, and someone opened fire on the customers inside. Witnesses said five or six shots were fired, sending people in and around the restaurant scattering for cover.

Officer Johnson and a 21-year-old man were both struck in the torso, and taken to University Hospital. Officer Johnson died at 3:10 a.m., Ms. Murray, the prosecutor, said.

The other man, whose name was not released, was in stable condition Friday.

Another bullet struck the shoulder of a 19-year-old woman, a regular customer who was there with a toddler. The woman, whose name the police also withheld, fled on foot with the child, leaving her stroller behind in the restaurant. She reached Beth Israel, where she was treated and released.

In addition to his job with the Police Department, where he had worked for 16 years, Officer Johnson worked part time as a security guard at a Newark apartment complex. He lived in a modest house with his daughters — one just out of college and one in fifth grade.

By all accounts, Officer Johnson doted on the younger girl. “He was going to give her a birthday party today, and now what is that little girl going to do?” Shalonda Coleman, who lives on the next block, said on Friday.

Shakeema Brown, another neighbor, said the girl often told people, “My dad really cares about me; he really loves me.” People up and down the street said that despite a certain reserve, Officer Johnson was always helping neighbors, whether carrying packages or looking after their houses when they were away.

“He would always tell people, ‘Anywhere you go, you’ve got to watch your back,’ ” said Cheryl Newby, whose granddaughter often plays with Officer Johnson’s younger daughter.

He walked nearly every day to the Quality Mini Mart, two blocks from his house for food, toiletries, cigarettes or pipe tobacco, with a “Good evening, ladies” for the group of women he usually passed, chatting on a nearby porch. Often, he would take his younger daughter with him, walking hand in hand, to buy her snacks.

At Garden Towers, the apartment complex where Officer Johnson was a guard, Tyrell Lindsey recalled Officer Johnson reuniting lost children with their parents, and helping elderly residents buy groceries. “He was just a well-loved person,” Mr. Lindsey said.

man who called himself an “enforcer” with a once-prominent gang called the Freight Train Riders of America and who was wanted for murder in Texas was arrested last week in Clark County following a fight.

Michael Elijah Adams, 43, using the alias Michael Allen Thompson, was taken into custody at about 9:30 p.m. May 17 when Deputy Andrew Kennison of the Clark County Sheriff’s Office stopped him following what was reported as a “physical disturbance” in the 2300 block of Northeast 134th Street. A man was reportedly beating another man in the northeast corner of a construction site.

When Kennison ran the information provided by the man who identified himself as Michael Thompson through the FBI’s National Criminal Information Center, back came a “very close hit on a warrant” for Adams, according to the police report. And Adams, Kennison learned, was wanted by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office for the murder of a 51-year-old homeless woman March 15.

Adams was lodged in the Clark County Jail and extradited Friday to Eugene, Ore., where he was wanted on an outstanding warrant relating to charges he sold heroin. Attorneys in Lane County, Ore., and El Paso will work out in what order Adams will be tried.

“He mentioned being in Texas as recently as last summer,” Kennison wrote in the report.

When he was arrested, Adams, who has railroad tracks tattooed on the side of his face, had a folding black pocket knife in one of his pockets. He wore a black bandana around his neck signaling his elite standing with the Freight Train Riders of America, a loosely connected gang of about 1,000 homeless men known in the 80s and 90s for riding BNSF’s 1,500-mile High Line between Seattle and Minneapolis, sleeping in box cars, switching yards and under bridges.

An enforcer, Adams told Kennison this was the third time he had been arrested for murder and he had “beaten the rap on the previous two charges.”

He said he learned to be an enforcer from “Dogman Tony,” who Kennison discovered was implicated in multiple murders and made several appearances on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, according to the report. “Dogman Tony” was featured in a 2003 documentary about six hobos who hop trains across America.

A famed member of the FTRA, Robert Silveria Jr., known as the “Boxcar Killer,” was arrested in California in 1996. He confessed to killing 28 fellow train riders and is currently serving a double life sentence in Wyoming.

The FTRA was the subject of a 1997 investigative report by the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper looked at the group’s role in the about 70 to 90 deaths that were occurring along rail lines each year. Few of the deaths involving foul play were solved.

“Sure, some are natural causes. Some are accidents. But some aren’t. And the problem is, the suspects and all the witnesses disappear,” then Spokane Detective Bob Grandinetti, an expert on the FTRA, was quoted in the article.

Gus Melonas of BNSF said the FTRA and associated act of riding and living on the rails have gone largely extinct. BNSF has commissioned police officers who cracked down on that sort of activity in the late 1980s.

Deaths that once numbered near 90 have dropped off precipitously.

“We have records on a lot of the rail riders,” Melonas said. “We know their background. If somebody’s getting on or off a train, we will make arrests for criminal trespassing.”

He said Vancouver and Portland were at one time hubs with large hobo camps. One prominent camp was between Fruit Valley Road and 39th Street, Melonas said.

In recent years, a group cropped up called the Sunshine Kids, mostly young adults who weren’t known to cause much trouble but took to traveling from town to town by rail, Melonas said.

“It’s as rare today to see a hobo on the trains as common as it was when I started in 1976,” Melonas said. “We just don’t see the FTRA folks out in the Northwest.”

gun battle involving two vehicles was reported Sunday night, police said.

At about 5:17 p.m., witnesses told police they saw a silver sedan and a light colored van exchange gun fire in the area of Nebraska Street and El Dorado.

Both vehicles had left the scene before police arrived, but police said they found numerous shell casings on the ground.

There were no reported injuries, but police found a bullet hole in the side of a house in the 500 block of Nebraska Street.

Three people were stabbed in a long-simmering gang war that exploded amid the slides and swings of Tilles Park on Monday.
Fort Smith police were called to local hospitals in reference to three people who had been stabbed. Police learned that the three had sustained stab wounds during a gang battle involving 15 to 20 people, according to Sgt. Daniel Grubbs, public information officer for the Fort Smith Police Department.

"We feel this was the continuation of events from last week and maybe a month ago," Grubbs said.
The gangs involved were Florencia 13, a Hispanic gang, and Brick Squad, a mixed race gang, according to Grubbs.
Of the three people stabbed, one suffered a collapsed a lung, another sustained stab wounds to his back and shoulder area and the third sustained a stab wound to his upper buttocks, Grubbs said.
Gustavo Iraburo, 18, was the only suspected participant in the fight who was arrested, according to Grubbs. Officers with the Street Crimes Unit believe that as many as 13 more participants in the fight will be located and arrested.
Florencia 13 and Brick Squad have been going back and forth attacking each other, Grubbs said.
"If one gets jumped this fight, the other will get jumped the next fight," Grubbs said.

20-year-old Walla Walla man and known gang member was shot to death Tuesday by apparent rival gang members, according to city police. No arrests had been made as of early Wednesday morning.

Police say Julio Cesar Martinez was walking in an alley in the 300 block of Myrtle Street when he and a friend were approached by several people, and at least four shots were fired. Two bullets struck Martinez, while the friend was uninjured, police said.

The shooting marks the first homicide by firearm in the city for several years. 

The shooting is believed to have occurred about 6 p.m. The area of Myrtle Street between Chestnut Street, Willow Street, Sprague Avenue and Seventh Avenue was quickly closed off to traffic as law enforcement secured the scene and searched for the suspects.

Walla Walla police received support from the Walla Walla County Sheriff’s Office, College Place police and Washington State Patrol to close off the area and conduct searches. The city’s Emergency Services Unit eventually arrived on scene and searched one residence where the suspects may have been hiding. A home in the 400 block of Sprague Avenue, just down the street from the shooting, was secured early on after the shooting, and remained closed past 8 p.m. as the unit prepared its search. 

Residents living around the scene of the shooting reported hearing what sounded like fireworks from their homes, then seeing a bloodied man lying in the alley outside. By 7 p.m., the are around the alley had been taped off with yellow crime scene tape while officers searched and collected evidence. About 8 p.m., yellow tape was used to close off Myrtle at Sprague to prepare for the Emergency Services Unit operation.

As word spread in the neighborhood that the shooting victim would had likely died, many expressed grief at the loss of life. 

One woman, speaking in Spanish, described the shooting as sad and tragic. 

“If he dies, for whatever reason, it’s sad,” she said. “He’s still a human being.” 

Judy Thompson, a long-time resident of the area, said something needed to be done to stop gang activity and violence, particularly in the neighborhood. Some residents said the neighborhood had known affiliations to the city's largest gang, and they thought the shooting victim may have belonged to a rival gang. 

Thompson said it would take the community getting involved and becoming active to really make a difference.

“If we don’t get involved, we don’t conquer it,” she said. “If we don’t stand up for society, we don’t have nothing.”

At least two men displayed weapons Tuesday during what police are describing as a gang shootout.

As of late Tuesday, two men had been taken into custody. Erick D. Butler, 20, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree assault. A 16-year-old male was also arrested. Charges against him have not yet been determined, police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said in a press release.

A shooting victim, also a man, was taken to Southwest Washington Medical Center. His injuries were not life-threatening; he was treated and released. He was described only as a male in his 40s, with police declining to release his identity at this point in their investigation.

Police responded around 7:15 p.m. to reports of shots fired in the 3700 block of East 18th St., Kapp said. Callers to 911 reported hearing several gun shots, Kapp said in the release.

They learned through interviews that two men displayed guns during an altercation and at least one of them fired several shots. A third man was struck.

A suspect was initially described as a dark-skinned man, about 20 years old, about 5 foot 9 inches, with a heavy build and tattoos on both arms.

An officer was heard over the emergency radio system saying three bullet casings were found in the area.

A neighbor told police he shot video on his cellphone of people running from the scene.

Police said detectives with the Safe Streets Task Force are continuing their investigation and want to talk to anyone who may have information on the incident.

The hospital went into lockdown mode because the victim was believed to be a “security risk,” said Southwest Washington Medical Center spokesman Ken Cole. He said employees were required to show badges, and families and patients were screened before entering the medical center.

The lockdown ended at about 10:15 p.m. when the patient was released.

Mercer County Sheriff’s officers tracking a fugitive gang member wanted in the city on weapons offenses followed his trail to Willingboro, Burlington County, where they arrested their man and three other people, while also happening upon a loaded weapon, drugs and funny money.

The hunt began April 6, when sheriff’s officers spotted a suspect on Kirkbride Avenue in Trenton with what appeared to be a gun.

When officers went to investigate, the suspect, later identified as James Hughes, ran in through the front of a home on Kirkbride, then ran out the back door, officials said.

The suspect managed to get away, officials said, but during the chase the officers reported seeing him discard a gun. The loaded .40-caliber Taurus handgun was recovered with a defaced serial number.

Officials said detectives managed to identify the 26-year-old Hughes, and warrants for weapons offenses and other charges were issued. Officials called him a “documented member of the Bloods Street gang.”

As they searched for Hughes, officials said, detectives received information that the fugitive may be hiding out at a girlfriend’s house on Granby Lane in Willingboro. Officials identified the girlfriend as 29-year-old Monet Muse.

Officers went to the Granby Lane home Thursday, but Hughes wasn’t there. They did find Muse, another woman named Kyla Muse, 28, who also lived at the home, and her boyfriend, 31-year-old Sultan Freeman, of Camden.

During their investigation, officials said, detectives recovered 57 grams of marijuana, $980 worth of counterfeit $20 bills, and what turned out to be a stolen .357 Magnum revolver, fully loaded with hollow-point bullets. A check of the gun showed it was reported stolen from Burlington in 2009.

Officials said Monet Muse was charged only with possession of marijuana, and she was released on her own recognizance.

Freeman and Kyla Muse are facing multiple charges in connection with gun possession and the counterfeit cash. Freeman was additionally charged as a previously convicted felon in possession of a weapon.

A Glassboro man who was associated with the Bloods street gang was sentenced to 13 years in state prison Thursday for dealing crack cocaine.

The sentence for Lamar Young, 32, includes six years without possibility of parole, state Criminal Justice Director Stephen J. Taylor said. Young was sentenced by state Superior Court Judge Walter L. Marshall Jr. in Woodbury as a persistent offender to an extended term in the first-degree range.

Young was found guilty at trial on Feb. 11 of second-degree distribution of controlled dangerous substance for selling crack cocaine on two occasions in Glassboro. The charge was contained in a May 30, 2008 state grand jury indictment. Young was an associate of both the Fruit Town Brims and Nine Tech sets of the Bloods.

The case stems from Operation Bloodwork, a joint investigation conducted by the State Police Street Gang Unit South and the Glassboro police.

Ten other people have pleaded guilty to drug or weapons offenses as a result of Operation Bloodwork, which focused on the criminal activities of the Fruit Town Brims in the Glassboro area.

Deputy Attorney General Cassandra Serentino prosecuted the case for the Division of Criminal Justice Gangs & Organized Crime Bureau. She was assisted at trial by Deputy Attorney General J. Michael Wicke. Det. Michael Flory led the investigation for the State Police, assisted by Det. Michael Powell of the Glassboro police and Det. Pete Ferris of the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office.

RAPPER,The Game, was held by Canadian officials for several hours yesterday and then released back into the United States, reportedly because of his affiliation with gangs in America.

Substance Entertainment Group, the organization behind The Game’s tour in Canada has told TMZ that the rapper’s reps received a call while he was already a plane on his way to Canada.

During the call officials informed The Game that he would not be allowed entry into Canada “due to new information received that  Game is affiliated with organized crime and is an active member of the Bloods street gang.”

Oddly enough concert promoters already had their ducks in a row in terms of permits before top level officials stepped in.

Refunds to all his Canadian shows will be given out to customers.

A local gang member who tattooed the Jan. 23, 2004, fatal shooting of a rival on his chest was convicted Wednesday of the murder.
Deputy District Attorney Brock Lunsford said Anthony Garcia faces 65 years to life in prison at his May 19 sentencing in Norwalk Superior Court.

A jury found the 25-year-old Garcia guilty of the first-degree murder of John Juarez and of shooting at an occupied vehicle. The jurors also found true the allegations that Garcia intentionally fired the gun causing injury and death to Juarez, used a handgun in the killing and committed the crimes for the benefit of Rivera 13 gang.

The prosecution's case was helped by the tattoo on Garcia's chest. The tattoo depicts a helicopter


A jury on Wednesday convicted Rivera 13 gang member Anthony Garcia of killing John Juarez on Jan. 23, 2004. The prosecution was helped by one of Garcia s tattoos which detectives say shows the crime scene. The tattoo depicts a helicopter shooting a Mr. Peanut in front of a liquor store. Juarez, 23, was shot outside Mr. Ed s Liquor on Rosemead Boulevard. The 25-year-old Garcia s gang moniker is Chopper and Juarez was from the Pico Nuevo gang. Rival gangs refer to Pico Nuevo members as peanuts. (Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department)
shooting a Mr. Peanut in front of a liquor store. Juarez, 23, was shot outside Mr. Ed's Liquor at 6616 Rosemead Blvd. in Pico Rivera.
Garcia is a Rivera 13 gang member whose moniker is "Chopper" and Juarez was from the Pico Nuevo gang. Rival gangs refer to Pico Nuevo members as "peanuts."

"It's shocking to see someone was so audacious to put the crime scene on his chest. Plus factor in he put, `Rivera Kills' above that," Lunsford said.

He said homicide and undercover detectives he asked have not seen a tattoo like that.

Garcia's tattoo has details of the crime scene, Lunsford said. He said Garcia even got the trajectory of the bullets right.

The chopper is on the right firing at the Mr. Peanut, who is on the left side.

"That's exactly how he did it," Lunsford said.

The tattoo also includes a curved streetlight/sign to the left of the liquor store. Across from the store is a building marked Rivera.

Lunsford pointed out there is a curved streetlight with signs at Carron Drive and Rosemead Boulevard that looks similar. Also across from Mr. Ed's Liquor is a home for seniors, although the name is different.

"If you stand on Carron facing the liquor store on the north, you would be looking at the crime scene photo," Lunsford said.

Garcia's attorney, Robert Guaderrama, declined Thursday to comment on the verdict.

Juarez's stepfather is Gilbert Paul De La Rosa, and his stepgrandfather was the late Gilbert De La Rosa, who served as mayor of Pico Rivera.

Gilbert Paul De la Rosa thinks the jury did the right thing.

"Everything pointed to him. He had no defense," De La Rosa said.

But he doesn't hate Garcia. He said he feels sorry for Garcia and prays for him.

"I got together with his family and told them we have nothing against them," De La Rosa said.

He couldn't believe it when he was told about the tattoo.

"This goes to show you some people don't care," he said.

Juarez was standing by the payphones outside the liquor store the night of Jan. 23, 2004, when two men walked up to him. He was asked where he was from and then shot several times. The shooters ran to a waiting pickup truck which took off.

The case remained unsolved until 2008.

Sheriff's Homicide Sgt. Kevin Lloyd was looking through photos of gang member tattoos on August 2008 when he saw the unusual tattoo emblazoned on Garcia's chest.

It reminded him of a 2004 shooting in Pico Rivera when he was a sergeant there. His hunch proved right.

A deputy from the station's graffiti team had taken the picture of Garcia with his tattoos on March 28, 2008, when he was arrested by the CHP for driving on a suspended license, according to Capt. Mike Parker.

Garcia was arrested Oct. 16, 2008, in La Habra, where he was staying with relatives.

At the Norwalk sheriff's station jail, he was placed in a cell with two undercover detectives posing as older gang members. Their conversation, which was taped, was later played at Garcia's trial. He admitted walking up to Juarez, asking him where he was from and shooting him.

The second shooter hasn't been charged yet. But the getaway driver, 28-year-old Robert Armijo of Pico Rivera, pleaded guilty to assault with a firearm and voluntary manslaughter. He faces 20 years in prison at his May 3 sentencing in Norwalk Court.

Armijo identified Garcia as one of the shooters while another Rivera 13 gang member, Manuel Jaramillo, said Garcia told him he shot a Pico Nuevo gang member he knew as "Ghost."

Juarez was Jaramillo's cousin, something Garcia apparently didn't know.

The defense pointed out Jaramillo was asked by his grandfather, the former mayor, if he was involved in the shooting.

Police are unlikely to ever unravel his drug fortune, hidden through a network of business and investment that includes coal and oil companies, brothels, property and even high-end fashion labels.

Like a lot of crooks, Mokbel began with small cannabis deals before moving into speed and finally driving the ecstasy explosion that dominated the club scene a decade ago.

Mokbel's crew - from the northern suburbs - began dealing cannabis in the early 1990s, meeting at Mokbel's mother's house in Canberra St, Brunswick.

Tony and his brother Horty were the first to branch out into speed, a grubby drug that Tony initially tried to keep his brother out of.



The Grove Cafe in Coburg was another haunt, where deals were done and the brothers discussed the ever-shifting loyalties of competing crime families like the Williams and the Morans.

By the mid-1990s Mokbel had gone from failed restaurateur to multimillionaire, owning racehorses, farms and luxury cars.

He was already thumbing his nose at authorities, according to associates, giving horses names like Frosty The Snowman and My Cook - slang terms in the drug trade. He owned at least seven horses, but none in his own name.

Mokbel had always loved the track. In the 1980s and early '90s he headed a group of punters, who ripped a fortune from bookies and became known as the Tracksuit Gang.

While punting and drugs delivered him a fortune, Mokbel once knew the value of a hard day's work.

Arriving with his family from Lebanon as a child, he grew up around Coburg and Brunswick and did whatever job he could find - waiter, dishwasher, security.

He was barely out of his teens when he and his wife Carmel bought their first business, a milk bar that saw them putting in long hours, every day of the week.

Later ventures included restaurants and cafes, including T Jays in Sydney Rd.

As his drug empire boomed, Mokbel took cover as a budding entrepreneur and property developer.

His biggest project was redeveloping the Brunswick market site into upmarket apartments and shops. It never came to fruition.

By the time he fled to Greece, Fat Tony faced charges over seven different drug operations.

But it was the death of Lewis Moran that threatened to cause Mokbel most grief.

When he was finally captured and returned to Melbourne, police felt they had strong enough evidence to charge him with the murder of Moran at the Brunswick Club in 2004 as well as small time drug dealer Michael Marshall a year earlier.

Things had started to turn sour for Mokbel a couple of years earlier when one one of his contacts turned police informer and began taping him and Carl Williams.

The sting that saw him arrested was Victoria's biggest at the time, a joint state and federal operation.

He sat in jail awaiting court hearings for month after month, but his time in Port Phillip Prison's Swallow unit wasn't wasted.

He became close to Williams and his trusted offsider, a killer turned informer later dubbed Mr A.

They ate meals together, and Mr A, who worked in the prison kitchen, would smuggle extra nosh to Mokbel, later telling police: "He loved his food."

Mr A said Mokbel was trying to have an informer killed, but complained that he couldn't reach him because he was in protective custody.

After their release on bail Mokbel and Williams met regularly, often at a Red Rooster outlet with police watching from a distance.

As Williams honed his plans for wiping out the Moran family, Mokbel offered his support, passing on news of Jason Moran's whereabouts when he had it.

Jason Moran was shot dead in 2003 by Mr A, and the murders continued with the death of a small-time dealer Willie Thompson.

Williams had also organised the hit, unaware that Thompson was a childhood friend of Mokbel.

Thompson's death angered Mokbel, who mistakenly believed Michael Marshall was the shooter.

Mr A told police Mokbel offered him and Williams $300,000 to kill Marshall.

"Tony confirmed to me that he believed Michael Marshall was responsible for Willie's death and he wanted him dead," Mr A said.

Mokbel had made no secret of his dislike for another big man of Melbourne's underbelly, Mick Gatto.

He even met Purana taskforce detectives after Gatto's 2004 arrest for the shooting of Andrew "Benji" Veniamin, telling them Gatto was a "c---sucker".

"I don't invite you to my place where I feel comfortable and pop ya," he said of Veniamin's death.

Gatto was acquitted by a jury after pleading self-defence.

Mokbel said Gatto had arranged for him to meet a gang of bikies in 2002 but the conversation went a little out of control and he was badly beaten. Gatto stood by and did nothing to help.

"Things didn't go too good. I was lucky in the end," Mokbel told police.

When Moran, a member of Gatto's Carlton Crew, was killed, police believed Mokbel and Williams had a shared interest in his death.

Williams had wanted all the Morans dead, and Mokbel had considered a strike against Moran a strike against his enemy, Gatto.

Their theory was buoyed by telephone intercepts of calls between Mokbel and Roberta Willliams, who called him to gloat over Moran's death in the hour after his public execution.

"They would have been laughing at us," she said of the Carlton Crew, referring to the shooting of her close friend Veniamin. Mokbel replied: "That's right, there's a god up there."

Carl Williams, who later pleaded guilty to the Moran murder, waited four minutes after hearing of Moran's demise to ring Mokbel.

Jurors in Mokbel's secret murder trial would later reject claims by the getaway driver that Mokbel himself paid for the hit.

Mokbel, the driver said, handed him $140,000 in a car park after the killing, $10,000 shy of the promised reward.

But they got a rare insight into the world in which Williams and Mokbel lived, hearing intercepted conversations where Williams - a man who stumbled over words like "pursuant" - would rant about his favourite topics, such as his ban from Crown casino.

So incensed was Williams by the ban that he would try to call then police commissioner Christine Nixon to complain.

Prosecutors eventually decided to drop Mokbel's murder charge, along with the charges over the drug bust that had originally brought Mokbel down.

In the Supreme Court this Monday Mokbel admitted his guilt to trafficking a large commercial quantity of methylamphetamine between July 2006 and June 2007.

He also admitted trafficking a large commercial quantity of ecstasy between February and August 2005.

Mokbel pleaded guilty to a further charge of urging an undercover officer to commit the offence of importing ecstasy into Australia.

The court heard all other matters against Mokbel will be discontinued.

All that is required to close the book on one of Melbourne's most colourful underworld characters is a jail sentence.

Drugs remained their major Australian market. "Australians are among the world's highest per capita consumers of illicit stimulants, and drug prices in Australia far exceed prices overseas, making domestic drug production and importation highly profitable," the report said.

It said cocaine production, supply and use had risen to new highs, distributed by some of the most sophisticated, profitable and powerful criminal networks in the world.

Mexican cartels had been identified among other Central and South American cartels as one of the key suppliers.

The report said the Mexicans were becoming "deeply entrenched" in Australia and internationally, winning footholds on most continents and producing profits that rivalled the economies of some small nations.

O'Connor said an operation by Australian agencies last year demonstrated the scale and emerging business alliances of crime groups.

Operation Hoffman had uncovered an international drug-importing network straddling Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, South Africa, Tonga and Hong Kong, with links to members of outlaw motorcycle gangs and to Australian and Hong Kong-based associates of Chinese criminal syndicates.

"This is a clear example of how organised criminals form new alliances and alignments to pursue their illegal objectives."

It also showed organised crime networks operated like multinational enterprises.

Luis Nicolas-Garcia, 22, of Salem was shot outside an apartment complex in the 3400 block of 30th Street NE on April 12, according to police.

Nicolas-Garcia was shot in the leg. He remains in fair condition at Salem Hospital, according to Julie Howard, a hospital spokeswoman.

The suspect in the shooting is still wanted. He is Hispanic and 18 to 19 years old. Police said the shooter was with two other men and they left the scene in a brown or gray Pontiac Sunfire sedan.

Police said Shiloh Hampton was seriously wounded in the attack. Police are looking for a white late-1980s Mercedes sedan in connection with the shooting. The Mercedes was lowered, had tinted windows and chrome rims.

Homicide and gang enforcement detectives are investigating the shooting at Northeast 11th Avenue and Multnomah Street near Holladay Park.

The shooting happened at about 4:56 p.m. outside the shopping center. Witnesses told police that Hampton was with a group of young people inside the Lloyd Center mall. As the group left the shopping center, shots were fired from a passing car, striking the young man in the head and abdomen.

None of the people with Hampton stayed to talk with police.

Investigators believe the shooting involved people associated with gangs. They have not determined if Hampton was involved with gangs or if he was the target of the shooting.

During the investigation, traffic was blocked for several hours from Northeast 13th to Ninth avenues along Multnomah, and 11th Avenue from Multnomah to Holladay streets.

gangster linked to rap star Giggs was sentenced to six years imprisonment today for shooting a man who owed money.

Taurean Taylor, 26, gave himself the street name Kyser or Kyze after the feared Keyser Soza in the Hollywood film The Usual Suspects.

He described himself as "the number one hitman" for Giggs, whose violent lyrics have been criticised by Operation Trident, the Met unit tackling gun crime in the black community.

Taylor shot Marcus Bennett, known as Meano, who was said to have owed an associate Godfrey Jok, known as Rox, £10,000.

He was hit in the arm and shoulder area as a warning on the Peckham Rye estate in January 2009.

Taylor, who later told friends he had "blazed him in his arm" used a self loading 9mm Glock pistol.
He was said to be part of the Peckham Boys - one of London's most powerful and organised street gangs.

Taylor, of Peckham Rye, was convicted of wounding with intent to cause GBH and possession of the Glock. He will be sentenced later by Judge Paul Worsley.

But he was cleared of the murder of Larry Safie, 25, in a tree-lined avenue in East Dulwich on a Sunday morning in February 2009 and Errol Davis, 24 at the SEOne nightclub near London Bridge in October 2008.

The court heard that while awaiting trial in Belmarsh prison Taylor told girlfriend Alesha White: "They're trying to say I'm his (Giggs) number one hit man. The reality of it Alesha is that they're not far wrong. They know what's going on."

In court he said this was merely a reference to his talent for making hit records.