Pubdate: Tue, 09 Jan 2001
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Bill Miller, Washington Post Staff Writer

EXTREME SECURITY SURROUNDS TRIAL OF D.C. DRUG GANG

Seven alleged members of a Southwest Washington drug gang went on trial in 
U.S. District Court yesterday under extremely tight security, accused of 
running a violent organization that built and defended a lucrative 
marijuana market by ordering the execution of 18 people, seven of them 
potential witnesses.

Prosecutors said the trial will provide a close look at a ruthless drug 
gang and a problem they say has frustrated law enforcement in the District 
for years: the intimidation or elimination of witnesses. Two of the slain 
linked some of the defendants to various crimes soon before they were 
killed, and prosecutors plan to use those statements at trial.

The K Street Crew, prosecutors said, was adept at learning the names of 
people who might be cooperating with police and then hunting them down, in 
some cases just before they were to testify in court. "They were incredibly 
efficient at this. They used license plate numbers, telephone numbers . . . 
whatever scraps of paper they could to get an address," Assistant U.S. 
Attorney Peter R. Zeidenberg said in opening statements yesterday.

That reputed history has led to the trial's extraordinary security 
measures, with more than a dozen federal marshals inside the courtroom 
yesterday and several more outside. The proceedings are in the building's 
most secure courtroom, with bulletproof glass separating spectators from 
the judge, attorneys, jury and defendants. Everyone entering the courtroom 
passed through a metal detector, and marshals searched all bags.

Jurors are getting special treatment. Their names are being kept from 
prosecutors, defense attorneys and defendants. Acting at the request of 
prosecutors, who said they feared the defendants might attempt to 
intimidate the jury, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has arranged for the 
panel to meet each morning at a site known only to them and the marshals, 
who will then escort them to the court.

The precautions are unusual, but so is the nature of the case.

The defendants ran what prosecutors called a "weed market" in the 200 block 
of K Street SW from 1989 until 1998, attracting so many customers from the 
District, Maryland and Virginia that traffic jams resulted. The killings 
began in 1989, with the slaying of rival Larry "Patcho" Wright, 21, who was 
shot five times in the head. Other victims included the former girlfriend 
of one of the defendants, who prosecutors said was shot because she 
wouldn't return his AK-47 weapon. Amid all the bloodshed, gang members were 
making thousands of dollars a week through their drug enterprise, 
prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said crew members killed or wounded people who attempted to 
move into their territory or who slighted them at nightclubs. They said the 
gang members considered it part of the "job" to target anyone who might 
testify against them. Prosecutors said the K Street Crew killed seven 
witnesses and attempted to kill nine more. One survivor was hit five times 
in the buttocks, neck and shoulder. Another survivor was hit in the back.

"This is a case about greed and violence," Zeidenberg said in his opening 
statement to jurors yesterday. "It's about a group of men who would commit 
just about any crime imaginable to enrich themselves and their organization."

Zeidenberg told the jury that drug-dealing has been a scourge in the K 
Street SW area for more than a decade, with the Greenleaf Gardens housing 
complex serving as a hub. Drug trafficking and violence continued to 
escalate despite the 1992 arrest of Wayne Anthony Perry, an alleged kingpin 
who pleaded guilty to carrying out five killings and wound up with a life 
prison sentence with no chance of parole, Zeidenberg said.

One of the defendants, Vincent Hill, was a close friend, associate and 
partner of Perry's, and he kept the K Street organization running after 
Perry's arrest with help from other longtime friends from the neighborhood: 
co-defendants Samuel Carson, Sean Coates, Jerome Martin, Maurice Proctor 
and William Sweeney, Zeidenberg said. "An attack on one of them was an 
attack on all of them, and they would all respond," he said.

All six of those defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, 
racketeering and other felonies contained in a 101-count indictment. A 
seventh man, Gary Price, also is standing trial on a charge of 
participating in the drug ring but not the violence.

The group initially sold PCP or marijuana laced with PCP in the Greenleaf 
Gardens area, Zeidenberg said. Over time, members branched out into other 
neighborhoods and also began selling crack cocaine, he said. In the 
mid-1990s, the crew shifted to sales of large quantities of marijuana, 
partly because people arrested for dealing in marijuana rarely were 
arrested or sentenced to prison in the District, Zeidenberg said.

Violence initially was directed toward potential competitors, he said, and 
ranged from beatings with baseball bats to drive-by shootings with 
semiautomatic weapons. The group later bolstered its revenue by robbing 
people on the street or holding rivals for ransom, Zeidenberg said. As law 
enforcement authorities began to focus on them, the targeting of potential 
witnesses began, he said.

Jailed crew members would get information about witnesses from 
investigators hired for their defense and then channel it to people on the 
streets, he said, adding, "They were incredibly efficient at this."

Zeidenberg cited the 1996 killing of Chrishaunna Gladden, 20, who he said 
was ambushed as she left a party in Southeast Washington just four days 
before she was to testify against Martin in a first-degree murder trial 
stemming from a 1992 shooting.

The case still went to trial in D.C. Superior Court, he said, "with a group 
of witnesses who were terrified and quite intimidated." Martin and a 
co-defendant were acquitted.

Zeidenberg said authorities had taken steps to protect Gladden, moving her 
from her old neighborhood. But she was drawn back by a party, he said, and 
then slain.

Defense lawyers are scheduled to present their opening statements today.

Yesterday got off to a contentious start when Judge Jackson excused a juror 
for what he termed "disgraceful conduct." Sources said the juror, whose 
name was not revealed by the court, had repeatedly asked to be excused, 
saying a trial expected to last six months would pose a hardship. In recent 
days, someone attempted to intercede on the juror's behalf, apparently 
causing the judge to conclude that his anonymity on the jury was compromised.

Jackson brought the juror into the courtroom and angrily told him, "I think 
your conduct is disgraceful. You've disgraced your profession." When the 
juror apologized, Jackson shot back, "Your apology is not accepted. . . . I 
will remember this."
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