Pubdate: Mon, 22 Jan 2007
Source: Baltimore Examiner (MD)
Copyright: 2007 Baltimore Examiner
Contact:  http://www.examiner.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4211
Author:  Michael Olesker, The Examiner
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

HEROIN DEALER TURNS AROUND HIS LIFE AND LIVES OF OTHERS

BALTIMORE - The old man in the Sinai Hospital bed is Benjamin Davis, 
who was informally known as Eggy when he sold heroin in the city for 
half a century. The man at his bedside the other evening was Leonard 
Hamm, who is formally known as the police commissioner of Baltimore.

Davis is here for back surgery after a bad fall he took last week. He 
wears a neck brace and carries a history involving a€oeeight or 
ninea€ prison stretches for drug conspiracy. Hamm is here to wish him 
well. For the last few years, he has helped turn Davisa€TM life into 
a tale of personal redemption.

But their stories intertwine across generations: Two men whose 
families were close friends for years, who grew up in what Hamm calls 
a€oea commonality of people, places and culturea€  in South Baltimore 
a€" but who chose distinctly separate life paths, along which Davis 
became one of the areaa€TMs legendary criminals and Hamm made a 
career out of locking up such people.

Two years ago, Hamm sat down with Davisa€TM wife of 47 years, 
Adrienne, and the two of them finally prevailed upon Davis to retire 
from the narcotics trade and use his smarts and his experience to 
assist others by working for the Baltimore Police Departmenta€TMs Get 
Out of the Game program, assisting those whose lives have been 
wrecked by drug and alcohol abuse to find new houses, jobs, health 
care a€" and new direction.

a€oeDavis,a€  Hamm says, a€oeis now a great man.a€

a€oeA great man a€'nowa€TM? a€  says Davis, smiling knowingly. 
a€oeNot before?a€

No, not before.

Davis nods his head. He knows, he knows. He came out of a generation 
of the citya€TMs first big wave of heroin dealers. He says there were 
a€oemany times when I told myself it was wrong a€" but where else was 
I gonna make $20,000 in a day?a€  He is 75 now, and he was 18 years 
old and living in South Baltimore when a street guy named Small Fry 
recruited him into the business.

Small Frya€TMs full name has been lost to time, but others with whom 
Davis dealt through the years a€" whose names and dealings formed the 
citya€TMs narcotics narrative a€" have not, including Melvin (Little 
Melvin) Williams, John (Liddie) Jones, James Wesley (Big Head 
Brother) Carter, Big Lucille Logan Wescott and James A. (Turk) Scott, 
the state delegate charged with smuggling $10 million in heroin in 
one of Baltimorea€TMs most legendary and unsolved criminal cases.

a€oeOh, sure, Turk,a€  Eggy Davis says. The two men were connected, 
and Davis has kept his silence through the ensuing three decades. Now 
he acknowledges he was Scotta€TMs a€oepickup man,a€  traveling to New 
York to meet with Frankie (Pee Wee) Matthews, who was the Southeast 
Asia connection for heroin.

But Turk Scott was simultaneously working two trades: heroin and 
politics. He was so well-connected that Gov. Marvin Mandel, unaware 
of Scotta€TMs drug connections, appointed him to an open seat in the 
House of Delegates. Within months, Scott was indicted. Then, weeks 
before federal trial, with rumors swirling that Scott might squeal on 
dealers such as Matthews, he was caught in a murderous shotgun 
crossfire in the basement garage at the Sutton Place Apartments.

By then, Leonard Hamm was just beginning his career in the Baltimore 
Police Department. Eggy Davis, rattled by the killing of Scott, 
nevertheless went on with his drug business for another three decades 
a€" until there was a chance meeting with Hamm and a decision to turn 
his life around.

Tomorrow: the redemption of a life.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman