Eric Marcell Brown: Veteran Inmate Dubbed Drug-Dealing, Shot-Calling BGF Propagandist

By Van Smith

Published in City Paper, May 7, 2009

Like other Maryland prison inmates indicted in the Black Guerilla Family prison-gang conspiracy, Eric Marcell Brown hasn’t yet had his first court appearance on the charges, so he remains an unseen player in the case. But the wire-tap investigation of his activities from prison, which resulted in the Apr. 8 grand jury indictment in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, shows how the government views Brown: as the BGF’s top leader in Maryland, orchestrating its violent, corrupting operations with funds from selling drugs and The Black Book, his instructional tome about the BGF movement.

Brown doesn’t consider the BGF a “gang” at all, but an “organization”–a distinction to which The Black Book devotes a full chapter. The book’s 2008 publication put Brown’s abilities on display, revealing a knack for marketing and leadership. The law enforcers who came after Brown say his publishing venture has been successful, noting in court documents that upwards of 900 copies were sold, with proceeds going back to the organization. If so, The Black Book, which prescribes self-generated economic empowerment for blacks, especially ex-offenders, is a good example of what the book seeks to advance.

Yet the book also condemns drug dealing as a form of “genocide” and “chemical warfare,” so if the government is right about Brown, then he’s in direct conflict with his own tenets. The Black Book asserts that Brown, who at 40 years old is 15 years into a 25-year sentence on drug-dealing charges, has undergone a “transition” from his old ways, and encourages others to follow. Court documents filed in the BGF case make a farce of this assertion, but, as the government’s case against Brown is tested in court, a clearer picture may emerge of how he measures up to The Black Book‘s ideals.

According to court documents, one of the government’s informants in the BGF investigation said “The Black Book is a ploy by Brown to make BGF in Maryland appear to be a legitimate organization and not involved in criminal activity.” In fact, the informant explained, “Brown is a drug trafficker” and “BGF funds its operations primarily by selling drugs”-though The Black Book, too, is “making money.”

Brown’s cell-phone conversations were intercepted by investigators for months, and in the process, chatter was picked up that seemed to confirm that Brown was involved in drug dealing, along with violence, armed robbery, smuggling, and extortion. Some of the intercepted discussions, as recounted in the court records, were clear and easily interpreted. Others were vague, relying on investigators’ training and experience to conclude that nefarious doings were afoot.

One of the recorded conversations showcases Brown’s grasp of the rhetoric of radical change. “Listen, man, we are on the verge of very big things, man,” Brown said during a three-way call last November with two other BGF members, who were inmates in different Maryland prisons. “This positive movement that we are embarking upon now, right, is moving at a rapid pace, right. It’s happening on almost every location” in the prison system. “Revolution is the only solution, brother,” he exhorted.

Investigators contend that Brown’s hold on the reins of the BGF took it further, so that it now stands accused of “operating in every, single prison facility in the entire state,” as assistant U.S. attorney James Wallner put it in court in April. What’s more, the movement Brown leads has populist appeal outside of prisons, as suggested by an Apr. 13 meeting in Druid Hill Park, where, according to court documents, about 100 BGF members and supporters gathered as The Black Book and BGF t-shirts were distributed.

Randolph Edison: With hard time already under his belt, “Uncle Rudy” accused as violent BGF leader

By Van Smith

Published in City Paper, May 5, 2009

With the slow gait of the aged, 51-year-old Randolph “Uncle Rudy” Edison shuffles into a federal courtroom in Baltimore on April 22 to face charges that he helped commit violent crimes for the Black Guerilla Family prison gang in Maryland. The wear and tear of a lengthy prison stint he served in the 1990s and early 2000s (with an extra year tacked on in 2000 for assaulting a Department of Corrections employee), appears to have taken its toll on him.

In 2007, Edison was out of jail and back on the streets, and he racked up new charges–loitering, drug possession (including a state case brought in January)–that show him residing in Dundalk, where he’d been living before his 1993 murder sentence was imposed. Edison’s world-weary air in the courtroom reveals little, if any, worry about the future – except, perhaps, when it comes to getting his twice-a-day insulin shots for diabetes, something for his high blood pressure, and a doctor to take a look at the abscess on his hand.

Nonetheless, the feds have evidence portraying Edison as a plugged-in leader of the BGF, working energetically on the outside for imprisoned BGF ringleader Eric Brown.

On March 13, BGF court documents show, Edison and two other BGF co-defendants-52-year-old Zachary Norman and 59-year-old Roosevelt Drummond-were in a car that was pulled over by police in Baltimore City. Drummond had a gun and was arrested; also taken from the car were handcuffs, rubber gloves, and a mask.

Hours later, Brown used a cell phone to call Edison, initiating a conversation that was intercepted by investigators. “We just had some bad luck man,” Edison told Brown, according to court documents. “We was in the car, yeah and they pulled us over, right. You know we gonna do something, but the coon that was setting the whole degree up, he’s the rat. He set all us up.” Edison explained that Drummond had a gun, adding, “Just lucky I ain’t carry that thing,” to which Brown responded, “that’s the last thing you need boy.”

Investigators concluded from this conversation that Edison was reporting to Brown what happened with the police while he and his co-defendants were “en route to commit a drug-related armed robbery,” according to court documents.

Edison had no lawyer for his first appearance in court, but two days later, on April 24, Richard Bittner is appointed to him. After asking around the courtroom for Edison’s sister, who’s not there, and meeting briefly with an older gentleman who says he’s Edison’s friend, Bittner decides not to fight the prosecutor’s request that Edison remain in jail until after the trial. U.S. District Court magistrate judge Beth Gesner orders Edison detained, reminding him that if he chooses, he can later request a hearing over whether or not he can be conditionally released.

Rainbow Lee Williams: Murder Convict Who Mentors Schoolchildren Called a BGF Shot-Caller

By Van Smith

Published in City Paper, May 1, 2009

When defense attorney Gerald Ruter was first appointed on Apr. 16 to represent Rainbow Lee Williams, a 30-year-old co-defendant in the Black Guerilla Family prison-gang federal-conspiracy case, Ruter sounded like he thought there was more to Williams than met the government’s eye.

“I have him working for a nonprofit, helping kids,” Ruter told assistant U.S. attorney James Wallner, just before Williams’ first court appearance began.

“That may be,” Wallner responds, “but he’s still indicted as a leader of the BGF.”

Five days later, Ruter said he had the verified facts about Williams’ employment, and presented them to U.S. District Court magistrate judge Beth Gesner while arguing for Williams’ conditional release pending trial. Williams, he explained, works for the nonprofit Partners in Progress Resource Center. Since shortly after his release from prison last September, when his murder sentence ended, Ruter said, Williams had been working for Partners in Progress four days a week, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., for $1,200 per month. Partners in Progress, he explained, serves a high school called the Achievement Academy at Harbor City High School, located on Harford Road.

Ruter said he got all of these facts confirmed by Partners in Progress’ director, Bridget Alston-Smith, who, he said, is “aware of Williams’ criminal history, and she says he works on the campus itself as a mentor to individuals who have behavioral difficulties and is hands-on with all of the students.”

City Paper‘s attempts to reach Alston-Smith at the phone number Ruter gave in open court were unsuccessful. According to Baltimore City Public Schools’ guide to high schools, the Achievement Academy at Harbor City is “an alternative school designed to provide under-credited students with an accelerated program of study,” has an enrollment of 383 students in 9th through 12th grade, and Partners in Progress is listed among the schools partnerships.

The Black Book, a locally published self-improvement guide for those involved in the BGF movement, features a back-cover blurb written by Alston-Smith, in which she states that men in the movement “lead well because they listen well. As they continue on the path of self-improvement they will help improve the conditions of our families and communities.”

“I find it ironic that Mr. Williams is a mentor for disaffected youth,” Wallner told judge Gesner. Wallner’s prosecutorial assessment is based on what federal investigators found out about Williams in the course of their wire-tap probe into the BGF, which provided enough evidence to support a raid of Williams residence, as well as the grand jury’s charges against him. Wallner also told the judge that Williams was in possession of ammunition for a .357 caliber firearm when he was arrested.

Williams is “one of the leaders of BGF,” court documents state, and “is a lieutenant who handles the day-to-day drug distribution network and is also involved in the smuggling of contraband into correctional facilities.” A confidential source described Williams as “an extremely violent BGF member” who “has committed multiple murders, including numerous assaults/stabbings while in prison,” and he’s “loyal to, and takes orders from, [imprisoned BGF leader Eric] Brown.”

The court documents also recount intercepted phone conversations with other alleged BGF members, in which crimes-from hits to smuggling to drug-dealing-are discussed. In one, co-defendant Marlow Bates calls Brown in March, and the two discuss how Williams failed in his attempt to transfer tennis shoes, which allegedly contained contraband, to Brown while visiting him in prison. Williams kept the shoelaces untied, to facilitate the transfer, but they were so lose that “you could see that shoe lace, like hanging. That just look like a dead give-away,” Brown explained, and as a result a guard “knocked off” the shoe transfer. “Rainbow fucked that up,” he says.

In early April, phone calls between Williams and prison inmates were intercepted, in which prison violence and the rules of BGF conduct were discussed. In one, Williams calls inmate Lance Walker to talk about the Apr. 1 stabbing murder of inmate Nathaniel King, for which inmate Kelly Toomer is the suspect, according to court documents. But Williams tells Walker that Toomer is saying he did it under orders from Williams. Williams denies this, and says the rumor puts him in danger with BGF higher-ups.

The next day, Apr. 5, Williams is called by an unidentified prison inmate, who tells him that Willliams is believed to have passed on Eric Brown’s order to hurt another inmate named “Coco.” A conference call with other BGF members ensued, to go over the rules of the BGF, and the penalties for breaking them. In other calls, Williams acts as a mediator, trying to settle beefs between rivals in the BGF drug game.

Wallner also fingers Williams as “one of the leaders” of the BGF meeting in Druid Hill Park, held on Apr. 13 and attended, according to court documents, by about 100 people described as BGF members. “Following this incident,” court documents state, “calls were intercepted over the wiretaps in which Eric Brown chastised Rainbow Williams for holding the meeting in such a manner as to draw the attention of law enforcement. Brown stated in a scolding manner, `I been tellin’ you and tellin’ you, and you ain’t listenin.’ In reference to being stopped by the police, Brown added, `Ain’t nothin’ good about that, yo.'”

All of these activities ascribed by investigators to Williams occurred while, according to Ruter, Williams was employed by Partners in Progress as a youth mentor. Despite Ruter’s best efforts–and despite Williams’ boyish, fresh-faced looks, which he indignantly flashed in response to Wallner’s allegations–judge Gesner ordered Williams detained pending trial.

Nelson Arthur Robinson: Unemployed Truck Driver Said to be Caught Holding Bag of BGF Drugs

By Van Smith

Published in City Paper, Apr. 30, 2009

It’s not clear whether 45-year-old Nelson Arthur Robinson recognizes his prosecutor, but he should. As Robinson is ushered into a federal courtroom in Baltimore on Apr. 15 by U.S. marshals, set to be arraigned on accusations that he’s part of the sprawling Black Guerilla Family prison-gang conspiracy, assistant U.S. attorney James Wallner is there at the prosecution table. A decade ago, in 1999, Wallner was the assistant Baltimore City state’s attorney who secured Robinson’s guilty plea on a pot-possession charge, for which Robinson got a one-year sentence, all but a day suspended. This time, Wallner’s stone-faced demeanor belies a grim determination to get a bigger piece of Robinson.

When asked by the court clerk to raise his right hand to take an oath, Robinson instead raises his left and has to be corrected. His obliviousness doesn’t fit the profile of a stone-cold gangster, and, in fact, Robinson didn’t even rate enough to make it into the BGF indictments. Instead, he’s a collateral catch.

Robinson was arrested Apr. 15 while agents were busy raiding 12 BGF-linked locations. He was seen leaving an apartment at 1617 Bluffdale Road in Woodlawn, according to the government’s case. The location was under surveillance as part of the BGF take-down because it was associated with Tyrone Dow, a BGF co-defendant believed to be a supplier of drugs for another co-defendant, Kevin Glasscho. Robinson started to get into a truck parked nearby when, as agents approached him, he tossed aside a bag that was found to contain 175 grams of heroin. Robinson had left his keys in the door of the apartment, which was searched and found to contain another 225 grams of heroin, along with pressers and grinders used to process and package the drug.

The charges “smack of a lack of probable cause,” protested Robinson’s lawyer, David Solomon, during Robinson’s Apr. 20 detention hearing before U.S. District Court magistrate judge James Bredar. Solomon added that, though an “indictment may be imminent” against his client, as it stands a grand jury has yet to accuse him, and there “may be problems” with the case. Solomon urged the judge to take into account Robinson’s “relative good standing within the justice system,” given his recently ended “11-year hiatus” from criminal charges, and allow him to be released to the custody of his wife, Florence Robinson, until after the trial.

Instead, Bredar ordered Robinson on 24/7 lock-down at a half-way house, once a bed becomes available. “He gets in line” for half-way house placement, Bredar said. “Until then, he stays locked up.”

One week later, on April 22, the grand jury indicted Robinson.

New Black Guerrilla Family indictment shows inmates in charge of jails, adds to Maryland prison bureaucracy’s embarrassments

By Van Smith

Published in City Paper, Apr. 24, 2013

When the latest Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gang racketeering indictment was announced at an April 23 press conference, detailing that 13 of the 25 defendants are Maryland correctional officers (COs) who allegedly facilitated the gang’s operational takeover of two Baltimore detention facilities, their boss, Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) secretary Gary Maynard, noted the obvious: that he had egg on his face.

“It’s totally on me,” Maynard said, according to the Washington Post. “I don’t make any excuses,” he continued, adding that “we will move up the chain of command, and people will be held accountable.”

The last round of federal BGF charges that included COs were handed down in 2009 and 2010, showing how DPSCS personnel had worked to help the gang deal drugs, launder money, engage in extortion, and smuggle contraband into prisons. Despite the overwhelming evidence of corruption among COs that emerged in those cases, and other evidence emerging from civil lawsuits showing that, as far back as 2006, DPSCS had identified numerous COs as being members or affiliates of gangs who helped facilitate gang-related prison violence, yet ordered the lieutenant who’d developed the information to stop writing such reports, in 2010 the Maryland General Assembly passed a law giving greater protections for COs accused of wrongdoing by establishing a Correctional Officer Bill of Rights (COBR).

The current charges, spelled out in a 48-page indictment and detailed in a 67-page search-warrant affidavit, are déjà vu all over again: drug-dealing, extortion, money laundering, smuggling. The main difference seems to be that, this time, the BGF apparently has dropped all pretense of trying to be a positive force for social change, as was its hallmark in the 2009 and 2010 cases. Yet Maryland’s prison bureaucracy under Maynard, who’s been in place since Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) appointed him in 2007, has demonstrated rigid resistance to positive reform, given its repeated history of CO corruption that has emerged in the courts. And, predictably, the COBR has only made matters worse — as the FBI makes clear in documents filed in the most recent case.

Add the 13 COs charged federally in the current BGF indictment to the 15 COs charged in an ongoing FBI civil-rights investigation into retaliatory inmate beatings and subsequent cover-up and obstruction of justice, alleged to be part of a corrupt correctional culture in Maryland, and the total number of COs currently facing federal charges in Maryland comes to 28. That’s not counting another CO facing immigration-fraud charges, or the unknown number of COs – including Michael McCain, charged with smuggling drugs into prison – facing state criminal charges tied to their official duties.

Maynard’s comments at the Apr. 23 press conference suggest other shoes will drop in the BGF case, and how they drop will be intriguing, since documents in the current case suggest the accused COs merely carried out a scheme okayed by their superiors. In the scheme, BGF leader Tavon White – an inmate and the lead defendant in the racketeering indictment – believed he, not DPSCS supervisors, was the ultimate decider of what went down in the Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC) and the Baltimore City Booking Intake Center (BCBIC).

The search-warrant affidavit in the case was signed by FBI special agent Sarah Lewis, whose boss, FBI special agent in charge Stephen Vogt, said in a statement that “in this case, the inmates literally took over ‘the asylum,’ and the detention centers became safe havens for the BGF.” An “important cause” of this, Lewis writes in her affidavit, “is the power that White and the BGF are granted by staff members at all levels.”

In in intercepted phone call White made to a friend, he claimed: “This is my jail, you understand that. I’m dead serious. I make every final call in this jail, everything come to me.” On another call, White told co-defendant Adrena Rice, a CO: “I am the law. My word is law. So if I told any mother-fucking body they had to do this, hit a police, do this, kill a mother-fucker, anything, it got to get done. Period.”

Information gleaned from inmates and DPSCS staff during the investigation “revealed that some prison officials have informal verbal understandings with White and other BGF leaders” that “BGF leaders reduce the violence inside the prison, and, in exchange, the officials turn a blind eye to contraband smuggling and actively protect White and the BGF by warning them of investigations and interdiction efforts.”

White’s heir-apparent as BGF leader in the detention facilities was co-defendant Joseph Young, according to Lewis’ affidavit, and on Nov. 12, 2012, Young spoke with another co-defendant, CO Kimberly Dennis, about a corrections lieutenant. The call was intercepted on a wiretap, and Lewis summed it up like this: “Recently the lieutenant pulled Young aside and told Young that the lieutenant knew Young would be taking over control of the prison if White was released from jail and agreed to let Young make money by selling contraband inside of BCDC if Young and BGF would keep down the incidence of prison violence.”

Lewis’ affidavit also explains how the 2010 law establishing COBR allowed corruption to proliferate in an environment where bad conduct goes on with relative impunity. It established a disciplinary regime that “has proven to be very difficult” to pursue within established deadlines, “so cases are dropped,” she wrote, and thus “it is well known to COs that it is very unlikely that they will be fired or severely disciplined for smuggling contraband or fraternizing with inmates.” Lewis concludes that “the internal review process set up by COBR is ineffective as a deterrent to COs smuggling contraband or getting sexually involved with BGF gang members at BCDC or BCBIC.”

An illustrative case is one of the co-defendants, Antonia Allison, a 27-year-old CO at BCDC. Allison was 20 when her alleged ties to inmate gangs were first documented by DPSCS, in a Nov. 22. 2006, memo written by Lt. Santiago Morales, then of the Criminal Intelligence Unit of the DPSCS’ Division of Pretrial and Detention Services, to BCDC’s then-warden, William Filbert. Yet she remained employed at the same facility, even though this was long before the COBR was established. Morales, on the other hand, was ordered to stop writing reports about gang-tied COs, and ended up re-assigned shortly thereafter to night shift at a non-investigative post.

Even after the Maryland Attorney General’s Office defended Allison against charges that she’d facilitated a brutal, gang-related attack against an inmate, Tashma McFadden, who, when faced with threats of being killed by inmate gang-members for suing Allison, agreed to settle the case before trial, Allison remained on the job. The threat letter, which surfaced in court filings in 2010, described Allison as “our sister” who is “doing right by us,” and “all she asked of her brothers was to keep her safe.”

Now, nearly seven years after Allison was first suspected by DPSCS as being corrupt, she’s finally facing the real possibility that she will no longer be allowed to carry the department’s badge.

Maynard’s prepared statement regarding the latest BGF indictment involving COs says 99 percent of them “do their jobs with integrity, honesty, and respect,” and spins the embarrassing turn of events by saying that “today’s indictment, along with those in the past, show that our Department will not stand idly by and let a few bad actors affect the security of our institutions.”

Yet his contention that only one percent of DPSCS staff is corrupt is belied by the FBI’s Lewis, whose investigation developed an inmate source that described a very different picture: “the inmate estimated that 60 to 70% of the COs at BCDC are involved in contraband smuggling and/or having sexual relationships with inmates.”

The Washington Post coverage of the indictment says it “comes at a sensitive time for” O’Malley, “who is weighing a 2016 presidential bid” built in part by “his record as a ‘performance-driven’ manager of state government,” and quoted a statement from O’Malley: “We have zero tolerance for corruption among correctional officers, and we will continue striving to make all correctional facilities as secure as they can possibly be.”

Based on the available court record of CO corruption, it appears that Maryland’s “zero tolerance” policy hasn’t been working.

Ganging Up: Inmate’s lawsuit shows prison officials knew for years of guards’ suspected gang ties

By Van Smith

Published in City Paper, Oct. 21, 2009

In 2008, 31-year-old prison inmate Tashma McFadden filed suit against 23-year-old correctional officer Antonia Allison. On Oct. 9, that suit survived Allison’s attempt to have it dismissed. McFadden, who is seeking $800,000 in damages, claims Allison is a member of the Bloods gang and arranged for his stabbing and beating while in pre-trial detention in 2006 at the Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC).

Court documents in the case reveal that since at least 2006, prison authorities have been aware that correctional officers in Baltimore’s prison facilities were suspected of being gang members or having gang ties. The issue first emerged publicly in April, when 24 alleged members of the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gang, including three correctional officers, were indicted in federal court (“Black-Booked,” Feature, Aug. 5 ). U.S. District Court Judge William Quarles is presiding over both the BGF criminal case and McFadden’s civil case.

In his lawsuit, McFadden, who was convicted of drug-dealing after the attack and is serving a seven-year sentence, contends that after he had an argument with Allison, she unlocked his cell door to allow inmates who were Bloods members into his cell, resulting in an attack that inflicted 32 stab wounds on his upper body. He also claims that Allison withheld medical attention from him after the attack and that prison officials failed to investigate the incident properly. McFadden, who is represented by pro bono attorney Aaron Casagrande, said in a deposition that since the attack, he has become a Bloods member in an effort to enhance his safety as an inmate.

Allison, who is represented by Assistant Attorney General Beverly Hughes, denies McFadden’s claims, including the contention that she’s a Bloods member. She acknowledges, though, that if an inmate’s cell door was unlocked at the time of the attack, either she or a trainee who was with her, Tynisha Crew, must have unlocked it. Hughes declined to comment on the case.

Quarles’ ruling says that McFadden’s claims merit a jury trial. But what happened to McFadden is just the tip of the iceberg. Though this year’s BGF indictments drew public attention to the issue of prison guards suspected of aiding gangs, McFadden’s case reveals that the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) has been aware of it for years–and that in 2007, the warden at BCDC, William Filbert, ordered that investigative reports of the problem cease. Evidence in the case–in particular, motions filed over the summer by both McFadden and Allison–also shows that the problem is believed to involve many more correctional officers than the three accused of working with the BGF, none of whose names appear in the McFadden case documents.

McFadden’s lawsuit has revealed that in late 2006 and early 2007, 16 correctional officers, including Allison, were identified as being gang members or having gang ties in two confidential DPSCS investigative reports. According to DPSCS spokesman Rick Binetti, six of the 16 COs named in the two reports no longer work for the department, though he adds that state personnel policy dictates that he can’t say why they left their jobs. The remaining 10, including Allison, still work for the department, he says.

“The brutal attack suffered by my client, while abhorrent in its own right,” Casagrande says in an e-mail, “is only a symptom of a much larger problem at the Baltimore City Detention Center–that gangs have been able to infiltrate the ranks of BCDC correctional officers. I would hope that the case leads to more stringent screening of correctional officers and a more thorough review of policies and procedures so that a similar attack does not occur again in the future, and if one does occur, that it is properly and timely investigated.”

While Binetti could not comment specifically about McFadden’s case, he says that generally the department’s “efforts to root out and stem corrupt behavior among staff actually begins before they are hired. We are committed to investigating and hiring the best, most qualified candidates. Over the last three years, 68 percent of correctional officer applicants were rejected because they didn’t pass through the DPSCS background checks and investigation process.” He adds that, in April of this year, “the Correctional Training Division voted to adopt new, more stringent regulations requiring agencies to include verifying gang membership into the applicant background check.”

As for the department’s record of firing bad actors, Binetti says that from 2007 through March 2009, 71 members of correctional staff “have been terminated because of criminal arrests, contraband, or fraternization with inmates.” Unless corrections employees break the law or are found to have violated the department’s code of conduct, however, he says, they “like normal U.S. citizens are free to associate with whomever they choose,” including gang members.

The department’s code of conduct does not specifically mention gang members, but it does include stringent requirements prohibiting correctional officers from all but officially sanctioned interaction with inmates or their family and friends, whether on or off duty.

The confidential investigative reports naming suspect correctional officers that came to light in McFadden’s lawsuit were written by Lt. Santiago Morales, who at the time they were written worked in the Criminal Intelligence Unit of the state Department of Pretrial and Detention Services. The reports do not specify evidence implicating the officers, but state that the “information was provided by several confidential informants whose information proved to be reliable in the past.” In some cases, Morales misspelled the correctional officers names, but City Paper confirmed their identities with Binetti and through court records.

Morales’ Nov. 22, 2006, report was addressed to Filbert, BCDC’s warden. It named 12 COs as “alleged to be gang members or affiliated with” either the Bloods or the BGF. Those suspected of Bloods ties were: Allison, Duwuane Crew (husband of Tynisha Crew, Allison’s trainee), April Rheubottom, Jamal Hinton, Dareus Burrell, Angie Bouyer, and Tracy Wallace. The remaining five–Laporcha Ezekiel, Tiara Adams, Tamela Barnes, Cheryl White, and Tiffani Curbeam–were suspected of BGF ties. Morales’ Jan. 26, 2007, report, also addressed to Filbert, named three officers as being allegedly involved with the Bloods: Tia Giles, Denise Williams, and Semelda Haynes.

Binetti says that of these 16 COs, six–Crew, Rheubottom, Barnes, Haynes, Burrell, and Hinton–are no longer employed by the department. He assured City Paper that he would contact the supervisors of those still employed to let them know that City Paperwould be reporting their names, based on the investigative documents that emerged in McFadden’s case. Binetti declined City Paper‘s request to interview Filbert and Morales.

In his Feb. 2009 deposition in McFadden’s case, Morales stated that Duwuane Crew was “terminated” because “he passed handcuff keys on to inmates to assist them stab BGF gang members.” He also stated that Jamal Hinton was “terminated for his activity in gangs” after law enforcement “found gang paraphernalia, gang garb, and pictures of him holding weapons, making gang signs in his home during a raid.” Tiffani Curbeam, Morales said, “is currently still under investigation, but there was numerous statements of her bringing contraband in the institution for the BGF.” He added that “the other members, from what I understand, because I’m not in the intelligence unit anymore, might still be under investigation.”

Court documents in the McFadden case state that the practice of making reports such as those prepared by Morales ceased in early 2007, “pursuant to Warden Filbert’s instructions.” In an attempt to contact Morales for this article, City Paper called the intelligence unit where Morales used to work, and confirmed that he no longer works there. The woman who answered the phone said, “He’s actually on the BCDC night shift now,” though Binetti could confirm only that Morales still works for the Department of Pretrial and Detention Services.

The three prison guards indicted in the BGF conspiracy case–Asia Burrus, Musheerah Habeebullah, and Takevia Smith–have entered guilty pleas before Quarles, and are due to be sentenced in the coming weeks and months. All three have admitted to contraband smuggling, which helped the BGF’s alleged narcotics-distribution conspiracy in the Maryland prison system.

Corrupt to the Core: The Black Guerrilla Family Scandal Shines Spotlight on the Prison System’s Culture of Corruption

By Van Smith

Published in City Paper, May 1, 2013

The litany of evidence the feds have on Baltimore inmate Tavon White and his Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gang describes a conspiracy of sex, drugs, money, and fancy cars involving a harem of correctional officers (COs) at a jail that White, dubbed a “Bushman” in the BGF hierarchy, believed he ruled. On April 29, White and CO Tiffany Linder pleaded not guilty, with arraignments of the 23 other co-defendants expected in the days and weeks to come.

Not surprisingly, with so many buttons pushed, the media firestorm over subsequent days tossed this narrative into national discussion, where it joined one that was already there: Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s potential presidential ambitions.

Prison-corruption stories have been a pretty regular feature of Maryland’s media mill, yet bureaucratic reaction to this one was swift. The national spotlight will do that.

By Friday, three days after allegations of White’s fabulous inmate lifestyle were exposed by the April 23 unsealing of the indictment and search-warrant affidavit in the BGF case, Gary Maynard, secretary of Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS), moved his office to the Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC). He started a top-to-bottom integrity review of his staff, including lie-detector tests, as the Maryland General Assembly pounced, announcing a May 8 hearing and promising to set up a commission on correctional issues.

As the story settled in, with flames being fanned under the O’Malley angle, coverage shifted as the media spotlight panned for context. It was quickly found: White’s story is a virtual repeat of another series of BGF indictments, in 2009 and 2010, involving corruption among COs. What’s more, stories about gang-tied COs facilitating inmate crimes had been a consistent part of the Baltimore media landscape since then, including coverage that unearthed prison-agency documentation of gang-tied COs dating back to 2006. This background only made White’s story more embarrassing for those in charge, since it suggested the long-festering, well-documented problem of CO corruption wasn’t being solved by Maynard and O’Malley.

“I can’t believe that Maynard ignored this,” says a law-enforcement source familiar with the prior federal BGF investigation that ensnared COs. “The people in charge did nothing to change it,” says the veteran agent, who agreed to discuss the case in exchange for anonymity.

Maynard, however, claims some credit for White’s indictment. Though he admitted the situation was “on me” and said he didn’t “make any excuses” at the press conference when the indictment was announced, a few days later Maynard tweaked his tune, saying to the Daily Beast that “we asked for this investigation because we knew this was an issue” and that the feds “bring some power to the investigation, but once that investigation becomes public, people are going to look at it and say, ‘What is going on here?'”

So Maynard had every expectation that DPSCS would look bad, and that’s just part of fixing the problem – a new dynamic for Maynard, who’s accustomed to getting credit and praise as federal prosecutors continued to target CO corruption in recent years.

“I want to commend” Maynard “for his commitment to rooting out crime in his facilities,” Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said at the April 2009 press conference announcing the first round of BGF indictments. A month later, Rosenstein, reporting progress in the case of a CO who helped run an extortion scheme involving contraband cellphones, was again lavish in his praise. “I am grateful to [DPSCS] for combatting contraband cellphones that allow jailed gang members to endanger public safety,” Rosenstein said in a statement, adding that “our ability to prosecute important cases has been enhanced” thanks to “Maynard making it a priority to increase the department’s intelligence capabilities.”

In July 2010, when another CO was indicted in the mushrooming BGF prosecution, bringing to light more details of the depth and breadth of corruption, Maynard promoted the idea that it was evidence of the department’s years-long track record of tackling the problem.

“Today’s indictment shows that developing our intelligence capabilities has become a top priority in the last three years,” he said in the 2010 statement, adding that while “our unprecedented cooperation and intelligence sharing with our local and federal partners has enabled us to root out illegal activities of a few bad apples, 99 percent of our correctional officers and custody staff continue to work hard, maintaining the high levels of integrity and honor standard among our employees.” Maynard also used the occasion to stress that it serves “notice to those employees who would break the law that you will be caught.”

Now it’s nearly three years later, with plenty of intervening news about COs getting caught for corruption, and 13 more are charged for conspiring with the BGF. So does Maynard deserve credit or scorn for the proliferation of corruption cases involving his department? Answers will emerge supporting each contention as this story continues to unfold, pulling public perception this way and that while Maynard’s overseers – O’Malley and the Maryland legislature – try to assess and shape repercussions as facts both newly alleged and already proven continue to inform the debate.

Many proven facts emerged in the 2009/2010 federal cases, showing how DPSCS personnel helped the BGF deal drugs, launder money, engage in extortion, and smuggle contraband into prisons – virtually the same conduct as this month’s indictment. Others come from court records showing that DPSCS, back in 2006 and 2007, had the names of 16 BCDC COs believed to be tied to gangs, and that some helped facilitate prison violence, yet the lieutenant who’d developed the intelligence was ordered to stop writing such reports. These facts emerged in a settled lawsuit brought against one of White’s co-defendants, Antonia Allison, and the fact that she stayed on as CO for seven more years is a measure of the problem’s stubborn fortitude.

More cases emerged – including the one involving Lynae Chapman, a CO who smuggled phones into prison to a BGF member accused of murder who was the father of her unborn child. Yet, despite the mounting evidence that DPSCS had an integrity problem, in 2010 the Maryland General Assembly passed a law giving COs a “Correctional Officer Bill of Rights” (COBR) to invoke when they are accused of wrongdoing. The FBI, in the affidavit against White, invokes the COBR as a factor that worked in favor of White’s “takeover” of BCDC.

The latest BGF charges add 13 more COs to the 15 already charged in another Maryland case being investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. While corruption in the White case surrounds the prison system’s black-market economy, the civil rights case has targeted a “culture” of illegal beatings and subsequent cover-ups in Maryland corrections, in which COs and their supervisors allegedly conspired to undermine efforts to prosecute the assaults. This adds to what the law-enforcement source familiar with the 2009-2010 BGF investigation calls a “culture of corruption” among COs that has been obvious in jails and prisons for years. The DPSCS became “so immune to it that they didn’t do anything about it” until now, when it’s suddenly become an urgent public-corruption emergency.

With court documents citing “the power that White and the BGF are granted by staff at all levels” as an “important cause” of the conspiracy and revealing details about a lieutenant who promised White’s heir-apparent as BGF’s ruler at BCDC that he would have the same arrangement that White had-free-flowing contraband in exchange for BGF’s efforts to keep prison violence down-Maynard’s top-down review seems likely to explode the careers of more than the 13 defendants charged.

“The investigation is ugly,” Maynard told the Daily Beast, adding, “it is not the end though-it is the beginning. It is where I start to take action.”

If so, then Tavon White’s emergence as a notorious public figure may have prompted what all that came before it couldn’t: a demonstrable, from-the-top effort to address the widely known and long-documented problem of corruption at Maryland’s prisons.

All in the Family: An annotated roster of defendants in the Black Guerrilla Family indictment, alleged crimes, and notable quotes

By Van Smith

Published by City Paper, June 4, 2013

The April 23 unsealing of a federal indictment of 25 people, including 13 Maryland correctional officers (COs), alleged to have participated in a racketeering conspiracy centered around the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gang, was as much a renewed impeachment of the integrity of Maryland’s prison system, which has been repeatedly exposed for serious corruption problems, as it was of the defendants’ alleged conduct. Nonetheless, it is the defendants who are on the dock, not the bureaucracy.

Here’s a run-down of who they are and what they’re alleged to have done, based on court records, other public documents, and information from the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office (MD-USAO). The co-defendants are listed in the same order in which their names appear in the indictment, and the ages given are those provided by the MD-USAO – which today, after City Paper raised questions about the accuracy of ages given for some co-defendants, said it had inaccurately reported the ages of two of the defendants, as clarified below.

(Note: All “notable quotes” are republished exactly as transcribed in the affidavit)

Tavon White, aka “Bulldog” and “Tay,” 36-year-old inmate, of Baltimore

As the BGF’s leader at the Baltimore City Detention Center (BCDC), who held the title of “Bushman” within the larger BGF hierarchy in Maryland and nationwide, White allegedly became the de facto ruler of everything that happened there. Since he first arrived as an inmate in 2009, he is said to have fathered at least five children by at least four different COs who aided the conspiracy. His cousin and co-defendant, Tyesha Mayo, is accused of having helped supply drugs and launder money for the BGF, and his half-brother and co-defendant, Ralph Timmons, Jr., who allegedly helped set up smuggling operations and financial transactions for the BGF, was killed in a robbery hours before the grand jury handed down the sealed indictment on Apr. 2. In the FBI-led investigation, calls on two of White’s phones – “Target Telephone 6” and “Target Telephone 11” – were intercepted. Among the trove of information the wiretap turned up about White was that he made so much money while running the prison – approximately $16,000, in a slow month – that he shoveled proceeds into buying luxury cars for his harem of COs to use.

Notable quote: “Like, I am the law. My word is law. So if I told any mother-fucking body they had to do this, hit a police, do this, kill a mother-fucker, anything, it got to get done. Period.”

Antonia Allison, 27-year-old correctional officer, of Baltimore

Allison is accused of working with another co-defendant CO, Katera Stevenson, to smuggle prescription pills and marijuana for Tavon White. Her West Baltimore residence at 3047 Arunah Ave. was raided just before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.City Paper in 2009 and 2010 dedicated much coverage to a federal lawsuit filed against Allison by an inmate who accused her of facilitating a brutal, gang-related attack on him, because the case exposed documentation of unaddressed gang-related corruption among COs. The following articles reported developments in the case against Allison, which ended up in 2010 with a settlement agreed to by plaintiff Tashma McFadden: “Ganging Up,” Mobtown Beat, Oct. 21, 2009; “A Big No-No,” Mobtown Beat, Nov. 4, 2009; “Inside Job,” Feature, May 12, 2010; and “The Big Hurt,” Mobtown Beat, Aug. 4, 2010.

Notable quote: “Alright, well do those first, pills [presciption pills] and the strips [Suboxone strips], they the easiest, get them out the way. You know they gonna sell fast.”

Jamar Anderson, aka “Hammer” and “Hamma Head,” 23-year-old inmate (MD-USAO inaccurately reported he was 26), of Baltimore

Anderson’s girlfriend, co-defendant Teshawn Pinder, allegedly conspired with CO Jasmin Jones, another co-defendant, to smuggle pot into prison on Anderson’s behalf. Anderson also allegedly conspired with CO Jasmine Thornton – a paramour, according to a wiretapped conversation between White and CO Jennifer Owens, another co-defendant, in which Anderson is reported to have said, “we did it eight times last night” – to smuggle cellphones and launder money. Anderson was forewarned of impending prison-cell searches when White relayed a message about them he received from CO Tiffany Linder, another co-defendant.Anderson was recently convicted of murder in the double-shooting that killed 17-year-old John Person in 2008. According to City Paper‘s Murder Ink column, “at about 4 P.M. on Aug. 6, 2008, a woman saw Anderson, who was 18 at the time, committing a burglary in her apartment complex in the 2900 block of Garrison Boulevard and called the police. Anderson said he would come back and kill the woman for what she had done. Around midnight, Anderson came back and shot at her, firing 10 rounds from a semi-automatic gun. He missed the woman but hit her cousin, Person, in the back. Person died on Aug. 17, 2008.”

Ebonee Braswell, 26-year-old correctional officer, of Baltimore

An alleged smuggler, including of prescription pills, Braswell’s phone – “Target Telephone 8” – was tapped, and she was heard telling an unknown male that pills are worth much more in jail than they are on the streets. In November, she allegedly obtained an ounce of pot with the help of co-defendant CO Kimberly Dennis.

Notable quote: “Like, say, even if I buy 15’s [prescription pills] up here for $10, right? I could sell them in there for $25. You know what I’m saying? So you still make a $15 off of it. See, they would sell faster if I leave them in there with a nigger. But I don’t trust them niggers, so I take them in there every day myself. Get the money myself. You feel me? So that’s how I do it.”

Chania Brooks, 27-year-old correctional officer, of Baltimore

On Jan. 1, Brooks and White allegedly discussed how co-defendant Steven Loney had been attacked by another BGF member that day; Brooks witnessed the attack, but left her post to consult with White about what to do about it. She is one of 14 COs listed on prison-wall graffiti as willing to have oral sex for $150, and is one of at least four COs who has had sex and become pregnant by White. An alleged pill-smuggler, in Dec. 2012 Brooks filed assault charges in state court against CO Katera Stevenson, another co-defendant in the BGF case who White impregnated. Brooks’ Cockeysville residence, at 511 Lake Vista Circle, was raided shortly before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Notable quote: In a conversation with co-defendant CO Tiffany Linder about the baby Linder was having with Tavon White, Brooks said: “I don’t give a fuck about that baby. That’s y’all baby, not mine. We having one too. So what?”

Kimberly Dennis, 26-year-old correctional officer, of Baltimore

Dennis’ “Target Telephone 1” was tapped during the investigation, and in October 2012 she allegedly told co-defendant inmate Derious Duncan, with whom she coordinated smuggling runs, that she intended to make $2,000 that week from moving contraband into prison. Also in October, she allegedly called another CO to learn whether an internal investigator was at the prison entrance, so that she could avoid him. And in December, she allegedly explained to an unknown male that an inmate was stabbed by the BGF because the inmate was smuggling without paying the required 10-percent tax the BGF charges. Dennis also allegedly smuggled with inmate co-defendant Joseph Young. Her Gwynn Oak residence at 2231 Wheatley Dr. was raided shortly before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Notable quote: On Dec. 3, 2012, the day the inmate was stabbed for not paying the smuggling tax to the BGF, Dennis said to an unknown male: “Yeah, them niggas banged him. It was like six of them. Because when he first got over there he was catching or whatever. It was a, umm, issue ‘cause you know, like, whoever catch, you gotta pay a bill.”

Derius Duncan, 23-year-old inmate (MD-USAO inaccurately reported he was 26), of Baltimore

Duncan, who allegedly coordinated smuggling runs with co-defendant CO Kimberly Dennis, had cellphones and drugs stolen from him by other inmates, and, in retribution, White ordered the punishment of the suspected thieves. A BGF “floor boss,” co-defendant inmate Joseph Young, was directed by White to mete out the punishment, and in October, White ordered the beating of inmate David Warren, aka “Meshawn.” Co-defendant CO Jasmin Jones in November allegedly “stood guard outside a closet” so that Duncan and Dennis could have sex, according to court documents. Last summer, Duncan was charged in state court with murder, conspiracy, witness intimidation, and obstruction of justice, along with three other men – Keyon Beads, Clifford Butler, Jr., and David Johnson – after they allegedly attempted to bribe, and later killed, 55-year-old Ronald Givens, a potential state witness in a guns-and-drugs case against Duncan.

Jasmin Jones, aka “J.J.,” 24-year-old correctional officer, of Baltimore

Jones allegedly helped co-defendant inmate Jamar Anderson launder BGF proceeds by putting $500 onto a Money Pak card “that is used to load money onto Green Dot Visa cards.” She also allegedly picked up pot from Anderson’s girlfriend, Teshawn Pinder, to smuggle into prison for Anderson. Her West Baltimore residence, 401 Nottingham Rd., was raided shortly before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Taryn Kirkland, 23-year-old correctional officer, of Baltimore

One of 14 COs listed on prison-wall graffiti as willing to have oral sex for $150, Kirkland allegedly coordinated with co-defendant CO Katrina LaPrade to smuggle pot for co-defendant inmate Steven Loney, and coordinated with co-defendant Jennifer Owens to smuggle contraband for Tavon White. Her Woodlawn residence at 5 Greenbury Ct. was raided shortly before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Notable quote: “So them dogs ain’t shit,” she tells co-defendant inmate Steven Loney after co-defendant CO Katrina LaPrade manages to walk a lot of pot past the jail’s drug-sniffing dogs.

Katrina LaPrade, aka “Katrina Lyons,” 31-year-old correctional officer, of Baltimore

Allegedly by coordinating with co-defendant Taryn Kirkland, LaPrade managed to smuggle pot past the jail’s drug-sniffing dogs and get it to Steven Loney. Her residence near the West Coldspring Metro Station, 2821 Ridgewood Ave., was raided shortly before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Tiffany Linder, 27-year-old correctional officer, of Baltimore

In January, Linder allegedly did something of great service to Tavon White and his BGF comrades: she tipped him to a planned shakedown at the jail, during which cells would be searched for contraband and other signs of criminal activity. An alleged contraband smuggler, she is one of at least four co-defendant COs who had sex with and became pregnant by White. Her Severn residence, 1858 Eagle Court, was raided shortly before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Notable quote: “I just want to know what it is between us,” Linder told White, “and what are you going to do about the baby ‘cause I’m definitely keeping him. I don’t have time for games.”

Steven Loney, aka “Stevie,” 24-year-old inmate, of Baltimore

An allegedly active distributor of prison contraband, Loney relied on co-defendant CO Taryn Kirkland to manage and record Green Dot transactions involving Loney’s drug customers. On Jan. 1, Loney was attacked by another BGF member, and co-defendant CO Chania Brooks, who witnessed the incident, left her post to consult with Tavon White about what should be done about it. Loney’s phone, “Target Telephone 10,” was tapped from Jan. 10 to Jan. 30.

Notable quote: Loney tells Kirkland that co-defendant CO Katrina LaPrade is getting nervous because of all the smuggling LaPrade been doing, saying, “Man now she talking about too many people coming to her, she about to chill that’s why she changed her number. Folks keep calling her from all these different numbers. She don’t want to make her hot.”

Vivian Matthews, 25-year-old correctional officer, of Essex

Matthews declined requests to smuggle drugs for the BGF, but she did procure them – Xanax and Percocet pills, which she gave to others to arrange delivery into prison. She is one of 14 COs listed on prison-wall graffiti as willing to have oral sex for $150. A Gardenville residence associated with her, 4522 Hamilton Ave., was raided just before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Notable quote: Describing to Tavon White the drugs she has available, she says, “Man I just told you what I got. I got one hundred Xanax’s, ninety of them white and then the ten of them. They orange. They the footballs. No, all of them footballs. And I got twelve Percocets.”

Tyesha Mayo, 29-year-old outside supplier, of Baltimore

Tavon White’s cousin, Mayo allegedly helped him launder money with Green Dot pre-paid debit cards and she allegedly delivered pot to co-defendent Katera Stevenson to take to White. Her West Baltimore residence, at 1021 Pennsylvania Ave., was raided just before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Jermaine McFadden, aka “Maine,” 24-year-old inmate, of BaltimoreCo-defendant CO Katera Stevenson allegedly smuggled cellphones and drugs into prison for McFadden, who currently is facing drug charges in state court and was recently convicted for possessing contraband in a place of confinement.

Notable quote: “You say you going to bring that grass and shit today right?” he asks Stevenson, describing pot and other contraband. When Stevenson says yes, he gives her the details of the smuggling run: “Aight I am a have that nigga on the out for you. Not the one with the glasses but the other that work in the same kitchen.”

Jennifer Owens, aka “O” and “J.O.,” 31-year-old correctional officer, of Randallstown

Owens allegedly has two children fathered by co-defendant inmate Tavon White, has a “Tavon” tattoo on her neck, and is one of 14 COs listed on prison-wall graffiti as willing to have oral sex for $150. Her phone, “Target Cellphone 3,” was tapped from Oct. 12 to Dec. 8, 2012, and her Randallstown residence, at 3926 Noyes Circle, was raided shortly before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Notable Quote: “I understand you stressed out, cuz you locked up, ok, but I am too. You locked up, and I’m fucking pregnant again. Like really, who the fuck does that? Only my dumb ass do shit like that, for real. I can accept that I fucked up. I know I did, but I did that shit cuz I wanted to. I don’t regret it.”

Kenneth Parham, 23-year-old inmate, of Baltimore

Parham allegedly helped with the smuggling into prison of pot, prescription pills, and SIM cards for cellphones. He currently faces gun-and-drugs charges in state court, where he has a lengthy record of criminal convictions.

Teshawn Pinder, 24-year-old outside supplier, of Baltimore

Jamar Anderson’s girlfriend, who coordinated smuggling on Anderson’s behalf with co-defendant CO Jasmin Jones, Pinder faced pot-possession charges that were tabled by state prosecutors in early April. Her West Baltimore residence, at 2512 Edgecomb Circle North, was raided just before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Adrena Rice, 25-year-old correctional officer, of Baltimore

Rice’s alleged dealings with Tavon White, which included smuggling marijuana to him in BCDC, were complicated – White believed she stole an ounce off a package he received. Her Randallstown residence, 9 Mainview Ct., was raided just before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Notable Quote: “When I came back in the jail, I’m like, shit, I’m not going to stop making my money. You feel me? I seen what the fuck was going on, asked a few people, what was up and who was who, and what was what. I am just about my money. You hear me? I got to get it.”

Katera Stevenson, aka “KK,” 24-year-old correctional officer, of Baltimore

Stevenson, whose “Target Telephone 7” was tapped from Dec. 11, 2012, to Jan. 9, 2013, has “Tavon” tattooed on her wrist, in honor of the father of her child, co-defendant inmate Tavon White, for whom she allegedly smuggled prescription pills and pot into prison. She is accused of smuggling for co-defendant inmate Jermaine McFadden, who she told she would smuggle every day. She is one of at least four COs who had sex and was impregnated by White. One Jan. 10, she was arrested after trying to smuggle a vacuum-packed bag of pot into prison, and the case is scheduled for trial in May. Her Northeast Baltimore residence, at 5919 Chinquapin Parkway, was raided just before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Notable quote: Tavon White “think I’m one of the most crazy baby mother’s he has. He said he gonna pay my rent. He gonna pay my rent. 284 every month. That’s what he said.”

Tyrone Thompson, aka “Henry,” 36-year-old outside supplier, of Baltimore

Thompson allegedly delivered pills to co-defendant CO Jennifer Owens and co-defendant Ralph Timmons, Jr., on behalf of Tavon White. His West Baltimore residence, 2920 West Walbrook Ave., was raided just before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Jasmine Thornton, aka “J.T.,” 26-year-old CO, of Glen Burnie

Thornton’s phone, “Target Telephone 9,” was tapped from Jan. 10 to Feb. 8, 2013, and she is accused of smuggling contraband into prison for numerous inmates. In February, Tavon White and CO Jennifer Owens discussed Thornton having sex in jail with co-defendant inmate Jamar Anderson. Thornton was assigned to guard White’s tier, which meant that other co-defendant COs could easily deliver contraband directly to White. Her Glen Burnie residence, 336 Adams Ct., was raided shortly before the indictment was unsealed on April 23.

Notable quote: After Anderson’s girlfriend, Teshawn Pinder, was pulled over by police with pot in her car, Thornton, who witnessed the incident, reported to Anderson: “I was pulling in the, um, Royal Farms the police was behind her, so I called her like did they pull you over. Their lights wasn’t on and she like, ‘yea,’ and then they were just sitting there for a long ass time, so I went and got some gas and all that. Then somebody else came with a dog, and then they brung the dog to the car.”

Ralph Timmons, Jr., aka “Boosa,” 34-year-old outside supplier (deceased), of Baltimore

Timmons’ phone, “Target Telephone 2,” was tapped from Sept. 10 to Oct. 9, 2012, and from Dec. 11, 2012 to Jan. 9, 2013. Investigators say he facilitated criminal activities for his half-brother, co-defendant inmate Tavon White, by coordinating smuggling operations with co-defendant CO Jennifer Owens and handling financial transactions.The MD-USAO reports that Timmons was murdered during a robbery, hours before the indictment was handed down on April 2. City Paper’s Murder Ink column reported that at 9:20pm on April 1, “an 11-year-old boy ran to police patrolling near the 1900 block of Bentalou Street to lead them back to the house where he had been shot,” and responding officers found Timmons, the boy’s father, shot dead in the house. Two men – John Knox, 21, of the 4800 block of Woodmere Avenue, and Joseph Oglesby, 37, of the 1100 block of Greenwood Road in Princess Anne County – were later arrested and charged with first-degree murder as a result of the killing.

James Yarborough, aka “J.Y.,” 26-year-old outside supplier, of Baltimore

Yarborough, who currently has an open state drug charge, alleged helped smuggle pot and pills into prison. Investigators recently saw him with co-defendant CO Kimberly Dennis, walking out of her house, getting into her Camaro, and the two of them driving away.

Joseph Young, aka “Monster,” 30-year-old inmate, of Baltimore

Young’s phone, “Target Telephone 5,” was tapped from Nov. 9 to Dec. 4, 2012, revealing that he’s allegedly an active BGF member with a leadership role as a “floor boss” at BCDC who coordinates smuggling activities with COs and outside suppliers. Young is also alleged to be Tavon White’s heir apparent, should White leave the jail. A unindicted and unnamed lieutenant told Young that, when and if that occurs, Young would enjoy the same agreement White had with prison authorities: smuggle freely in exchange for keeping down prison violence.

The Black Guerrilla Family’s Maryland Chapter Is All About ‘Ben’

By Van Smith

Published by City Paper, Dec. 9. 2014

Back in 2011, two years before Tavon White and 43 others were indicted in Maryland for running a Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) gang conspiracy in Baltimore’s jails, someone going by the moniker “fire water air” posted a comment on the forum of assatashakur.org, the website of American cop-killer fugitive Assata Shakur. What “fire water air” wrote cut to the core of a central dilemma for the BGF: How can it pursue what it calls “cambone,” a concept that promotes community dignity in a racist society, while actively carrying out what it calls “ben,” the tactics, often criminal, for financially supporting the pursuit of that dignity?

The BGF’s dual roles of cambone and ben were explained in the “Black Book,” a revolutionary self-help guide collectively written by BGF inmates in Baltimore and published by Eric Marcell Brown, the Maryland BGF leader who was convicted in 2011 in a prior racketeering prosecution. In Brown’s case, cambone was a strong factor, as he sought legitimacy while an inmate nearing his release date by appearing to work for good, offering the BGF’s black-separatist ideology as an antidote to the pathology of criminal lifestyles. The fact of the matter, though, as Brown’s case proved, is that ben reigned supreme, and “fire water air” seemed to understand and worry about this in 2011.

“Well the bgf here in baltimore run every aspect of the streets and hold major weight in the prison system,” the post stated, adding that “cambone holds no weight here” and “its run under the b.e.n.” It called the BGF “all love,” but said “the machine is down,” possibly referring to Brown’s take-down, and rued the fact that there are “no more old heads to lead” the “young comrades,” so “it looks like a gang now” and “im very sad about that shit.” The government, meanwhile, “know everything now after they took away our fathers,” it continued, and “i guess everybody want to be a g instead of pushing the revolution,” so “comrades like me are lost now.”

“BROTHERS KILLING AND ROBING BROTHERS EVERYWHERE,” the post concluded, switching to capitalization for emphasis, adding that “THE CODE OF CONDUCT HOLDS NO MORE POWER” and “ITS ALL ABOUT WHO GOT MORE STREET CREDIT AND RANK IN PRISON AND THAT ONE PERSON WILL BE LOOKED AT AS THE BIG GUY FOR THAT REGION OF BALTIMORE.”

It would be interesting to know what “fire water air” thinks about the White case, now being tried before a jury in Baltimore’s federal courthouse, with White himself as the state’s star witness. What White has described from the stand—that, even though he wasn’t a “bushman,” or high-ranking BGF member, he was able to take command of the jail because the BGF hierarchy on the streets believed in his ability to run the jail’s lucrative contraband economy, using correctional officers to smuggle prohibited goods such as pot, painkillers, tobacco, and phones to sell inside at exorbitant, sometimes fraudulent mark-ups in order to make boatloads of money for himself and the BGF, even as he had to deal with rival Joseph “Monster” Young, a bushman who wanted to unseat White—is pure ben.

If White has testified about anything having to do with cambone, it was a reference from the stand to a man named Cleo “Gutter” Blue, who he described as the BGF’s “minister of education” inside the jail. Blue, White explained, would “teach and educate the members” by giving them “quizzes dealing with the literature,” such BGF documents as the “33 constitutions,” the “22 laws,” the “eight morals,” the “11 characteristics,” and the “10 components” of “J,” which is short for “jamaa,” the Swahili word for “family.” According to the Black Book, “jamaa” is “an organization geared towards revitalizing our people and our hoods.” The BGF uses Swahili words, White explained, because “it’s supposed to be the original language of the black man.”

On the ben side of the equation, meanwhile, White testified that a man named “Michael Grey” is the BGF’s “head of street ops.” A BGF member of the same name was described in court documents in Brown’s case, surrounding events in 2010 that are decidedly ben. Grey was suspected of murdering Asia Carter, who was believed to have helped rob the drug operation Grey then ran with David “Oakie” Rich, who, while an inmate awaiting trial on federal armed drug-trafficking charges, also earned a mention in other BGF-related court documents. But Grey, in conversations caught on Drug Enforcement Administration wiretaps, sought to dissuade the notion that he was responsible for the demise of Carter, who was found on 25th Street in Charles Village, slumped over the wheel of his crashed car with several gunshot wounds.

As “fire water air” suggested, the BGF’s cambone-versus-ben dilemma appears to have been solved in Baltimore, and ben won. Thanks to that victory, the BGF continues to find itself among law enforcers’ highest priorities here.

Inside Job: Evidence of Corruption in Maryland Prisons Has Been Mounting. Can Current Reform Measures Clean Things Up?

By Van Smith

Published in City Paper, May 12, 2010 (Illustration by Mel Guapo)

At about 9 p.m. on March 8, 2009, Musheerah Habeebullah called Eric Brown to dish about people they know. Three things were notable about the call. First, Habeebullah was a correctional officer at the Metropolitan Transition Center (familiarly known as “the Pen”) where Brown was, and is, an inmate. Second, even though they were talking on cell phones, not prison landlines, the call was being recorded. Third, the people they discussed were fellow corrections officers (COs) and inmates in the Maryland prison system who were doing business together.

They got to talking about one inmate who had recently transferred to the Pen from another institution, where he had monopolized the market for smuggled goods among inmates. He was finding the prison economy at the Pen much more competitive.

“You know down there, there are so many people who doing shit, you know it’s impossible, it’s impossible to be the only one,” Habeebullah said of the Pen.

“Right, right, everybody going to get their thing on,” Brown responded.

Habeebullah said that at the inmate’s prior prison, only a small number of corrections officers helped smuggle goods to inmates–“like one on each shift that be really making moves.” But at the Pen, “you got like seven, eight people. Soon it’s the whole damn shift,” she continued, so how “is it possible for you to take over” as the only inmate with contraband for sale?

“You ain’t gonna be on top like you was down there,” she went on, “cause it’s too many horses. Too many ways” to bring in contraband.

“Yeah,” Brown agreed, “ain’t nobody going to be the only game in town. . . . They ain’t just gonna let a motherfucker take over.”

Habeebullah told Brown how she’d provided another inmate, nicknamed “Baby,” with smuggled cell-phone parts, and how other prison guards smuggle contraband for inmates, identifying four correctional officers (COs) by name.

Inmates are not supposed to have cell phones, and, obviously, COs are not supposed to smuggle contraband into prisons. Nor are they supposed to have relationships with inmates outside of the normal routine of their official duties. But based on this conversation–and many others that were intercepted by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Investigations Group (DEA-SIG) investigators as they built a drug-trafficking case against the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gang in Maryland, which Brown is alleged to head–contraband-smuggling by COs and extracurricular relationships between COs and inmates are rife in most Maryland prisons.

Habeebullah got caught. So did two other COs–Terry Robe and Asia Burrus–and a prison kitchen worker, Takevia Smith. They were among 25 defendants indicted by a federal grand jury in April 2009 for taking part in the BGF’s drug-dealing scheme; all later pleaded guilty to knowingly aiding the BGF by smuggling contraband, including cell phones. Robe, Burrus, and Smith are currently serving federal prison time, set to be released next year; Habeebullah awaits her sentence.

Last year’s BGF indictments were not alone in uncovering suspected or confirmed integrity issues among state corrections officers. Evidence has surfaced that a prison investigator was ordered to stop a probe into gang-affiliated COs; that a veteran CO shared a house and a bank account with a murderous Baltimore drug dealer; that COs have been running extortion schemes on behalf of gangs; that COs have been having sex and becoming pregnant with inmates; and that COs have smuggled drugs and cell phones into the prison system–including to a man awaiting trial for murder who had just learned whether or not his codefendant had given a police statement about the case. In a capital murder case over the killing of a CO, lawyers for the two inmates charged have maintained that the stabbing was over a contraband-smuggling ring among COs that the victim–who was nicknamed “Homeland Security” by inmates due to his by-the-book approach to his job–wouldn’t tolerate.

The list of recent CO scandals is long, but it only includes circumstances in which the details have reached the light of day through the courts. These instances may well point to more widespread problems, though the reality inside prison facilities–where fear, stress, the potential for violence, and power struggles among and between staff and inmates are part of the day-to-day grind, and where the flow of information is tightly controlled–is hard to gauge.

During the past year, City Paper has been contacted by COs concerned about corruption within their ranks, offering to help get the public a truer picture of the depth and breadth of the situation, but their fears over the potential for harm to themselves or their families got the better of them. Attempts to reach out to COs and other prison staff–outside of official channels, so they can speak freely on background–have gone nowhere.

But a December 2009 letter to City Paper from an inmate, responding to coverage of the BGF indictments, provided a shocking glimpse of the environment within one of the prison system’s facilities in Baltimore. (The writer’s name and place of incarceration will be withheld, to protect the inmate’s safety.)

“I just wanted to correct the thought that is was [sic] just Eric Brown and a few accomplices,” the inmate wrote of corruption inside prison walls, “because it’s bigger and more widespread than printed [in the paper].” The letter contended that “I can honestly say that I am a witness to the ‘BGF’ running the correctional system here in Baltimore. Seriously, there are some [sic] many correctional officers working here associated with either the ‘Bloods’ or ‘BGF,’ it almost tallies [sic] the inmate population. And what unnerves me is that they openly flaunt it.”

The letter explained that COs’ “tattoos of ‘stars’ on wrists, behind ears, on arms, necks, and even faces, ‘butterflies’ and ‘beetles,’ help to tell . . . [the] level of their affiliation. They offer sex, money, and drugs to ‘move’ up in their rank or affiliations. There really has not been a day that I have spent here, where these things are not witnessed. It amazes me how the older correctional officers turn a blind eye to these occurances [sic] . . . a thorough purging of this system and investigation is necessary immediately.”

Rick Binetti, director of communications for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Service (DPSCS), urges that corruption problems be kept in perspective. “There is no systemic issue” with corruption among COs, he says. Despite overwhelming evidence of widespread problems, he asserts that “there is an ugly case here or there coming out, but it’s not necessarily all gang-related.”

Binetti points out that of the nearly 7,000 COs statewide, 70 were fired last year. Twenty of those firings were for fraternizing with inmates and another four were for possessing contraband. Currently, Binetti says, the department is investigating three COs for having contraband cell phones. Binetti adds that, under current law, firing COs can prove difficult due to a 30-day timeframe for completing an investigation into wrongdoing. “You can’t build a solid case in that amount of time,” he says.

Meanwhile, Binetti adds, “our efforts in identifying these gangmembers [who are COs] is so much better than it was three years ago. We’re figuring out who those people are, and they are getting the chop.” New state regulations put in place late last year by the Maryland Police and Correctional Officer Training Commission require that CO applicants answer specific questions about gang ties and that DPSCS background investigators scour law-enforcement gang databases to see if applicants are listed. “If there is any sort of gang affiliation in your background, you could be out,” Binetti says.

“The department is trying” to confront the integrity challenges among its staff, Binetti concludes, “and we’re doing a hell of a lot more than we were three or four years ago.”

Last November, to mark Terry Robe’s conviction for her role in the BGF drug-dealing conspiracy, DPSCS Secretary Gary Maynard issued a statement to buttress the case that the department is getting better–and succeeding–in combating gang influences and contraband smuggling in prisons. He noted that gang-intelligence efforts had yielded a 35 percent increase in identifying gang members among prison inmates, that improved security had yielded a one-third increase in the number of cell phones recovered from inmates (to a total of 1,658 in fiscal year 2009), and that 24 Body Orifice Security Scanners (highly sensitive metal detectors known as BOSS chairs) installed in the state’s prison facilities had provided new opportunities to detect and prevent contraband from getting in.

The department’s confidence in its anti-corruption efforts is bold, and it is getting legislative help. During this year’s General Assembly session in Annapolis, which ended in April, two bills addressing the hiring and firing of COs were passed and will soon be incorporated into departmental regulations.

One, House Bill 1402, entitled Public Safety–Preemployment Polygraph Examinations for Correctional Officer Applicants, allows DPSCS to order lie-detector tests to screen applicants. Already, Binetti says, nearly 70 percent of applicants–which number 4,000 to 4,500 per year–are rejected because they don’t pass the background check. Ordering polygraphs on a selective basis may make it even harder to gain employment as a CO.

The other bill, Senate Bill 887, Correctional Services–State Correctional Officers’ Bill of Rights, affords new protections and procedures for COs accused of wrongdoing. It was backed by unions representing COs, and Binetti says DPSCS also supported it. “It establishes procedures for correctional officers to be interrogated and investigated, and it gives them a trial board, like police officers have, when they are accused” he explains. A strong plus, he adds, is that it extends the 30-day period for conducting investigations to 90 days, allowing more thorough work before investigators have to either file formal charges or drop the case.

Patrick Moran, director of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) in Maryland, praised the bill-of-rights measure on a number of fronts. “Correctional officers accused of wrongdoing are now innocent until proven guilty, just like the prisoners they are surrounded by every day,” he says. “It gives people solid due process, where they didn’t have that before.”

As for bad actors, Moran says the new bill-of-rights law won’t protect them if the evidence is tight. “The vast majority of correctional officers are honest, solid citizens, working in a very stressful environment unlike any other job in the world. But there are always exceptions to the rule, and those who are found to be corrupt ought to be dealt with roundly and sharply, because it affects everybody,” he says. Now, he adds, the department “will have more time to investigate those situations, so they’ll find the evidence if it’s there, and the wrongly accused will have their opportunity to fight the charges if it’s not there. Before, the department was prosecutor, judge, and jury all at once.”

The bill’s chief sponsor, state Sen. Donald Munson (R-Washington County), says his main concern in bringing the legislation was a troubling case of COs getting railroaded by the existing disciplinary process over charges of inmate abuse a couple of years ago. When asked how it will affect the department’s efforts to rid itself of gang-tied COs assisting inmates in criminal schemes, Munson says, “I’ve never thought of this measure in this context. My guess is that the correctional officers who are going to be judges are going to be very hard on those cases.” He adds, “If it doesn’t work, we’ll fix it in the future.”

Robert Walker, a veteran law enforcer whose long career began as a correctional officer with the Maryland Department of Corrections in the 1950s, knows a thing or two about gangs and corrupt COs. After leaving Maryland, he began a decades-long career in federal law enforcement (including for the DEA). He retired to return to prison work in the South Carolina penal system, doing internal investigations and running the gang unit, where he developed a gang identification and tracking system in order to monitor inmates. Today, he is a gang consultant, serving as an expert witness in trials and teaching law enforcers and prison personnel the ins and outs of gangs.

Walker is a strong supporter of COs, and, just as strongly, has antipathy for corrupt ones. When told that Maryland is grappling with CO integrity problems, he says, “I hope they are really going into heavy penalties for that. To turn to the other side and try to make a buck is truly outrageous. You have got to have some honest people–and most of them will be honest. There are maybe 10, 15 percent, at the most, who are on the other side.” Given the litany of revelations about CO corruption coming out of Maryland courts, though, he adds, “I may have to change my assessment of the percentage . . . the worst thing that can happen is to engage in denial, because that means the problem will get bigger and bigger.”

As for the proposed reform measures, Walker likes them all–except for the selective pre-employment polygraph law, which he believes should be universal, not only among prospective COs, but among all staff. To save money, he says the state should hire its own polygraph examiners and lie-detecting equipment. “With so many concerns about so much wrongdoing, you have got to find the money to do it right,” he says.

Whether DPSCS’ ongoing efforts to combat corruption will have any significant effect will become evident as time passes. In the meantime, integrity cases keep popping up.

In February, two COs were arrested, one in Western Maryland and another in Baltimore City. In the Western Maryland case, Correctional Dietary Officer Justin Wayne Smith was caught trying to bring a balloon filled with heroin and a syringe to an inmate at the maximum-security Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland. In Baltimore, CO Shanika Johnson’s bag was searched as she entered the Baltimore City Detention Center and was found to contain an ounce of marijuana and two cell phones. She told investigators that an inmate, who she refused to name, was going to pay her $1,000 for delivering the contraband.

A serious case was brought against CO Lynae Chapman in October 2009. The father of her unborn child, BGF member and murder suspect Ray Donald Lee, was detained pending trial at the Baltimore City Detention Center when his prison cell was searched in late September, turning up marijuana, tobacco, and a cell phone that investigators quickly determined had been procured by Chapman. When confronted about the phone, Chapman promptly confessed to delivering it to Lee. At the time, discovery in Lee’s murder case had reached the point when he would learn whether or not his codefendant, Quinard Henson, had given a statement to police. Recovering the phone Chapman had provided Lee may have forestalled the potential for Lee to use it to arrange for retaliating against Henson. Chapman is scheduled for a June trial, after having been re-indicted in March for misconduct, contraband delivery, and–with Lee as her codefendant–drug dealing.

Also last fall, a federal civil-rights case brought against CO Antonia Allison by inmate Tashma McFadden brought to light DPSCS internal documents, supported by depositions, showing that a prison investigator, Santiago Morales, had developed evidence in 2006 and 2007 of 16 COs at the BCDC who had gang ties. Morales had named the 16 COs in written reports to BCDC’s warden at the time, William Filbert, who promptly ordered him to stop writing the reports.

McFadden’s case alleges that Allison is a Bloods gang member, and that, after a verbal argument with McFadden, she unlocked his cell to allow fellow Bloods members who were inmates to attack him, resulting in 32 stab wounds. Allison, who is represented by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, denies the allegations. Recent activity in the case includes a motion by the defense to keep jurors from hearing testimony about Allison’s alleged gang ties, as well as Morales’ suspicions of gang-tied COs.

Meanwhile, McFadden’s attorney, Aaron Casagrande, on Apr. 27 filed a motion to re-open discovery in the case. The reason, the motion explains, is that McFadden was recently put in administrative segregation at the Eastern Correctional Institution to protect him because other inmates there, who are Bloods members, have ordered him murdered for bringing the case against Allison. Attached to the motion is an inmate’s letter that alleges McFadden’s murder has been ordered and describes Allison as “doing right by us . . . all she asked from her brothers was to keep her safe . . . that’s what we did.”

Nothing beats last year’s BGF case in federal court for suggesting that dirty COs are a major and ongoing problem for the DPSCS. Habeebullah, Robe, Burrus, and Smith may have been indicted and convicted, but the evidence in the case includes troubling references to other COs in on the gang-related action.

One of the DEA’s sources for building the BGF case provided details of a BGF extortion scheme that relies on the assistance of corrupt COs. The scheme–similar to a case from 2007 involving a former CO, Fonda White, who also pleaded guilty–was described in a lengthy affidavit.

“Several guards with the Department of Corrections are assisting BGF members with an extortion scheme under which BGF offers ‘protection’ while in jail to newly arrested persons who are not BGF members,” the affidavit states. It continues:

In exchange for this “protection,” an arrested person is required to pay money to BGF. Specifically, BGF supplies the person to be protected with a credit card number of a prepaid credit card (sometimes referred to as a “Green Dot” card), and the person to be protected is required to have family members or friends place money onto the card when periodically directed to do so by BGF. The credit card is often held by one of the corrections officers who are assisting BGF or by BGF members on the street. The credit card is then used to pay for items for BGF members. If the newly arrested inmate does not agree to pay for the “protection,” then he or she is targeted for violent crimes while in prison.

The affidavit also describes CO corruption at the Supermax, as described in intercepted cell phone conversations among inmates. Eric Brown, on the same day he spoke with Habeebullah about COs smuggling at the Pen, talked on a cell phone with a Supermax inmate, Melvin Gilbert, who was awaiting a federal trial on charges of drug-dealing and murdering a witness. They discussed the difficulties they were facing in getting contraband cell phones due to a crackdown by prison authorities. Though Brown had been able to get three phones recently, there were still “holes”–meaning dirty COs–to be discussed.

“If we don’t open a hole up by the end of this month, it probably don’t be no more than about 20 phones left in this motherfucker. I’m telling you. They’re tearing our ass up, Melvin,” Brown said.

“Yeah, they heavy over here, too,” Gilbert responded.

Later in the conversation, Gilbert asked Brown if he knew a CO named “Simmons,” and Brown said he did. “Man,” Gilbert said, “holler at that bitch for us. She over here [at the Supermax] and she working, but she’s staying away from me.” Gilbert complained that “Simmons” was instead doing favors for other inmates, whom Gilbert called “low budget.” Then Gilbert talked about another CO he thought was smuggling contraband into the Supermax, and another who was carrying his child. This last CO, Gilbert said, was suspected of snitching on inmates and had been threatened for it recently, but Gilbert said he told her: “Don’t you ever call me and tell me, like, you’re worried about another motherfucker. Them niggers be bluffing. I’m not a bluffer. I’m the one that you gotta worry about.”

Later last year, Gilbert was convicted on drug-dealing, witness murder, and other murder charges, and was sentenced to life in prison. He is currently housed at the high-security United State Penitentiary–Canaan, in Northeast Pennsylvania.

What Gilbert and Brown were discussing–and what facts in other corrupt-CO cases describe–suggest a prison culture where COs smuggling for inmates, having sex with them, and having other inappropriate contact with them are a given. However, as Gilbert and Brown noted, a crackdown on cell-phone smuggling was working–and still is, according to Binetti, who points out that “we may have a reached a tipping point” since fewer cell phones are being found in prisons this year than in prior years. If a bill currently before the U.S. Congress passes, allowing prison systems to employ cell-phone jamming technology, any phones that remain may become useless.

But perhaps the best indicator that DPSCS’ attempts to thwart corruption are taking hold is the most recent federal indictment of alleged BGF drug dealers: No COs were among the defendants in the case, indicted in mid-April, which was built on a continuing investigation from last year’s indictments. That’s not to say the new BGF case doesn’t reference CO corruption, though.

In a Feb. 18 conversation that DEA investigators intercepted between one of the defendants, Duconze Chambers, and a drug dealer known as “Chips,” reveals that Chambers knows a CO at Brockbridge Correctional Facility that could smuggle something in for Chips’ cousin, Bug, who’s an inmate there. Other than that, the only evidence in the case so far is that one of DEA’s sources gave up a cell phone number for a “female correctional officer” said to be “an active BGF member.”

If that’s all the DEA-SIG investigators turned up this time around, well, that’s improvement over last year. One has to wonder, though, if such a problem can be eradicated so quickly.