By Gil Smart
The Sunday News
LANCASTER, Pa. — It was 1 a.m. and federal prosecutor Mark Miller was at his computer, obsessing about the case.
There were big fish on the hooks, or almost on the hooks. A violent gang was buying guns in the Carolinas, selling them in New York, investing the proceeds in drugs — and selling up to $10,000 worth of crack cocaine and heroin per day in Lancaster and nearby towns. Several people had been shot, one murdered. The gang had to be taken down.
Miller would think of something - an angle, a witness who might be flipped - and in the middle of the night shoot an e-mail to Lancaster Bureau of Police Detective Mike Winters.
Within five minutes, Miller said, Winters would shoot him one right back.
Lancaster cops, said Miller, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of the United States in Philadelphia, were as obsessed with the case as he was, or even more so. This was their town; they saw a chance not just to triage the problem and treat the suspects or the case itself as an isolated series of incidents, but to “slay the beast,” Miller said, to destroy a multimillion-dollar criminal enterprise, roots and all.
And to their credit, Miller said, they did just that.
More than three years after a pair of shootings tipped Lancaster police to the fact that something big was afoot, the longest and most intensive investigation ever undertaken by city police is almost over.
The two leaders of the drug conspiracy, Prince Isaac, 22, and Shamek Hynson, 25, were convicted in federal court in late September on 26 gun and drug charges.
Scheduled to be sentenced in early January, they could spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Numerous others have been sentenced or soon will be as part of the probe.
The story of the investigation is one of cooperation between law enforcement agencies in several states, at several levels. It’s the fruit of a local/federal partnership to combat gang activity along the Route 222 corridor. But the glue that held it all together was the work of Lancaster police, Miller said.
“I give lectures to cops, and I tell them that if they want to model themselves after somebody, it ought to be the Lancaster detective division,” Miller said. “The sacrifices they made for that investigation, I don’t know how they did it.”
It was a stretch, Lancaster Detective Lt. Kent Switzer said. One investigator worked on little else but this case since 2004. Detectives made trips to Queens, N.Y., the gang’s home base, and to North and South Carolina, where the suspects bought guns that later would be sold to buy drugs. And they’ve been back and forth between Lancaster and the federal courthouse in Philadelphia too many times to count.
All of this is usually beyond the scope of a police department in a city of Lancaster’s size. But this gang was particularly violent, Switzer said. “It became readily apparent, very quickly, that if this was not addressed it was going to get much worse.”
So maybe they didn’t have the resources they needed.
They also felt like they had no choice.
It began Oct. 18, 2004, in Lancaster, with two shootings in the space of three hours. Police initially said they didn’t think the shootings were related.
As their investigation progressed, they realized how wrong they were.
Michael Fowler, now 18, was arrested a few days after the shootings, and ultimately charged in one. (Hynson would be charged in the second.) It became apparent that these weren’t just random crimes; the victims, who survived, were shot because they owed money for drugs.
But ultimately, to whom? That would become the $10,000-per-day question.
Investigators tied the October shootings to one in September. The same day that members of the gang shot two people here, they traveled to Coatesville, where they shot another person, this time fatally.
“We could see this wasn’t just about what was happening in Lancaster city and township,” Switzer said. That meant calling for backup.
For several years, Lancaster Detective Sgt. John Burkhart said, city officials had been forging a closer relationship with federal officials. Project Safe Neighborhoods, an initiative aimed at reducing gun violence for which Burkhart is local coordinator, and the Route 222 Corridor project, in which Lancaster County became one of six areas nationwide receiving federal grants to fight gang activity, brought the feds and local cops together. Lancaster police felt they could pick up the phone and call the feds when they needed a hand. It wasn’t always that way.
The office of Patrick Meehan, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and Lancaster County District Attorney Donald Totaro got involved in the investigation. And it began spinning off in several different directions.
It spun north, to Queens, N.Y., home base for the gang. Prince Isaac was living in Lancaster; Shamek Hynson was from New York, where the drugs were being purchased in bulk for sale here.
Police say earlier reports identifying the gang as calling itself the “50 Million Soldiers” isn’t entirely accurate; one member said he was with such a group, but others were involved with other gangs. “They were essentially a compilation of gang members associated with various gangs and drug dealers,” Switzer said. One member was associated with the Bloods in New York City; another with New York’s Crips. “There were also connections to a gang in Columbia, S.C.,” Switzer said.
Isaac and Hynson and the guns and drugs they sold and provided were the common threads; local police got to calling the ad hoc group the “Queens Gang.”
The investigation also pointed south, to North and South Carolina, where members of the gang were buying guns via “straw purchasers” — people with clean records who bought the firearms on behalf of gang members — and shipping them north, where the serial numbers would be removed and the guns sold. At least one batch of guns, Switzer said, had its serial numbers filed off in a Lancaster apartment.
Lancaster detectives, who had enough work to keep them busy here, made several trips to the Carolinas to conduct interviews and gather evidence — in one case, dropping everything for a last-minute trip when Assistant U.S. Attorney Miller had a hunch.
“It was one of the things that broke open a huge section of the case,” Miller said. “I wanted to go see this woman and interview her, see where it goes; I had a detective [Bill Breault] volunteer on the spot to rearrange his schedule to go do it, even though we didn’t know if the woman was going to be there or not.
“You take a gamble, and that gamble paid off - but only because I had a detective willing to drop everything and go,” Miller said.
Slowly, patiently, detectives and prosecutors assembled their case. Miller singled out Lancaster Detective Mike Winters for both his ability to establish rapport with witnesses and his methodical approach.
“Critical to the case were the girlfriends and ex-girlfriends” of several suspects, Miller said. “We knew if we could get them, then we could get somewhere. We had strategy meetings where Mike would chart all the players — ‘This looks like a good person to go after’ — and we’d have as much [intelligence] as we could possibly get, then we’d take a run at them. And Mike developed such a rapport with witnesses, a lot of them would talk to him and no one else.”
Breault, he said, “went to that North Carolina interview and developed a rapport with the woman that lasted all the way through the trial. She was our strongest witness.”
“When people know you’re being straight with them, you’re going to fulfill the promises you make to them - [such as] showing up at sentencing hearings” to say a word on their behalf, Miller said, “they’re going to trust you, they’re going to cooperate.”
The dividends were huge.
Prince Isaac and Shamek Hynson ran the show, according to the grand jury indictments. Armed and cocky, Isaac boasted that he was going to control the drug trade in Lancaster, police say.
Hynson was in charge of bringing the guns up from the Carolinas. Isaac bought the drugs in New York; he and others transported them to Lancaster, where they were repackaged and sold. “Soldiers” were brought down from New York and given “G-packs,” $1,000 worth of crack cocaine, to peddle on street corners or in crack houses.
Hynson shot a man who owed him money for drugs Oct. 18, 2004, at Howard and Pershing streets. Later that same evening, prosecutors say he and Isaac drove to Coatesville, where they shot and killed Omar Reid, who also owed them drug money.
Chester County District Attorney Joe Carroll said murder charges are pending against both, though the case has been delayed because they are in federal custody and are not yet available for trial. “They should be soon,” Carroll said.
The initial indictments against Isaac, Hynson and two others — Steven Gonzalez and Dwight Williams, both of Lancaster — were handed down in 2005. The case has taken so long to adjudicate, officials said, because attempts by Isaac and Hynson to intimidate witnesses have resulted in several additional counts against them.
“Essentially, any time we’d prepare for trial, they’d try to intimidate witnesses,” Switzer said. “That happened on several occasions,” pushing the case back.
Gonzalez, 22, called “Boobie,” worked directly for Isaac, storing crack and heroin, supplying and resupplying gang members with quantities of the drugs. He also sold the drugs himself. Gonzalez pleaded guilty to federal drug charges and will be sentenced in January.
Williams, 63, “Pops,"allowed his second-floor apartment in the first block of West Filbert Street to be used for breaking down and selling the drugs. For his trouble, the grand jury said, he was paid in crack. He was convicted on one charge and will be sentenced in January.
Others identified as being affiliated with the gang include:
Taquan Isaac, 24, “Ty-Nitty,” arrested for possession of an illegal firearm in the Manor Tavern in September 2004. Wanted by New York City Police for a double shooting and robbery there, he was charged here with a North Mulberry Street armed robbery police say he committed with Michael Fowler. Indicted federally in the firearms case, he pleaded guilty and got 51 months in federal prison; he pleaded guilty in state court to robbery and got five to 10 years.
Fowler, 18, “20-Deep,” arrested for one of the Oct. 18, 2004, shootings, was subsequently charged with the North Mulberry robbery. He pleaded guilty to both cases in state court and got a total of 18 to 36 years.
Gregory Stacey, 24, arrested for his involvement in a September 2004 shooting in the 400 block of Manor Street. When police picked him up he was carrying crack cocaine. He got two to seven years in state prison on the drug charge, six to 20 years for the shooting.
Jalani Lee, 27, of Queens, N.Y., was arrested for possession of more than 200 grams of crack by Lancaster police during a traffic stop in January 2005. Convicted in federal court, it was his “third strike,” and he got life in prison.
Timothy Kelley, 38, “Boomer,” arrested by Susquehanna Regional Police Department after a vehicle pursuit and charged with possession of crack and an illegal firearm. He made bail, then got arrested for possession of a firearm and crack by East Lampeter Township Police. Indicted on both the gun and drug charges, he pleaded guilty and received 15 years in federal prison.
James Cuffie, 24, “J,” was arrested along with Prince Isaac in November 2004 for possession of crack and heroin; he pleaded guilty in state court to drug charges and got two to four years. He’s also wanted in New York for a parole violation, Switzer said.
Jacob Jerome Ford, 23, “Snake,” was charged with possession with intent to deliver crack cocaine, drug violations near a school, and multiple firearm violations.
The state cases were prosecuted by the Lancaster County District Attorney’s office. County Detective Joseph Hockley “transported numerous uncooperative witnesses (and fewer cooperative ones) to grand jury hearings in Philadelphia,” wrote District Attorney Donald Totaro in an e-mail. Assistant District Attorney K. Kenneth Brown II prepped witnesses for grand jury testimony and presented witnesses and testimony to the grand jury when Miller was unavailable.
Teamwork, said U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan. The way it’s supposed to work.
“We have the ability to use the grand jury,” he said. “In the past, we might have gotten [members of the gang] on a drug buy, might have gotten them with a gun ... we’ve said from the outset that we’ve got to have a vested stake in local issues. And this is one of the real examples of success.”
City detectives knew they’d never slay the beast without help from the feds. But even with it, the case was extraordinarily taxing. They spent days driving to and from Philadelphia for grand jury proceedings; man-hours added up.
They added up for Assistant U.S. Attorney Miller, too. “There were months during the high points of this case when I was logging 180 to 200 hours of overtime — and I don’t get paid for overtime,” he said. “I lost 9 pounds” during the two-week trial of Prince Isaac and Hynson.
“And it was the same way for Lancaster police. I can’t tell you how many times I was on the phone with Winters or Switzer at midnight or 1 a.m. If I thought of something at 4 a.m., I could call them and it would get done.
“Strategically, these guys made all the right moves,” Miller said. “This was like climbing a mountain in the middle of winter in a blizzard. And they did it.”
Why?
Maybe it was important to show gangs from New York and other big cities that Lancaster isn’t such easy pickings.
“This time we were able to attack it on a huge scale,” Switzer said. “It spread our resources pretty thin ... [but] I think we have also learned, from past experience, that when you have a group of career criminals such as this and you have the ability to focus on them, holding them accountable for everything they do, you are able to take them off the street for much longer periods of time.”
“I give lectures to cops, and I tell them that if they want to model themselves after somebody, it ought to be the Lancaster detective division.”
Copyright 2007 Sunday News