DRUG VIOLENCE BATTLE SHIFTS

Dealer-On-Dealer Crimes Targeted With Interstate Commerce Laws

The three Rochester men are no strangers to allegations of violence.

Almost a decade ago, Damien Lott and Terrance " T-Rock" Stinson were
accused of being involved in the kidnapping of a drug dealer who was bound,
gagged and shot in the face and shoulder.

The dealer survived but refused to testify.

In 2001, the third man, Anthony " Supreme" Murphy, was accused of shooting
a drug dealer in the arm over a dispute.

That dealer was wary of testifying -- despite offers from police to
relocate him and his family.

On Tuesday, the three men -- Lott, 28, Stinson, 29, and Murphy, 29 -- will
go on trial in federal court.

The case likely will include allegations of street violence and vengeance
- -- but mainly in terms of how those acts of violence impeded interstate
commerce. The commerce, in this case, involved cocaine, crack and heroin.

Those drugs are illegal, yet because most drugs cross state -- and even
international -- lines between harvesting and ingestion, courts have
determined that drug-dealing is a bona fide example of interstate commerce.

And the robbing of drug dealers illegally slows that commerce, the courts
say, and thereby violates a federal statute known as the Hobbs Act.

The three defendants also are accused of a conspiracy to traffic in
cocaine, crack, heroin and marijuana. A fourth defendant, Neftali Bliss,
,29, also faces those charges.

The trial, which could last a month, is a relatively new local tactic to
confront what police have claimed is an escalating amount of
dealer-on-dealer crime.

And authorites have complained before that the three men accused of the
Hobbs Act crimes have sidestepped criminal convictions by keeping witnesses
fearful and intimidated.

At a bail hearing in August 2001, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bret Puscheck
described Murphy as an offender who " has been very fortuitous in terms of
number of violent charges being dismissed and a pattern of witnesses either
being reluctant to come in and testify or witnesses refusing to show up and
testify against him."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Sherman said he expects to call more than 40
witnesses, including police. Sherman declined to comment about the evidence
in the case.

Some defense lawyers say the case is weak and constructed largely on the
testimony of convicts who are simply trying to get deals for themselves.

" It's not like some conspiracy cases you'll see where you see wiretaps and
photographic surveillance evidence," said lawyer Robert Wood, who
represents Lott. " It's a little surprising to go into this and see they're
relying on uncorroborated testimony of convicted felons."

Attorney Phillip Hurwitz said his client, Stinson, is " basically a
prisoner of the war on drugs right now because he's been swept up by this
broad indictment."

Lott and Stinson were two of five men accused of the New Year's Day 1994
kidnapping of Shawn Battle, a drug dealer.

The charges were dismissed when Battle refused to testify.

Those allegations predate the allegations in the Hobbs Act indictment,
which includes claims of robberies between 1997 and 2001. But the
kidnapping could be allowed in court testimony as an example of other bad
acts committed by the defendants.

Court records in the current court case show that another man accused of
the kidnapping, Keith " Chaos" Chung, may be a witness in the federal trial
that starts on Tuesday.

But Hurwitz contends that Battle once testified at a court hearing that he
didn't recognize Stinson from the kidnapping.

" The documents that the government has disclosed thus far in no way
indicate that Mr. Stinson is in any way involved in any Hobbs Act
violations," he said.

The Hobbs Act

The Hobbs Act was created decades ago largely to counter organized crime.

It also has been wielded as a prosecutorial weapon against union-related
crimes and violence.

" Hobbs Act crimes involve interference with commerce by threats or
violence," said Federal Public Defender William Clauss. " In a more common
parlance, Hobbs Act crimes are usually robberies that have an element of
violence and that in some way affect interstate commerce.

" It's a wide net," he said.

Federal authorities in the Justice Department recently have turned to the
Hobbs Act to battle street crime, said Notre Dame law professor G. Robert
Blakey, an expert in federal racketeering statutes.

" The Hobbs Act covers both extortion and robbery," Blakey said. " If you
think about robbery affecting interstate commerce, it would be every
filling station and every liquor store (robbery). So the Department (of
Justice) would only authorize extortion cases, not robbery."

In recent years, however, federal officials " got serious about crime in
the streets and violence," he said. " So it has been more common to find
robbery prosecutions. They haven't made any effort to monopolize all
robberies. It's just been a selective tool."

Monroe County First Assistant District Attorney Mike Green agreed that the
federal statutes give authorities " another tool" to attack drug-related
violence.

" The U.S. Attorney's Office has been a tremendous help in using laws that
they have," he said.

The federal trial against the four defendants will open on Tuesday with
jury selection.

The case's court files are three volumes thick and even suggest connections
with an unsolved city homicide.

This case, like many federal cases, likely will be constructed in part on
the testimony of offenders who allege they collaborated with the accused.

Federal sentences often are much stiffer than state sentences, so
prosecutors have increased leverage to get offenders to cooperate.

Two men -- Shawn Rucker, 30, and Jason Perry, 30-- were indicted with the
four who will go on trial on Tuesday.

But Rucker and Perry pleaded guilty to federal drug-related crimes and
agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and could likely be witnesses.

Alleged accomplice

Rucker, who has gone by the nicknames " Biggie" and " Divine," said in
federal court in April that he participated in a string of drug-related
robberies with Murphy.

Rucker, who pleaded guilty to the robberies, claimed that he carried a
firearm " to protect myself from other robbers, from the people I robbed
coming back at me, (to) protect me when I sold the drugs at the house."

In an interview with police, Rucker alleged that he and Murphy pulled off
at least seven drug-related robberies.

Rucker said that he'd often keep the cash and Murphy the drugs.

James Wolford, who represents Murphy, said he cannot comment on the charges.

Sometimes, Rucker told police, he'd go by a popular nightspot to see
whether a possible drug-house target was there.

Then, he and others would pull off the robbery of the empty drug house,
knowing that the dealer was out for the night.

Afterwards, Rucker would return to the club to party and to provide an alibi.

He and his accomplices were typically armed, but Rucker said he preferred "
nonviolent" crimes because he'd once been shot during a robbery.

Some court documents don't portray Rucker as a peaceful sort, however.

According to a police report, he once grew tired of a man -- apparently a
cousin of his -- who was pestering numerous people on a street corner about
a radio he was missing.

Rucker told his cousin that " you have 20 minutes to get out of here or I
will kill you," according to allegations.

The man quickly left. Minutes later he was driving down the street and
Rucker fired off shots at him from a handgun, police said.

When questioned, Rucker claimed he gave the man " the finger" and someone
else fired the shots from a nearby corner.

Rucker originally was charged with " reckless endangerment," records show,
but the case was dropped after he and the accuser resolved the issue
between themselves.

More for Murphy

Whatever the outcome of the federal trial, authorities likely won't be
through with defendant Murphy.

In April, a federal grand jury indicted Murphy on gun-related crimes.

The indictment alleges that Murphy and two other people were involved in an
illegal transaction involving 11 firearms from two Honest John Pawn Shops
in Statesboro, Ga.

In August 2001, the indictment alleges, Murphy transported the guns to New
York " where some of the firearms were eventually concealed in shipping
packages and shipped to Jamaica."

Rochester police officials would not comment about the upcoming trial
except to note that the department will follow the case closely because
some of its officers will be testifying.

Police have complained in the past that uncooperative witnesses have
stymied some criminal investigations.

Court records show that Murphy was charged in state court in 2001 with the
shooting of Ted Francis, a drug dealer who was shot in the arm.

The charges were dismissed in 2002 while Murphy was incarcerated and facing
federal charges.

Police Investigator Robert Siersma, now retired, tried in 2001 to convince
Francis that they could keep him safe if he testified against Murphy,
documents show.

" Mr. Murphy had displayed weapons to a friend of (Francis) and asked him
where Ted Francis was," Siersma recalled in court testimony about his
interview with Francis. " He was also reluctant to get involved because he
knew that Mr. Murphy had a crew, as he called it, out on the street that he
felt would retaliate against him.

" We told him we would move his family, put them in a location where no
one would know where he is living, give his home special attention by the
Rochester Police Department," Siersma said in the court hearing.

Francis' response?

" He was very reluctant, very scared to continue to testify," Siersma said.