RACKETEERING ALLEGED IN COMPLICATED MARIJUANA CASE

Prosecutors Say Tons Of Drug Were Distributed Here

A purported marijuana kingpin who is the focal point of the largest
narcotics case in the county in decades will be prosecuted under the
state's rarely used racketeering law.

All told, Kenneth L. Green, a Chicagoan jailed in lieu of a locally
unprecedented $10 million bail, faces prison terms totaling up to 255 years
if he is convicted as now charged. Authorities believe is he responsible
for the distribution of tens of thousands of pounds of marijuana a year in
Milwaukee since 1996.

As the eight counts were formally filed by prosecutors during Green's
arraignment last week, some of his supposed lieutenants were lining up to
plead guilty for their roles in the alleged conspiracy, which is believed
to have occasionally distributed kilograms of cocaine during times when
marijuana stocks were tight.

"At this point, it's my impression a number of defendants will resolve
their cases before Mr. Green," Assistant District Attorney John Chisholm,
the lead prosecutor in the case, told Circuit Judge Richard J. Sankovitz.

In the last few weeks, lawyers for four of the alleged middlemen told
Sankovitz that their clients are leaning toward pleading guilty.

The terms of any plea bargains extended to the four were not made public in
the case. The standard practice in Circuit Court is for those details to be
made part of the case record on the day a defendant enters a guilty plea.

Chisholm told Sankovitz that a plea bargain has been extended to Green, but
his defense attorney, Stephen M. Glynn, said it would be several weeks
before he and his client would be able to finish assessing the evidence
authorities have accumulated in a probe begun roughly 16 months ago.

The case has been cloaked in an unusually high degree of secrecy since
Green, 37, and his co-defendants were charged in April and began being
picked up on arrest warrants.

Evidence, including police reports, is typically not shared with defendants
until after arraignment. But in the case involving Green and 10 others, not
even the criminal complaints have been made public.

State law requires that information in such cases not be disclosed until
after the subjects of wiretaps have had the opportunity to waive or contest
the use of evidence garnered from the phone bugs.

What little evidence that has been made public so far came in the form of
testimony during the preliminary hearing for Green last month. During that
proceeding, testimony from two men who are alleged to have dealt in large
quantities of marijuana indicated that Green simultaneously supplied
multiple Milwaukee middlemen with hundreds of pounds of marijuana monthly
while he was tucked away safely in Chicago.

One of the two informants testified that by himself he distributed 31/2
tons of marijuana a year for Green.

Lead investigator Timothy Gray, of the state Division of Narcotics
Enforcement, testified that authorities used sophisticated surveillance,
including the use of satellite-based tracking bugs and videotaping in
addition to the wiretaps.

The evidence also included transcripts of recorded telephone conversations
involving an alleged Green lieutenant, Daniel Ellis, from the state prison
where he is currently serving a 54-month term. Other testimony and evidence
so far indicates ties to Houston and Jamaica.

Finally, according to testimony during the preliminary hearing, Green's
alleged drug ring resorted to occasional violence to keep the various
suppliers in line, and he once had one of the defendants in the case shot.

In addition to telling Sankovitz last week that prosecutors would begin
supplying Green and Glynn with the thousands of pages of evidence under
court discovery rules, Chisholm said he plans to file a request with Chief
Judge Michael Skwierawski asking that his orders sealing criminal
complaints and other documents be lifted.

Glynn said he hopes to have the evidence against his client sized up by
July 12, when he is due to return to court.

The charges filed against Green include the racketeering count concerning
the distribution of marijuana and cocaine in Milwaukee from April 1996 to
Dec. 30, 1999, the day before truth-in-sentencing took effect in the state.
That charge carries a prison term of not less than 10 years and not more
than 30 years.

The other charges fall under truth-in-sentencing and include: two counts of
delivery of cocaine; one count of possession of marijuana with intent to
deliver; one count of attempted delivery of cocaine; one count of delivery
of marijuana; one count of conspiracy to deliver cocaine and one count of
conspiracy to deliver marijuana. Those charges, upon conviction, carry
prison terms totaling 43 years.

The defendants who are currently scheduled to plead guilty and could wind
up as witnesses against Green are: Ellis, 40, who is serving his sentence
in the Fox Lake Correctional Institution; Clifton S. Williams, 27, of West
Allis; Edward Chen, 28, of Milwaukee; and Kenneth DuPree, 41, of Milwaukee.