DEATH PENALTY SOUGHT FOR DRUG TRIO

Nashville Court To Try Them In String Of Killings, Torture In Several Cities

A kingpin and two members of a drug ring that is accused of reaching into
Nashville from Los Angeles should face the death penalty, federal
prosecutors here said yesterday.

The three are responsible for seven killings - all in Los Angeles and
Oklahoma City - as well as numerous drug-related robberies, abductions and
tortures that took place in Nashville and several other cities, the U.S.
attorney's office for the Middle District of Tennessee said.

Federal prosecutors in Nashville yesterday filed a notice of intent to seek
the death penalty against Jamal Shakir, Eben Payne and Donnell Young.

Prosecution of the ring - implicated in gang-related drug trafficking,
violent offenses, money laundering and firearms violations - is being
handled locally because the bulk of evidence against the defendants was
collected in Nashville, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sunny Koshy.

More than 40 people from Nashville and elsewhere have been prosecuted in
federal court in connection with the ring, Koshy said.

A federal grand jury here indicted the three on Sept. 27 on charges
resulting from an investigation led by the Organized Crime and Drug
Enforcement Task Force and a federal grand jury investigation into
gang-related drug trafficking and violent crime, the U.S. attorney's office
said.

The case took years to investigate and involved city, state and federal law
enforcement agencies.

Prosecutors hope the indictments will send a message to gang members in
other cities. ''Part of our goal is to make sure that gangs don't poison
our neighborhoods,'' Koshy said.

Shakir, 29, is considered the leader of the L.A.-based gang Rollin' 90s
Crips, which operated in Nashville, Memphis, Oklahoma City and Los Angeles,
prosecutors said. The gang is also known as the Rollin' 90s Neighborhood
Crips and the Bangside 90s.

Although he is serving a life sentence in a California prison for
kidnapping, Shakir is still considered a threat and is accused of
threatening the lives of witnesses against him and law enforcement agents,
the U.S. attorney's office said.

Shakir, Payne, 24, and Young, 27, are accused of killing seven people in
Los Angeles and Oklahoma City and shooting and wounding a 3-year-old girl.

The seven homicide victims were killed as part of a drug trafficking
criminal enterprise that distributed more than 330 pounds of cocaine,
prosecutors said.

The child's shooting was particularly heinous, the U.S. attorney's office
said. In that case, Payne is accused of killing a man and woman who had let
him stay at their Oklahoma City residence Jan. 23, 1997. He also shot and
injured the woman's 3-year-old daughter, according to a federal indictment.

''The 3-year-old girl suffered for days before she was found in bed with
the bloated, decomposing bodies of her mother and'' the male victim, the
indictment states. The two adults were both killed so they wouldn't
cooperate with a law enforcement investigation, Koshy said.

Payne and Young also are considered a continuing threat, although they are
incarcerated in California, Koshy said.

The trial is set for May 19. U.S. District Judge John T. Nixon will preside
over the case.