SUSPECTED DRUG BOSS SAYS HE'S MARKED MAN

Accused drug kingpin Nate Hill admitted he sold cocaine in the early
1990s, but he insisted at the start of his trial Thursday that both
the government and street gangs refused to believe he had gotten out
of the business.

A gang thought he had relocated to avoid paying street taxes, put out
a hit on him and shot him in the back and leg, Hill told jurors in
opening remarks.

And the government hit Hill with a thick indictment accusing him of
supplying more than 3 tons of cocaine to two of Chicago's largest
street gangs, the Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords, between 1987 and
1995.

"If the government had offered me five years (in prison), I would have
taken it," said Hill, 33, representing himself at the trial. "But they
want to make an example out of me."

He faces up to life in prison if convicted in U.S. District
Court.

Also on trial is Cordell Jones, accused of carrying out a shooting on
Hill's orders. The victim was shot in the head but survived.

Hill fled after he was indicted in early 1996, first to Mexico and
eventually Africa, Assistant U.S. Atty. Colleen Coughlin told jurors.

During his absence, Hill's sister, Sharon Neely, who helped launder
drug money, and two others were convicted and two couriers were
acquitted. Before that 1996 trial, 11 other defendants pleaded guilty.

Early last year, Hill, one of the top 15 most wanted fugitives sought
by the U.S. Marshals Service, was arrested in Guinea, West Africa,
operating a business selling tons of coffee.

"I ran, I ran home to Africa because I was afraid," Hill, a native of
Chicago, said Thursday in court.

Both Hill and Jones chose to wear orange prison jumpsuits in court
instead of street clothes.

Coughlin and co-prosecutor Daniel Gillogly promised an inside view of
Hill's cocaine-trafficking from "those who helped him on a daily basis."

But Hill said the government's case was built on deals with liars
trying to avoid stiff prison sentences.

According to Coughlin, Hill's operation brought multi-kilo quantities
of cocaine from California to Chicago in cars with secret
compartments, a customized tour bus, commercial airliners and Lear
jets.

Prosecutors alleged that Hill ordered the killing of two men whom he
suspected of plotting to kidnap him. One survived the attack.

Coughlin said Hill sank more than $2 million in cocaine profits into a
bus company, a record business and the production of a full-length
movie based on his life as a drug dealer.