GANG DRUG CONSPIRACY CASE GOES TO JURY

A federal jury will begin deliberations Wednesday in the latest trial of
Gangster Disciple leaders after one defendant, representing himself, argued
prosecutors failed to prove the gang was involved in a multimillion-dollar
narcotics conspiracy.

"Where is the money? Where is the property? Where are the proceeds?"
defendant Jeffrey Hatcher, an admitted high-ranking member of the gang,
asked jurors Tuesday. "I want to see it. I think you should want to see it."

Hatcher and four other gang leaders have been on trial since mid-July in
U.S. District Court in Chicago.

Hatcher attacked the government's main witnesses, former gang members, as
liars who simply couldn't be trusted.

But in his closing argument, Assistant U.S. Atty. Jonathan King said the
government's most powerful evidence came in the form of some 180 secretly
recorded gang conversations that laid bare the drug dealing.

"When you heard those tapes, you were there, you were inside the drug
conspiracy," King told jurors. "The tapes cannot lie."

Hatcher maintained the gang was trying to evolve into a force for good in
the black community and that he and other leaders could not be blamed for
drug dealing by individual members.

He admitted tape recordings of Gangster Disciple leader Larry Hoover in
meetings with gang lieutenants in prison were filled with discussions of
drug-dealing, but he characterized the comments as "fantasies."

"This indictment is overstated, overzealous, and they overreacted," Hatcher
said.

Prosecutors have alleged that Hatcher and co-defendants Jimmie Gholson and
Bryan Crenshaw jockeyed to lead the gang after the indictment of Hoover and
38 gang leaders in 1995.

King contended that Hatcher was intimately involved in the Gangster
Disciples' narcotics operation, collecting drug money from other top gang
leaders in Chicago and the suburbs.

If Hatcher was innocent, why did he flee about a year after he was indicted
with Hoover, remaining a fugitive until authorities tracked him down in
Wisconsin, asked King.

Hatcher was "awash in a sea of crack cocaine, and he would have you believe
he knew nothing about it," King said.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan