Feds say arrests break Green Bay drug ring Nine indicted on charges of
selling cocaine as gang expanded from Chicago By Dave Daley of the Journal
Sentinel February 18, 1998

Federal authorities say they have dismantled a major drug ring that moved
into Green Bay two years ago, arresting a man they called the leader of a
Chicago street gang and eight other alleged gang members and associates.

Indicted on Tuesday was Earl Miller, 35. Federal authorities claimed that
he was a "five-star general" in the Conservative Vice Lords that they say
is a branch of the drug-trafficking Chicago street gang called the Vice
Lords.

Jack Riley, head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's Wisconsin
office, called Miller "the franchise holder" for the Chicago gang's attempt
to expand its operations into the Green Bay area.

"You had a guy looking for virgin territory, and he found it," Riley said.
"This is the first time we've seen the Conservative Vice Lords up in Green
Bay in force. We've had bits and pieces before, but this is the first time
we've seen an NFL team there, so to speak."

Riley called the case one of the biggest gang investigations in Wisconsin
outside of Milwaukee.

"They're going to move where they can sell their wares," Riley said. "They
really turned their neighborhood into a drug marketplace."

A federal grand jury in Milwaukee on Tuesday also returned drug-trafficking
indictments against eight others, including two of Miller's brothers, Floyd
Miller, 31, of Ashwaubenon, and Garry Miller, 30, of Green Bay.

In a criminal complaint filed in federal court against Earl Miller, the
Drug Enforcement Administration alleges that after being released from an
Illinois prison, Earl Miller moved to Green Bay in the summer of 1996,
where he joined his two brothers already in the city.

Out of an apartment in the 300 block of Leeland Street on the city's west
side, the three began dealing in powder and crack cocaine, with Earl Miller
traveling to Chicago weekly to obtain as much as 5 ounces of cocaine, the
complaint says.

The complaint says that Earl Miller liked dealing in Green Bay because he
could sell cocaine for $2,500 an ounce there, compared with the going rate
of only $800 an ounce in Chicago.

The complaint also says that one of Earl Miller's cocaine suppliers in
Chicago was a member of the Blackstone gang who was selling half a kilogram
- -- about 18 ounces -- for $10,000. A second supplier was a Conservative
Vice Lords gang member operating out of Rockford, Ill., the complaint says.

Among the eight others indicted was Earl Miller's girlfriend, Alshanda
Sims, 19, who kept some of his cocaine at her Green Bay apartment and also
sold powder and crack cocaine herself, the complaint says.

Riley said arrests also were made in Chicago and Florida and more arrests
were expected.

Earl Miller and the other eight who were indicted Tuesday are in Wisconsin
jails. All face up to life in prison if convicted. Riley credited the Brown
County Sheriff's Department and the Wisconsin Department of Justice's
division of narcotics enforcement with helping in the investigation.