EX-DRUG DEALER TELLS HIS TALE TO VINELAND STUDENTS

VINELAND -- Robert "Midget" Molley once wore a king's crown to
signify his status as Atlantic City's top drug dealer.

On Thursday afternoon, he appeared before students at Cunningham
Alternative School on East Avenue as a humbled man, wearing a
colorful sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers.

Molley visited the school with members of the local group, FED-UP
4U, for a gang awareness seminar. Organizers said they hoped the
visit would motivate students to avoid the lure of street gangs, a
growing problem in Cumberland County.

And Molley, whose nickname comes from his short stature, told them a
cautionary tale.

Molley, 50, lived the high life in the 1980s as the leader of a drug
empire that raked in as much as $1 million per month.

But it all came crashing down in 1990, when he was sentenced to 20
years in federal prison on drug trafficking charges. He told the
students he was arrested after state and federal investigators used
wiretaps at a home Molley owned on South Second Street in Vineland
to gather evidence.

"All the things that I had, the government took that from me," said
Molley, the son of a Pentecostal minister.

Molley's life was the subject of an installment of the BET network
series "American Gangster" last year, and he showed the students
clips from the documentary.

"What's so fantastic about doing time in prison?" Molley asked the
students afterward, adding that serving time is often wrongly
glorified in hip-hop songs. "What did I gain?"

Molley, who converted to the Muslim faith as a teenager, also uses
the name Hakeem Ali Abdul-Shaheed. He was released from prison in 2006.

James Cooper, a Vineland resident and one of the founders of FED-UP
4U, was a lieutenant in Molley's drug empire.

Cooper, 41, also served time in state and federal prisons on drug
and white-collar crime charges before his release in 2006.

"Was it worth it?" Cooper asked of his life in the drug trade.

Although it bought him lavish homes, fancy cars and more clothes
than he could ever wear, "I threw my dignity out the window. I threw
my respect out the window."

FED-UP 4U is a Vineland-based nonprofit group aimed at helping young
people sidestep the gang life. (The acronym FED-UP 4U stands for
Faith. Education. Demanding. Universal. Peace. 4U.)

A total of about 200 students heard the presentation in two sessions.

Senior Matthew Shaud-Gentry, 18, said hearing Molley's story
reinforced the idea, "don't mess up, don't get in the streets or
you'll go to prison for the rest of your life."