VICE LORDS 'DRUG GANG' REFERENCES CHALLENGED

CINCINNATI - The landmark prosecution of an entire Knoxville street gang
under federal drug conspiracy laws faced its first appellate court
challenge Wednesday as attorneys accused prosecutors of effectively
criminalizing gang membership.

"My client was the leader of the gang," defense attorney Phil Lomonaco said
at a hearing in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "He was not a leader
of a drug conspiracy."

Lomonaco's client is Walter "Heavy" Williams, leader of the Imperial Insane
Vice Lords street gang.

Williams and two gang members, Allen "Capone" Young and Michael "New York"
Smith, were convicted in U.S. District Court in late 2003 of conspiring
with more than 20 Vice Lords members to dominate the crack cocaine trade in
Knoxville's inner city.

The convictions came after the entire gang, whose members numbered as high
as 26, was indicted as a drug-trafficking organization. The case was the
first of its kind in Knoxville.

As such, it tested the ability of the government to prove that a gang is
itself a criminal enterprise.

Being a member of a gang is just as legal as signing on with a civic group
like the Lion's Club. Authorities could and did nab individual gang members
for his or her misdeeds, but the gang itself was legally untouchable,
absent some showing of Mafia-style racketeering.

The Vice Lords were no Mafia, but the gang was in a class of its own on
Knoxville's streets. Unlike most Knoxville gangs, the Vice Lords were
highly structured. They had bylaws and membership rituals. There were
titles of rank and regular business meetings.

It was that level of organization that ultimately enabled authorities to
infiltrate the gang. Using secret recording devices stashed inside the
gang's meeting place, dubbed the "Honeycomb," authorities contended they
gleaned evidence showing the organization's sole purpose was hawking crack.

Drug conspiracy indictments were handed up by a federal grand jury in 2002.
Most members pleaded guilty, but Williams, Young and Smith took their case
to trial. They lost.

Lomonaco argued before a three-judge appeals panel Wednesday that the gang
leader and his two underlings were convicted not by proof of a drug
conspiracy but by gang affiliation alone.

"Right from the start, the first words of the indictment said the
defendants are all members of the Vice Lords gang operating in Knoxville,"
he said. "(Williams) was tried as a gang member rather than as a cocaine
conspiracy member."

Young's attorney, Angela Morelock, told the appellate judges that jurors
were prejudiced by repeated references to her client as gang "war chief," a
title Young held within the gang in his role as head of security for the group.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Jennings argued there was no distinction
between the gang and the cocaine conspiracy.

"This gang was about nothing but the drug trade," Jennings said.

He said the government was essentially forced to use gang titles and
nicknames during the trial to identify individual members and their
respective roles in the drug conspiracy.

"This is how these guys identified each other on the street," he said.

Chief Judge Danny J. Boggs wondered aloud whether the appellate court
ultimately must weigh the potential for prejudicing jurors with talk of
gang activity against prosecutors' need to prove the gang was a front for
drug trafficking.

"You can't talk about these events without a lot of gang talk and gang
evidence, can you?" Boggs asked Lomonaco.

Lomonaco replied, "If the government had only used what was necessary, this
wouldn't be an issue."

Jennings did concede at Wednesday's hearing that Williams, Young and Smith
are entitled to new sentencing hearings because of a recent landmark U.S.
Supreme Court decision on federal sentencing guidelines.

However, those sentencing hearings will not be held until the 6th Circuit
first decides whether the trio's convictions will stand. It could be months
before the court rules.