VIOLENT ACTS BY DRUG GANG OUTLINED IN AFFIDAVIT

Threats, Bribes Thwarted Prosecution, Officials Say

Four days before Christmas 2000, a 25-year-old woman's body burned
inside a home on Cherry St.

More than four years later, the homicide is officially listed as
unsolved.

But an affidavit filed with federal search warrants for drug houses
controlled by the Cherry Street Mob link the group to the young
woman's killing. Her offense: losing track of drug money.

The affidavit - used by local, state and federal authorities to secure
search warrants at 28 houses tied to the drug gang in December -
details numerous other acts of violence and intimidation by the Cherry
Street Mob.

Its members have avoided prosecution for homicides, shootings and
assaults through both threats and bribery, according to the affidavit,
which was filed by an investigator from the Wisconsin Department of
Justice who has been working on a federal Drug Enforcement
Administration task force. Members of the Milwaukee Police Department
also were part of the task force.

At least 35 people suspected of being affiliated with the group were
arrested on drug charges in a sweep Dec. 1 after a two-year undercover
investigation. At least eight more have been arrested since then.

The breadth of the investigation makes it unlikely that either bribery
or intimidation of witnesses will ruin the case. The task force
collected evidence through a variety of means, including controlled
drug buys, phone taps, recorded jailhouse telephone calls and even the
placement of GPS tracking devices on defendants' cars.

Victim dated defendant

One of the defendants, Kinyater Grant, now 27, was dating the slain
woman, Tasha Wells, according to the affidavit. Grant is charged in
federal court with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.
According to Milwaukee police records referenced in the federal court
file, Wells' death was caused by blunt trauma. The house where she
died was then set on fire. At the time, police detectives interviewed
Grant, who admitted selling marijuana from the house but said he
didn't know anything about Wells' death, according to the records.

During the undercover investigation, police developed information that
Wells was killed by members of the Cherry Street Mob because she was
short either drugs or proceeds from their sale, according to the
affidavit. She claimed she had been robbed.

Another homicide, a shooting that apparently occurred over drug
territory in April 1999, was not prosecuted after a key witness
recanted, according to the affidavit. Eric Love and another man were
in a car parked in the 6200 block of Appleton Ave. when a man walked
up to the car and fired several shots, killing Love.

Ted F. Robertson, now 32, was charged with first-degree reckless
homicide in the case, but the charges were dropped when the witness
changed his story, according to court records. Robertson is among
those arrested last month on drug charges.

Other violent acts attributed to the Cherry Street Mob include a
kidnapping and at least two other shootings - one in which five people
were hit, according to the affidavit. Charges in all of them were
dismissed after victims or witnesses indicated that they were too
scared to testify, according to the records.

In at least one case, a victim's mother was paid thousands of dollars
to ensure that the victim did not testify, according to the affidavit.

The records also detail the rise of the Cherry Street Mob from a
small-time group of neighborhood guys to a sophisticated drug
operation. Around 1988, when the Mob originated, it distributed 2 to 3
kilograms of cocaine per week, according to the affidavit.

Profitable operation

Before December, members were making frequent cocaine-buying trips to
Texas, where two of the gang's original members had relocated. Back in
Milwaukee, they cooked most of the cocaine into crack and distributed
it at crack houses in the area of W. Cherry St.

According to the affidavit, the venture was extremely profitable. One
kilogram of cocaine cost about $16,000 in Texas, where the group's
suppliers were based. In Milwaukee, a rock of crack weighing one-tenth
of a gram costs $10; a gram sells for $100. At those rates, Mob
members made a profit of about $84,000 per kilogram.

"The proceeds derived from the sale of controlled substances are
reinvested in part in more controlled substances, divided among
conspirators as income; and used for the purchases of property,
vehicles or other investments," according to the affidavit.

Some of the money covered the other costs of doing business. For
example, youths known as "shorties" were paid $500 a week to run the
drug houses. Women were paid to buy guns for the gang members, who did
not want to be officially connected to the weapons or were not legally
allowed to buy them because of felony records. Associates were
rewarded for taking the fall for Mob leaders and serving prison time.

No chance for parole

While some of the people affiliated with the group have been sentenced
to prison terms by the state courts in the past, many sentences were
short and resulted in parole. About a dozen of those arrested in the
recent sweep are being prosecuted in state court on new charges. This
time, though, parole is not an option, under the state's
truth-in-sentencing law.

Thirty-one others are charged with drug conspiracy in federal court,
where parole does not exist.

While none of the federal defendants has been charged with a violent
crime, the federal system allows longer sentences based on factors
such as previous criminal records and suspected violence. If
convicted, the federal defendants face penalties ranging from a
minimum of 10 to 20 years in prison to a maximum of life in prison.