DRUG CONSPIRACY CASE OPENS

The Fulton Hill Hustlers drug-racketeering and conspiracy case that federal
prosecutors say clears six metropolitan Richmond murders from the middle
1990s opened yesterday in U.S. District Court.

All but three of more than a dozen original defendants have pleaded guilty.
Marcus "Pep" Johnson, Angelo "Peedie" Irving and Corey "Popeye" Murchison
are facing a jury.

Some of their convicted co-defendants will be testifying for the
prosecution in the trial, which is scheduled to run through next week.

The prosecution case holds that Johnson is responsible for three killings
and Irving for one, among other violent acts that are alleged in the
indictment as part of the racketeering charges. Murchison is accused of
drug-trafficking conspiracy.

All three are alleged to be members of the Fulton Hill Hustlers, described
as a drug gang made up of neighborhood boys - most now adults - who used
violent initiation rites and gang signs. Members hustled drugs to make
money and defended even minor violations of their Fulton Hill turf with guns.

In his opening statement yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert E. Trono
outlined the alleged murders, a couple of drive-by shootings in which one
man was shot in the eye and an attempted murder, all of which took place in
1995 or 1996.

"It's a very serious case," Trono told the jury. "A lot of people were
killed, a lot of drugs were sold, a lot of violence was used."

David Lassiter Jr., lawyer for Irving, told the jury not to be easily
convinced by the prosecutors that the defendants were all members of an
organization devoted to drug trafficking at a level sufficient for
conviction under the racketeering laws cited in the indictment.

"What they're going to show you is simple guilt by association," Lassiter
said. "What they're trying to say is, if you live in Fulton Hill . . .
you're a Fulton Hill Hustler."

Lassiter also told the jury that many of the prosecution witnesses will be
testifying in order to qualify for a sentence reduction. "For some of them,
if [they are] ever going to see the light of day again, this is the only
bus that's coming."

He urged the jury to "peel the layers away" after hearing testimony about
the crimes alleged by the prosecution.

"You're going to hear three or four different stories about how they
happened. . . . The most you're going to hear is guilt by association."