A leader in the Traveling Vice Lords street gang teamed up with one of the Austin 7 police officers to rob other drug dealers of narcotics and money, according to federal charges unsealed Friday.
The reputed gang leader, Terry Young, was licensed to carry a gun because he was a Dixmoor Park District police officer, and he was also elected GOP committeeman of Chicago’s 2nd Ward last year, authorities disclosed.
Young and 13 other men–some of them high-ranking members of the gang as well–were charged with running a large-scale cocaine, crack and heroin operation at the Henry Horner Homes and Rockwell Gardens public housing developments and elsewhere on the West Side.
The charges are an outgrowth of a six-year-long federal investigation of the Traveling Vice Lords. In September, the gang probe converged with the Operation Broken Star investigation of police corruption when wiretaps recorded Young allegedly conspiring to rob other drug dealers with a Chicago police officer identified in government documents only as “Officer A.”
Sources said that the alleged rogue cop is Edward Lee Jackson Jr., one of the seven suspended Austin District tactical officers indicted in December and charged with robbing an undercover federal agent posing as a drug dealer.
Prosecutors have previously said that Jackson, a six-year police veteran who is nicknamed “Pacman,” is a high-ranking leader of a different Vice Lord faction, the Conservative Vice Lords.
Jackson’s lawyer, Joan Hill-McClain, also represents Young, and prosecutors raised concerns about a conflict of interest.
After a closed-door meeting in the chambers of U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward Bobrick, Hill-McClain said she couldn’t discuss the matter because of a “gag” order issued by the judge.
The criminal complaint filed against Young, 31, also disclosed that Officer A had vacationed in the Bahamas last September. At a bond hearing in December, prosecutors noted that Jackson had taken a recent trip to the Bahamas in arguing he was a risk to flee if released from custody.
According to the charges, the day after he was elected GOP committeeman of the 2nd Ward, Young was tape-recorded on the wiretap telling his drug supplier that the election was over and it was time to “do something.” Authorities believe he was informing his drug source that he and his associates were ready to resume distributing narcotics.
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Young is also vice president of Act Maintenance Ltd., a janitorial firm that has won praise for putting neighborhood youths to work. But the charges allege Young used the company to launder drug profits.
“This is yet another classic example of the sophistication and the evolution of street gangs (and) their attempts to infiltrate the political system, their attempts to set up legitimate businesses and then use them in part to launder their monies,” U.S. Atty. Jim Burns said at a news conference.
“That’s preposterous,” Keith Jackson, president of Act Maintenance, said of the money-laundering charges. “I barely made the payroll today.”
About 15 Internal Revenue Service agents searched the company’s offices for three hours on Friday, carting away several boxes of records, Jackson said.
Young was unknown to Republican leaders prior to last year, when he defeated the longtime 2nd Ward committeeman, Don Beachem, by just 26 votes.
“Suddenly, Terry Young’s name appeared on the ballot,” said Manny Hoffman, the Cook County Republican chairman. “Anybody can pick up a ballot and anybody can run. That’s the process.”
The Dixmoor Park District is currently under investigation by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, said Dixmoor Mayor Zeb Lollis.
According to state records, the district has 33 police officers and collects almost $250,000 in taxes. Yet there is only one park in Dixmoor, Children’s Memorial Park, which is a tot lot with a few swings.
“We’ve had problems with the Park District for the last three years trying to abolish them,” said Lollis. “I don’t know what they do with 33 police officers. That’s more than the village itself. We’re only a square mile.”
A spokesman for the state’s attorney’s office declined to comment on the investigation.
Investigators code-named the probe of the gang’s drug-trafficking Operation Fly Swat, a reference to Young’s nickname, “T-Fly.”
With State’s Atty. Dick Devine at his side, Burns told reporters that the narcotics stolen from other drug dealers was then sold by the Traveling Vice Lords and the cash proceeds were divided up with Officer A and other participants.
Until as recently as Tuesday, federal authorities used a series of court-authorized wiretaps to eavesdrop electronically on four telephones used by Young and co-defendant Mohammad Mansoori, who is alleged to be the gang’s narcotics supplier and lives in a mansion in Highland Park.
A 95-page criminal complaint detailed the charges of drug-dealing and also highlighted wiretapped conversations of Officer A allegedly plotting robberies with Young.
Officer A allegedly played a part in a cocaine deal that went awry last Oct. 31, when FBI agents and Chicago police officers seized about one kilo of cocaine.
Three days later, an informant tipped authorities that Officer A had told him that he and Young “just lost about $90,000, both of us; we (messed) up,” according to the complaint. A kilo could have been worth about $90,000 at the time, authorities said.
Burns said the narcotics charges against Young and the 13 others grew out of an investigation of the Traveling Vice Lords that resulted in convictions of 15 gang members last summer in federal court.
In that probe, a veteran Chicago gang crimes police officer worked undercover posing as a crooked cop who took guns and narcotics from gang leaders to let their lucrative drug operation in the 2700 block of West Flournoy Street run unimpeded.
According to testimony at the trial, Young and Andrew “Bay Bay” Patterson were co-leaders of the Traveling Vice Lords. Patterson has been incarcerated since 1995.
Mansoori’s brother, Bahman, 32, of Chicago, also was charged Friday. The others indicted are: Mark Cox, 22; Billy Carter, 23; Kenneth Choice, 27; Timothy White, 32; Terry Bronson, 27; Rodrigo Botero, 44; John Hunt, 35; Mark Clemons, 31; and Willie Love, 32, all of Chicago; Anthony Buchanan, 24, of Schaumburg; and Marvin Hudson, 44, of Calumet City.
LAWSUIT ALLEGES AUSTIN COP PLANTED DRUGS
A 53-year-old man who claims he was falsely arrested by one of the indicted Austin police officers filed suit Friday in federal court seeking unspecified damages against the officer, the city of Chicago and the YMCA.
Thomas Harris, a former employee at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, filed suit in U.S. District Court alleging that police officer Alex Ramos planted drugs on him more than three years ago when Harris was living in the West Side Austin YMCA.
Harris’ suit is based on several counts, including assault, false arrest and imprisonment, and negligent hiring and retention of police officers. Harris still faces criminal charges stemming from his arrest.
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According to police reports, Ramos was moonlighting as a security guard when he overheard Harris and a woman discussing a drug deal in Harris’ room. When Ramos tried to enter, a scuffle ensued and he subsequently found crack cocaine. But Harris alleges in the lawsuit that Ramos planted the drugs after he refused to sell narcotics for the officer.