Wicked town traveling vice lords trial#
Wicked town traveling vice lords series#

Russell said he was impressed when he saw Lee “come to” and start hitting his opponent with glass bottles. He said he first met Lee when Lee was a “little kid” and was choked to the point of nearly passing out during a fight on the street. Russell, who’d approached the witness stand using a cane and walking with a pronounced limp, recounted being shot and partially paralyzed in the mid-1990s, causing him to briefly relinquish control of the gang. Russell pleaded guilty to racketeering and is expecting prosecutors to recommend a sentence of 10 to 20 years behind bars in exchange for his truthful testimony.ĭressed in orange jail clothes, Russell told the jury he grew up in gangs as a “rite of passage” through his father, a Traveling Vice Lord who was murdered in 1978. On Monday afternoon, prosecutors called Marquel Russell, 45, who founded the Wicked Town faction in the 1990s. “They weren’t getting together to watch football.” “This wasn’t just a social club, a group of guys,” Arce said in his opening statement. The gang regularly promoted its violent enterprise on social media, posting comments, photos and videos to proclaim membership in the gang, taunt rival gang members and boast about murders and other acts of violence, the superseding indictment filed last year alleged. He faces mandatory life in prison when he’s sentenced later this year.Īlthough Chicago’s once-massive street gangs are now believed to be fractured and less structured, the Wicked Town members nonetheless aligned themselves through rituals and oaths, commemorative tattoos and coded language, according to federal prosecutors.

Spann was convicted of overseeing a similarly violent enterprise that resulted in slayings and robberies that terrorized Chicago neighborhoods.

Wicked town traveling vice lords trial#

The case against Lee and Benson has echoes of the racketeering trial of Labar “Bro Man” Spann, the reputed leader of another West Side gang, the Four Corner Hustlers, who was convicted in the same courthouse last year. Recently, authorities intercepted a call Lee made from the Metropolitan Correctional Center using the credentials of another inmate in which he discussed not only the names of witnesses, but the order in which they’re expected to be called to testify, records show. Last week, Durkin also suspended all jail phone privileges for Lee, who was accused by prosecutors of violating orders and attempting to reach out to potential witnesses in the case, court records show. District Judge Thomas Durkin granted prosecutors’ request for jurors to remain anonymous, and phones and other electronics have been banned for the general public from both the trial courtroom and an overflow room where spectators can watch a video feed. Nearly a dozen other members of the Wicked Town gang have pleaded guilty in the case, and several are expected to testify during the two-month trial. If convicted, they each could face life in prison. Lee is also charged with two counts of murder in the aid of racketeering, while Benson faces one count of aggravated assault in furtherance of the conspiracy. Lee, 41, and Benson, 31, are each charged with racketeering conspiracy and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon. The trial comes as authorities continue to grapple with an alarmingly high number of shootings and homicides in the city, which are down slightly this year but still have given Chicago a national reputation for an out-of-control gun culture.

Wicked town traveling vice lords series#

The Wicked Town case is one of a series of conspiracy indictments brought by federal authorities in recent years that use the racketeering statute to hold Chicago’s street gangs accountable for a seemingly endless cycle of violence. We will get to all the failures of proof in the government’s case.” “The evidence will come in witness by witness, but we will get there. “This case will not be a sprint, unfortunately, it’s going to be a marathon,” Shobat said.