ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603110101
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
TONY paces in his parents' living room, waiting for the call he hopes will save his life. The man from the federal government promised to call back by the end of the day, and it's almost 5 p.m. now.
The former hit man, who worked in Richmond for one of Virginia's most violent drug gangs, has returned to his hometown of Roanoke. He's holed up at his parents' house, harassed and threatened, waiting for the government to relocate him.
Once the hunter, Tony now feels like the hunted.
He used to kill people for money - $25,000 a hit, he says. But sitting in jail a few years ago, convicted of armed robbery, he decided it was time to go straight.
He volunteered his knowledge to help the federal government prosecute 13 fellow gang members for drug and weapons charges. The testimony of Tony and others put the leader of the gang, Eugene Johnson, behind bars for four life terms plus 225 years.
``I never asked for anything but to be protected,'' says Tony, who agreed to tell his story on the condition his real name and that of his family not be used.
Tony was released from prison in October, expecting to be given a new identity and moved far from Roanoke. But, he says, someone in Washington decided he didn't need the federal Witness Security Program.
The program, better known as the witness protection program, relocates whole families and gives them new identities and job training.
Tony, 31, says he was promised entry into the program when he agreed to testify against his gang. Internal memos from prison officials and the Virginia Parole Board confirm that he was headed for the witness protection program after his release.
Instead, he was released to Roanoke, and is not allowed to leave the area without his parole officer's consent.
And now, he believes, someone is after him.
An unignited Molotov cocktail was thrown through his apartment window Jan. 23, an apartment from which he has since moved. And, he says, two people attacked him on his job. His face and neck bear cuts and bruises from a recent fight, in which, he says, two men jumped him.
Even the government that won't help him acknowledges that Roanoke is a bad place for Tony. The witness protection program has classified him as being in "a high-risk environment," according to documents related to his case.
In his former circles, he's infamous, Tony says, and he needs to go where no one knows him.
``Very few people in the criminal element don't know me, unless they're real young,'' he says.
One of the gang members he testified against, and who was acquitted, is from Roanoke. And it's not just people connected to the gang that he worries about. Being a snitch is so reviled on the street, any would-be gangster trying to make a name for himself could go after him.
He's not used to relying on law enforcement for protection. He feels helpless. It would be easy to slip back into his former habits, pick up a gun and defend himself. He killed for a living, so he knows the trade. But he's trying to stay straight.
``The fact is, I can take care of myself. I choose not to,'' Tony says, waiting for the phone to ring. ``Every crime I ever committed is violent. I don't want that no more.''
The first time Tony killed a man, it was for Eugene Johnson.
Richmond homicide detective C.T. Woody pursued the Eugene Johnson gang for four or five years before its members were finally arrested. He remembers them as being "as cold as they come. There was no limit to what they would do." Richmond police were able to clear at least 14 unsolved murders after arresting the gang, Woody says.
Tony was about 24 and had just gotten out of prison when he was introduced to Johnson. The gang leader - one of Richmond's biggest cocaine dealers - gave Tony and a friend $5,000 and 12 ounces of cocaine to sell as down payment. The rest of the $25,000 contract would be paid after they killed Leslie Braxton, an underling in the organization who Johnson believed had helped a rival group.
The first time Tony and his friend tried to kill Braxton, Braxton was a passenger in a car and Tony was riding in the back seat. The gun jammed when Tony tried to fire at the back of Braxton's head, and Braxton walked away unaware.
That night at supper, Tony's wife sent him and his friend out to buy ketchup. Braxton had the misfortune of running into the pair again on the street. This time, the gun worked.
``I walked by him, turned around, shot him in the back of the head,'' Tony testified, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which covered the 1991 trial of the Johnson gang. ``He fell. I stood over top of him'' and fired again.
Today, Tony sees that killing as a turning point in his life. He claims working as a contract killer sickened him so much that now he cannot even watch violence on television.
``What really made me value life was the first time I pulled the trigger,'' he says, aware now of the chilling irony in that statement. ``It was the way he dropped. That did it.''
It wasn't like on TV, with a dramatic swoon and a slow collapse. The man just dropped with a heavy thud.
Despite this apparent epiphany, Tony says he went on to kill again, although he would rather not say how many times because he was never prosecuted for those crimes.
He stresses that he never killed out of anger; it was ``never a personal thing,'' but merely business. That distinction seems important to him.
The people he killed were rivals in the cocaine trade; he says he's never killed women, children or old people.
Tony was convicted of Braxton's killing, but as part of a deal with prosecutors, it was on a charge of second-degree murder rather than the capital murder count he could have faced. His sentence was made concurrent with time he was already serving for armed robbery, so he didn't get any extra time for the murder. And even though they were state charges, he was allowed to finish his sentence in protected witness units in federal prison.
``Obviously, he got very, very favorable treatment,'' says David Johnson of Richmond, Tony's public defender at the time.
But the favorable treatment is over. Four years after he testified, Tony was released from prison but was denied entry into the post-prison relocation phase of the witness protection program. The FBI arranged to give him $2,000 upon his release last fall, he says, but that's long been spent.
"I tell you this: If I had to do it all over again, this organization would still be operating. Because crooks look out for their friends," Tony says. "The feds - they use you and that's it."
Most of Tony's adult life has been spent in a cage.
Convicted of armed robbery in 1984 at age 20, he was paroled in 1988. Eight months later, he was back in prison on similar charges.
It was during those eight months of freedom that Tony got involved with the Eugene Johnson gang, a gang that terrorized the Blackwell section of Richmond, selling drugs, shaking down merchants and killing those who got in the way.
Back in prison in 1989, Tony decided to change his life. And he did that in a big way.
He could have chosen simply to walk the straight and narrow after his release. Instead, he wrote to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Richmond, saying, ``I can give you Eugene Johnson on a silver platter.''
Two days later, the feds showed up at his prison. ``I didn't even know the mail ran that quick," he jokes.
He had decided to help the government, he says, after his gravely ill father asked him to turn his life around. ``I guess cooperating with the government was a way to cleanse my soul.''
David Johnson, his public defender, remembers it differently. Tony felt that the gang hadn't treated him right, Johnson recalls, and he was ``stewing'' about that in prison.
Whatever his motivation, Tony gave his story to federal prosecutors, implicating himself in a murder in the process. He just wanted protection when he got out.
His gang members were described by a prosecutor during their 1991 trial as ``this disgusting, murderous group of people who engaged in the enterprise of selling cocaine in this city and killing people when things didn't go right or the way [Eugene Johnson] wanted them to.''
Thirteen people went on trial in Richmond federal court in 1991, charged with a variety of crimes such as conspiracy to transport drugs into Virginia, using violence to aid racketeering, and distributing cocaine. Eugene Johnson was charged under the federal drug kingpin law with operating a continuing criminal enterprise.
Tony made himself some powerful enemies by agreeing to testify.
``I think this guy did everything he promised he would do,'' David Johnson, his public defender, says. ``He put himself in some very real danger at the time he testified. If he's still in danger, I certainly hope the government will take care of him.''
The friend who Tony testified had helped him kill Braxton was the only gang member acquitted by the jury. That friend is from Roanoke.
Tony "broke the code of silence," says Woody, the Richmond homicide detective, "and if [the friend] had the opportunity to do something to him, I'm sure that he would."
Johnson and the prosecutor who handled the case against the gang defendants both confirm that Tony was promised protection.
Johnson says Tony had cut his deal with the government before he became Tony's public defender, but ``my understanding was he was going to be in the witness protection program while in prison,'' and usually witnesses continue in that after they are released, he says.
``He was a big-time witness,'' Johnson says. ``They were very pleased with his testimony.''
Howard Vick, then a federal prosecutor and now commonwealth's attorney for Henrico County, agrees.
``He was a very good witness, because he was articulate and believable,'' Vick recalls. ``He's a sad case. He's a bright guy; it's a shame he went down that path.''
Vick confirms that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Richmond sponsored Tony for the witness protection program run by the U.S. Marshals Service, which is the only way a person can qualify. A prosecutor must say that there is a threat against the person and that he or she was a significant witness.
The Roanoke Times was unable to determine why Tony was not admitted to the program. He says he was told that a ``threat assessment'' done by the program showed he wasn't in danger after getting out of prison. But a spokesman for the Marshals Service said that once the Justice Department approves witnesses, his division must accept them unless they violate a memorandum of understanding signed with the marshals. Tony insists he didn't break any rules.
He was interviewed in prison by a marshal and was being considered for the program; a memo by former Virginia Parole Board Chairman John Metzger confirms that. Metzger's memo, dated six days before Tony's release last fall, also says that while Tony was being screened for placement in the witness protection program, the state planned to keep him locked up for an additional six months.
Tony called that blackmail, and said he was given the choice of staying in prison for another six months or going back to his parents' house in Roanoke, where he felt he was in danger.
A representative of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Richmond says he's limited in what he can say about the witness protection program and who's in it.
``We can't go public to the world [about] who is or isn't a federally protected witness,'' says John Douglas, criminal chief for the office.
Douglas indicated, however, that the government has no agreement with Tony now and that its former star witness may not be telling the truth this time.
``I'm not aware of any situation anywhere where any legitimate threat to any federally protected witness is not being responded to,'' Douglas says. ``I'm not aware of any agreement with any witness that's not being fully upheld.''
Now, when Tony calls federal officials for help, he says they all appear surprised he is back in Roanoke. But Vick no longer works as a federal prosecutor, and Tony's case belongs to no one.
Spending so much time in prison has changed Tony, in ways both small and profound.
After years in a cell, he hates closed doors. He will swing the front door open wide no matter the temperature. He sometimes forgets to answer a ringing phone, even when he's right next to it. For years, it was never for him.
Tony was raised in Roanoke, a promising athlete and the son of a clergyman. He grew up enjoying a comfortable, middle-class life. He's thoughtful about his past and how he came to rob and kill to support himself. He offers no excuses.
``What made me become vicious - enough to kill you for money - is the fact that I made a choice, a conscious choice. A lot of people use the excuse of poverty, but I could never use it. I wish I could.''
He wishes he could take the easy way out, could say ```Society created this monster.' But no, I created myself."
``I've always wanted to see the dark side. Honestly, what turned me to this, in one word: greed.''
What changed his mind?
``I think walking through hell. I've seen it all, done it all.''
Whether a man who dropped out of high school, spent most of his adult life behind bars, whose successes in life have come mostly from brandishing a gun - whether he can succeed in an ordinary, straight, mundane lifestyle remains to be seen.
He says he wants nothing more than to be left in peace and to live a quiet life with his new wife.
``Honestly,'' he says, ``I just know I can make it.''
Prosecutor Vick agrees.
``I see him as somebody who could straighten out his life.''
Tony still sees violence as a solution to his problems, but so far, he's been able to talk himself out of resorting to it.
He says he's worked since the day after he was released in October - up until his recent troubles. He got remarried in December to a Roanoke woman and they moved into an efficiency apartment.
His new wife, Lisa, provides a major source of strength for him. They've known each other for years, and he's told her everything about his past. Making her proud motivates the contract killer-turned-wage slave.
When he got out, he says, he began working at a car wash and then at other ``menial jobs'' just to be employed. He's eager to be ``legitimate, to be a citizen.''
He seems to have discovered the satisfaction of honest work. And soon after his release, he found a job he couldn't wait to get to every morning.
``I loved going to work. I loved the idea of being respectable. I loved the idea of putting my 9-to-5 in.''
But a customer at his new job recognized him a few weeks ago and spread the word that the ``snitch'' was back in town. Soon after, he saw a man outside his apartment trying to light something and throw it through his window. Police found a malt liquor bottle smelling of alcohol at the scene, apparently an unsuccessful Molotov cocktail. Feeling unsafe, Tony and Lisa gave up their apartment.
``Word is out,'' he says. ``Everybody knows.''
It's after 5, and the man from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Richmond has not called. Tony and Lisa don't know where they're going to spend the weekend. They have been staying with friends and relatives, but they're wearing out their welcome. Tony's parents feel unsafe letting the couple stay at their house.
``You know no one's going to call us over the weekend,'' Tony says of federal officials, still pacing. ``My nerves are shot; I'm p---ed.''
Days later, the U.S. Attorney's Office got back to him and offered to see whether the FBI could help, but nothing has come of that yet. Tony gets off parole in April and may leave Roanoke then, to relocate where he doesn't have to look over his shoulder when he walks down the street.
The former contract killer doesn't like being vulnerable. And the normal, orderly life he was creating is gone now.
He knows this is the test of whether he can make it as a law-abiding citizen or whether he will resort to what he knows to survive.
But he's poor, homeless and law-abiding - and feeling betrayed by the government. It's a situation he's not used to.
``If I'm not out of here in another week ... I'm not saying I'm going to rob a bank or something dumb like that, but we've got a real dichotomy here. I'm between a rock and a hard place.
``If not for this woman right here,'' he says, pointing to Lisa, ``there'd be a bunch of funerals by now.''
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