THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 19, 1996 TAG: 9606190381
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 80 lines
Eugene Smalls paid dearly last week for smuggling one kilogram of crack cocaine into Hampton Roads. A Virginia Beach jury sentenced him to 90 years in prison and fined him $1 million, even though he had no prior convictions.
It seemed like an unusually harsh penalty. But on Tuesday, federal prosecutors unveiled a 14-page indictment against Smalls, his brother Mitchell and four other men.
The indictment charges that the Smalls brothers operated a drug gang that smuggled many kilograms of cocaine into Virginia from the Virgin Islands over the past two years.
Gang members went by such aliases as ``Kishawnie Henry,'' ``Quickness,'' ``Cebo,'' ``Watu'' and ``Papito.''
On Tuesday morning, Mitchell Smalls, 30, and alleged gang member James M. Watley, 18, appeared in federal court for a detention hearing.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William T. Prince ordered Mitchell Smalls detained until his arraignment. A customs agent testified that Mitchell and his brother, 27, played primary roles in the drug gang.
Eugene Smalls remains in the Virginia Beach City Jail awaiting formal sentencing in August for his Beach conviction.
``Mitchell Smalls appears to be, along with Eugene Smalls, the head of the organization,'' said special customs agent Thomas A. Radermacher.
To bolster Radermacher's allegations, prosecutor Robert E. Bradenham II produced photographs that were printed from negatives found in a Virginia Beach apartment raided by authorities. They show Mitchell Smalls wielding a handgun and a fistful of cash near a bed covered with U.S. currency. In one photo, Mitchell Smalls is shown wearing a gold chain and a gold medallion shaped like a gun.
The Smalls gang has a long history of smuggling cocaine and crack cocaine into the southeastern United States from the Virgin Islands, particularly from St. Thomas, said Robert Gattison, resident agent in charge of the U.S. Customs office.
The activities were uncovered during a joint investigation by the Customs Service and the Virginia Beach Police Department.
The investigation found that the Smalls gang has been smuggling ``multiple kilos of crack cocaine into Georgia and into Tidewater'' since 1989, Gattison said after Tuesday's hearing. The indictment deals with only the past two years.
The Smalls brothers are natives of St. Thomas with family connections in Hampton Roads, officials say.
In a ``turf battle'' in Atlanta several years ago, Eugene Smalls was shot and temporarily paralyzed, Gattison said.
The indictment, filed in Norfolk's federal court last Wednesday, charges that the Smallses and their gang smuggled large amounts of crack cocaine into Hampton Roads from about July 1994 to June 12, 1996.
They allegedly recruited ``mules,'' or couriers, and used commercial airlines, express mail services and expensive vehicles to get the drugs into and around Hampton Roads.
The indictment also alleges that Eugene Smalls told a police informant that he had hired an assassin to kill a local businessman because the businessman owed him money.
The drug profits allowed the men to buy a $94,492 home at Bridgewater Arch in the Bayside section of Virginia Beach and a $33,000 Chevrolet Suburban, the indictment says.
The indictment alleges that the drug gang wired money back and forth from the Virgin Islands to operate the drug enterprise, moved weapons around Hampton Roads and sold cocaine throughout the area.
In one instance, Watley distributed in Virginia Beach 995.8 grams of crack - about 1 kilo, or 2.2 pounds - the indictment says. In another, Eugene Smalls allegedly caused ``another individual to possess with intent to distribute 4,015 grams of cocaine,'' or about four kilos or 8.8 pounds.
In January 1995, Eugene and Mitchell Smalls sold one kilo of crack cocaine in Virginia Beach for $20,000, the indictment says.
In July 1995, Alejandro Fernandez, another man named in the indictment, allegedly distributed 18 ounces of crack cocaine for $10,000.
Two of the men named in the indictment - Fernandez, 24, and Jimmy Ventura, 30 - remain at large. Another indicted co-defendant, Elvin Clark, 21, was recently arrested in St. Thomas.
Watley's detention hearing was rescheduled for Thursday so his attorney could be present.
KEYWORDS: DRUG ARREST DRUG GANGS CRACK COCAINE
INDICTMENT by CNB