THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 28, 1996 TAG: 9608280481
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 37 lines
A federal indictment unsealed Tuesday alleges that five members of a New York-based drug gang called the ``Poison Clan'' were involved in seven drug-related slayings in Richmond and Virginia Beach.
The 32-count indictment also charges the five, as well as 18 other alleged gang members, with racketeering, operating a continuing criminal enterprise, assault and weapons and narcotics counts.
U.S. Attorney Helen F. Fahey said brothers Dean and Devon Beckford ran the Poison Clan, based in Brooklyn and Queens. The gang distributed large amounts of crack cocaine throughout the eastern United Sates, including Richmond, Virginia Beach, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and East Orange, N.J., Fahey said at a news conference.
Thirteen of the 23 defendants have been arrested. The Beckfords were among those still at large.
Richmond has had one of the highest murder rates in the country for a decade, primarily because of the drug trade.
The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in Richmond on June 7, alleges that:
On Dec. 4, 1988, Dean Beckford and Claude Dennis shot Sherman Ambrose and Dasmond Miller to death in Richmond.
On Jan. 12, 1994, Leonel Cazaco and Richard Thomas, acting on the instructions of Devon Beckford, fatally shot Anthony Baylor, Marco Baylor and Anthony Merrit at a Richmond residence.
On April 7, 1994, Cazaco and Thomas killed Walter Twitty in Richmond.
On Oct. 22, 1990, Devon Beckford participated in the slaying of Wesley Stewart at a Virginia Beach motel.
Fahey said all of the defendants, most of whom resided in New York, will be prosecuted in Richmond. by CNB