DATE: Sunday, June 22, 1997                 TAG: 9706220120

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   55 lines

SENTENCING PUTS 4TH FAMILY MEMBER IN PRISON FOR PENINSULA DRUG DEALING

A family that ran interrelated drug gangs that controlled territories in Williamsburg, Newport News, York County, James City County and New Kent County will spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Alleyne Reed Wright, her two sons and a nephew have all been sentenced to life without parole for their role in three interrelated drug rings.

Wright had been called ``the Ma Barker of the Peninsula'' for her feisty language and a blind eye to her sons' drug-dealing.

Three interlinked drug gangs distributed at least 10 kilograms of crack cocaine and marijuana from 1984 through 1995. The gangs were responsible for extensive violence, including the 1988 slaying of a Denbigh-area English teacher, and numerous beatings and shootings.

The rings used murder, assault and threats to keep out of the state court system, prosecutors said. The gang's kingpin, Marty Wright, 26, never did any serious time on state charges despite a long, violent career, said federal prosecutor Mike Smythers.

The youngest son, Marty Wright was a self-described ``mama's boy'' with a penchant for putting guns to people's heads when he threatened them, federal prosecutors said. During his sentencing hearing Friday, Marty Wright denied that he betrayed his mother by turning down a plea bargain that would have spared her any jail time.

``What kind of man do you think I am?'' he asked Judge Raymond Jackson, his voice breaking. ``I lost everything: My mother. My father. My children. All the people that I love because of this injustice. . . . I'll fight this conviction till the day I die, because I'm not guilty.''

Alleyne Wright's boyfriend, James N. Greenhough, 51, also received life. Her oldest son, Ernest S. Wright, and her nephew, Larry E. Reed, already had been sentenced.

Wright, 64, had lived with Greenhough for more than 20 years.

Testimony during her March trial showed that Alleyne was a conduit of information and often knew how to contact her sons with news, sometimes waking up gang members to send them to help family members in trouble.

While Marty was growing up, his mother, his older brother and his mother's boyfriend were dealing drugs from the house, investigators said. ``She raised him up to be that way,'' said Lt. Dee Linhart, coordinator of the Colonial Narcotics Enforcement Task Force.

The task force, in James City County, is made up of James City County police, Middlesex and New Kent county sheriffs, Virginia State Police and the FBI.

Wright said that the witnesses against him lied and that neither he nor his mother was ever a member of any gang.

``I'm disgraced that Mr. Smythers referred to my mother as Ma Barker, a woman who murdered people and robbed banks.''

Thirty people have been convicted in the ring. Seven have received life without parole. KEYWORDS: DRUG ARRESTS TRIAL SENTENCING

DRUG RINGS

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