Federal officials have indicted 40 people in what they say is South Carolina’s biggest extortion plot, stemming from four state inmates orchestrating attacks and drug trafficking using contraband cell phones while behind bars. The US attorney in South Carolina called this a “booming criminal company.”
The 147 charges range from drug and firearm charges to those related to murder, kidnapping and two shootings, prosecutors said on Thursday at a news conference outside the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. The crimes occurred between 2017 and this year.
Prosecutors allege that all defendants, which include men and women, are members of or affiliated with a gang known as Insane Gangster Disciples, a branch of a national group called Folk Nation that has been operating in South Carolina for years.
Prosecutors say the gang’s goal was to make money from drug trafficking, kidnapping and smuggling from prisons and other means, in addition to maintaining power through threats and violence. The gang is also accused of aiming to establish safe houses and provide money for members who deal with the police or incarceration.
“For anyone who tries to harm the people of South Carolina with violence, intimidation or extortion, we are going after you wherever you are,” said South Carolina prosecutor Peter McCoy. “Neither the pandemic nor the prison walls will provide refuge.”
Michelle Liu / AP
Authorities also said they seized about 40 kilograms of methamphetamine for an estimated $ 40 million, in addition to heroin and fentanyl. The police also seized more than 130 firearms during the defendants’ arrests, although none of the weapons were removed from the prisons.
Prosecutors said four men arrested at South Carolina facilities during the crimes were instrumental in orchestrating the international drug trafficking operation and other activities described in the prosecution. Of the four, two – James Robert Peterson and Juan Rodriguez – are currently in South Carolina prisons. Another, Edward Gary Ackridge, is at Greenville County Detention Center and the fourth, Matthew J. Ward, is in a federal prison. .
“Smuggled cell phones remain the main tool for murder and destruction and affect the entire state,” said United States Attorney Attorney Lance Crick.
Among the charges detailed in the 101-page indictment are drug sales and drug debt disputes, multiple armed clashes, a defendant leading the police in a high-speed pursuit, a defendant releasing another from prison in exchange for heroin and a gun, and the murder of an inmate named Kendrick Hoover inside a state prison on the orders of a gang.
The prosecution also shows how several of the defendants were said to have kidnapped and killed Michelle Dodge because they suspected she was a police informant. According to the prosecution, the defendants drowned her and shot her in the foot before taking her in the trunk of a car to a separate location, where one shot her in the back of the head.
Holloway declined to say on Thursday whether Dodge, the kidnap victim, was actually a police informant.
The prosecution also provides details of the gang’s organizational elements, from imposing fines and written essays on members who violated the rules to regular meetings where gang finances and disciplinary beatings of members were discussed. The prosecution notes that the majority of the members of the Disciples are white, unlike most gangs aligned with the Folk Nation.
Officials say Thursday’s charges are continuing evidence that federal laws need to be changed to allow states to jam cell phone signals in prisons and make smuggled phones useless.
The announcement follows the state charges announced last week against 29 inmates in a 2018 prison riot considered the deadliest in the entire country in a quarter of a century. Prison chief Bryan Stirling blamed the riot at the Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, in part for illegal cell phones, arguing that phones allow men behind bars to communicate unrestricted with the outside world and someone else, in some cases committing crimes.
On Thursday, Stirling asked Congress to hold a hearing on the matter, as federal prisons can block cell signals, but states cannot because of Federal Communications Commission regulations. He said the Corrections Department had confiscated more than 4,000 smuggled phones this year and prisoners often use the phones to stalk and harass victims, as well as extort family members.
The various defendants are charged under federal extortion law. If convicted, most defendants face life sentences.
The effort involved dozens of investigators from various federal, state and local agencies and took more than three years. The investigation will be underway in the near future, Holloway said.