WASHINGTON – Two Pittsburgh residents were sentenced to prison this week on racketeering charges relating to their involvement with the Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney David J. Hickton of the Western District of Pennsylvania.
James Pendleton, 30, aka “Jim Bob,” was sentenced today by Senior U.S. District Judge Gustave Diamond to 112 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Pendleton pleaded guilty on June 30, 2011, to one count of conspiracy to engage in a racketeering enterprise.
Devon Shealey, 25, was sentenced on Oct. 25, 2011, by Judge Diamond to 57 months in prison. This sentence will run concurrent to a 34-68 year prison sentence he is currently serving for related crimes. Shealey pleaded guilty on Aug. 18, 2011, to one count of violence in the aid of racketeering.
According to the guilty pleas, Pendleton and Shealey were associates of the Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips street gang, which participated in a pattern of racketeering activity that included multiple acts involving robberies at gun point; attempted murders; distribution of controlled substances, including cocaine, heroin and crack cocaine; and obstruction of justice and witness intimidation.
According to court documents, Pendleton was an associate of the Brighton Place Crips, a criminal street gang that controlled an area of Brighton Place and Morrison Street, also known as the Mad Cave, and Federal Street in the Northside area of Pittsburgh. The Brighton Place Crips were formed in the early 1990s; in 2003, it formed an alliance with the Northview Heights/ Fineview Crips. This alliance expanded the gang’s drug trafficking territory, and increased the number of gang members and associates available to preserve and protect the gang’s power, territory and profits through violence.
The Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang maintains exclusive control over drug trafficking in these neighborhoods through continuous violence and intimidation of rivals and witnesses. Members of the gang support each other through payment of attorneys’ fees and bonds, as well as payments to jail commissary accounts and support payments to incarcerated members’ families.
In addition, gang members had violent confrontations with members of the rival Manchester OG’s, and other street gangs operating in the Northside section of Pittsburgh. Members and associates obtained greater authority and prestige within the enterprise based on their reputation for violence and their ability to obtain and sell a steady supply of illegal drugs. According to court documents, the Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang members identify themselves by wearing blue, flashing Crips gang hand signals, and using phrases such as “Cuz,” “C-Safe,” “Loc” and “G.K.”
According to court documents, Pendleton was a “connect” for the gang, supplying members of the enterprise with cocaine and crack cocaine.
Pendleton and Shealey are two of 26 defendants charged in February 2010 with being members or associates of, and conducting racketeering activity through, the Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang. This prosecution resulted from a Project Safe Neighborhoods Task Force investigation that began in 2005. To date, all members of the Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips who were charged in this indictment have pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.
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