St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 7

0 JUN 20 1933 SUNDAY. JUNE 20.1993 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH. 9A Bey Figures In Lewis-Bey Trial Here is a summary of the charges and verdicts in the racketeering trial of Jerry Lewis-Bey and eight other defendants. Those covicted face maximum sentences of life in prison, authorities said.

9 From page one Now Lewis-Bey and six of his associates face life in prison when they are sentenced this fall. On Tuesday, a jury ended a 7-month trial by finding all seven guilty of racketeering. Two others were acquitted. U.S. Attorney Stephen B.

Higgins said Lewis-Bey's "uniquely violent" drug gang set it apart from other crime rings. It fully deserved, he said, an unprecedented investigation by St Louis police and federal agents. "The murder of Fred Knox showed the ring was willing to kill informers," Higgins said. "It was the arrogance, as well as the willingness to kill witnesses, that fueled the concern the defendants would do anything to avoid being convicted." Some of the investigation's urgency resulted from threats against agents. In 1990, the gang reportedly put $50,000 "contracts" on the lives of three investigators.

"This was absolutely, fundamentally an evil, vicious gang," Higgins said. "Nobody in this investigation can remember anything else like it" Lewis-Bey's drug career peaked when he was the sharp-; ly dressed grand sheik of the Moorish Science Temple. Lewis-Bey, 43, tried to hide his drug money by claiming his wealth came from temple donations, authorities said. mil t- Tight Trial Security Underscored Danger By Tim Bryant Of the Post-Dispatch Staff For more than seven months, federal prosecutors and defense attorneys put the Jerry Lewis-Bey drug racketeering case before jurors they knew only as Nos. 9, 13, 15, 19, 20, 28, 29, 44, 56, 66 and 68.

The jurors were identified by number as part of the trial's elaborate security. While in the courtroom, each of the nine defendants was watched by two security officers. Outside, armed federal marshals blocked Walnut Street behind the Federal Courthouse each time authorities moved the defendants in or out of the building. Defense lawyers complained that the unusually tight security led jurors to believe that Lewis-Bey and the other defendants were dangerous. Authorities readily agreed.

Marshal Willie Greason said that he was investigating a plot to break the prisoners out of the St. Clair County jail in Belleville, where they were held throughout the trial. Two months after the trial began, marshals found a handcuff key inside the defendants' cell at the courthouse. "We don't know how the key got there, or how long it had been there," Greason said. The jurors convicted most of the defendants on most counts.

Jurors acquitted two defendants Sam Petty and Malik Mohammad. Petty goes back to prison on arr earlier conviction. Mohammad, at 50 the oldest defendant, is now free. The day after the trial, marshals took Lewis-BejJ and the other convicted defendants to a prison In; Leavenworth, Kan. They will remain there until thej are sentenced here Sept.

24. 2 GUILTY Raymond Amerson-Bey, 36, was convicted of drug distribution, three murder conspiracies and attempted murder. GUILTY Noble Bennett, 41, was convicted of drug racketeering. Jurors acquitted him of being part of a criminal enterprise. GUILTY Lewte-Bey, 43, was convicted of racketeering in seven murders.

He also was convicted of drug racketeering and murder conspiracy as part of a' "criminal enterprise." GUILTY Carlton Darden-Bey, 36, distributed cocaine and a heroin substitute. He also took part in two attempted murders, including the shooting of a woman left a quadriplegic by the attack. Getting Religion 1 mJm ukJi GUILTY Carta Seals, 32, was convicted of drug racketeering by possessing and distributing cocaine. GUILTY Michael Williams-El, 40, took part In two murder conspiracies and a drug conspiracy. GUILTY Gerald Hopkins-Bey, 42, possessed and distributed drugs.

He also conspired in two murders and an attempted murder. NOT GUILTY Two defendants-Sam Petty, above 45, and Malik Mohammad, (picture not available) 50, had been charged with drug racketeering and murder conspiracy. The story of Jerry Lewis-Bey and his gang of killers is based on interviews, court statements and testimony ing their federal trial. Lewis-Bey, now 43, began his career as a kid at the -Pruitt-Igoe housing complex, where he was a drug runner for a prominent heroin dealer. He learned of the Moorish Science Temple while serving a prison term in the late 1970s for a parole violation in a drug case.

Freed in 1978, he changed his last name to signify his allegiance to the Islamic sect Soon after his return to St. Louis, Lewis-Bey formed what became known as Moorish Science Temple No. 1. At one time, it claimed as many as 90 members. If that was his religion, his vocation was selling T's and blues, a heroin substitute.

As his drug business grew, Lewis-Bey favored riding in a Mercedes. Frequently, he wore a bulletproof vest As the profits poured in, Lewis-Bey found himself in competition with another dealer, Bud Green. Over the next few years, members of the Lewis-Bey drug ring tried to murder Green three times. Green was one of the few who got away but it wasn't easy. One attack failed when a hand grenade tossed into his bedroom window in Berkeley proved a dud.

In another attempt, Lewis-Bey and others noticed Green leaving the federal courthouse. "Praise Allah!" Lewis-Bey said. "There's the expletive deleted now!" They followed Green, then pulled up to his van and opened fire. Green was seriously wounded. Ultimately, Green survived two shootings and lived to testify against Lewis-Bey at the racketeering trial.

Others weren't so fortunate. Killing a Landlord In February 1984, Lewis-Bey signed a one-year lease for a building to be used as a temple at 3600 North Grand Boulevard. The $5,400 annual rent was to come from a city grant to the temple to run a youth program. Less than a year later, Lewis-Bey's associates killed Robert Young, a halfway house inmate, in retaliation for the murder of Jimmy Lewis. He was one of two brothers of Jerry Lewis-Bey who were murdered.

A cousin, Ronnie Thomas-Bey, testified at the racketeering trial that he was to have got $10,000 for the killing. Thomas-Bey was acquitted of the murder in state court but admitted in the federal trial that he didthe crime. Thomas-Bey was the gang's most prolific killer. sold heroin, while Lewis-Bey concentrated on cocaine. Bennett and Lewis-Bey knew each other from their days in Pruitt-Igoe.

They even traveled together to prize fights. Still, their relationship was occasionally bumpy when drug sales slowed. Bennett once was forced to pay a debt by giving Lewis-Bey a Rolex watch and pawning a diamond ring. At least one of the killings prompted Lewis-Bey to complain that it focused too much police attention on his gang. On Dec.

10, 1987, restaurant worker Marc Anderson was shot to death on a service station parking lot downtown. Anderson was scheduled to testify the next day against Ricky Durham, on trial for murdering a letter carrier over a cocaine debt. Durham was later convicted. Lewis-Bey wanted Anderson, 19, dead because Durham was among the drug ring's bigger cocaine customers. Robert Taylor-Bey killed Anderson in exchange for a sports car from Durham.

Taylor-Bey was murdered several years later. In memory of his friend, Lewis-Bey hung Taylor-Bey's portrait at the temple. The federal investigation into Lewis-Bey's activities began in earnest in 1989 when authorities began trying to piece together what looked like a random series of shootings. Eventually, the common threads pointed to Lewis-Bey and his gang. Higgins, the U.S.

attorney, said the prosecution put a dent in drug traffic and increased safety for city residents. Mueleman, the assistant U.S. attorney, was more blunt. "The Lewis-Bey gang was a threat to civilization in north St. Louis," he said.

"It was the type of thing that shakes whole society." i Post-Dispatch graphic leader was Billy Patton. On March 10, 1988, Bryan Hall, a paraplegic, was shot to death as he sat in a rented Lincoln parked next to a snack shop on Sherry Avenue. Hall sold cocaine for Patton. Police later found $44,000 in the Lincoln. A shootout between the two gangs nearly erupted when Lewis-Bey supporters cruised by Hall's funeral.

In December 1988, another Patton dealer was killed in a shooting outside a bar not far from the temple's new location, in the 5700 block of West Florissant Avenue. By then, Patton had fled to California. But he later made the mistake of returning to St. Louis. A gunman burst into an apartment Jan.

26, 1989, and killed Patton with an Uzi. Silencing a Witness A major gang development took place in the spring of 1988. Lewis-Bey began to associate with Noble Bennett, then being investigated as a suspected heroin dealer. Lewis-Bey provided stretch limousines and guards at the funeral of Bennett's murdered brother. Later, a Bennett gun supplier also began furnishing weapons to Lewis-Bey.

Bennett and Lewis-Bey formed a loose alliance. Bennett His nickname was "Frog," and slang for a hit by Thomas-Bey was: "He put the sign of the Frog on them." Publicity over Young's slaying caused the city to cancel its grant to the temple. When the building's owner, a St. Louis deputy sheriff named Antar Tiari, refused to renew the lease, the gang did more than just kill him; they showcased his death. On Halloween night in 1985, Tiari's body, riddled with bullets fired from an Uzi, was propped on the temple steps while children played at a party inside.

Over the years, the gang never stopped trying to exterminate Green's associates. Bruce "Hat" Henry went down in a hail of gunfire July 23, 1987, as he walked through the Darst-Webbe complex. The next month, Green's nephew, Harold "Count" Johnson, was killed by masked gunmen wearing fatigues the preferred attire of Lewis-Bey gang members as they carried out "missions." Ten days after Johnson's murder, gang members killed David "Kiki" Grady on a service station parking lot. Grady was murdered because the gang thought he might retaliate for the killing of Johnson, Grady's half-brother. In 1988 Lewis-Bey decided to wipe out another rival cocaine gang that presented a challenge.

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