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Crime
Gang Busters
“Because of that, the state attorney’s office would have to drop the charges, and these bad guys were staying out on the street,” says Manatee County Sheriff Brad Steube.
This year, Steube adopted a different strategy. He began arresting alleged gang leaders using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a federal law created to help fight organized crime. In January, his department rounded up nine members of the Brown Pride Locos and charged them with racketeering. In July, officials arrested 14 suspected members of SUR-13 on racketeering charges.
Building a RICO case can be tough, requiring investigators and state prosecutors to document a pattern of criminal activity, not just one criminal episode. But the RICO statues also offer significant advantages — convictions can result in longer prison sentences, for example. The RICO laws also enable prosecutors in some instances to introduce past criminal convictions without having to call witnesses to the crimes back into court.
The strategy may be working. In September, the 19-year-old leader of the Brown Pride Locos pleaded no contest to criminal racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and five years of probation. Two other gang members pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering and have agreed to testify against the other members.
Steube, meanwhile, has noticed a decrease in gang-related violence. “We still have drive-by shootings, but I’m not sure the majority can be attributed to gangs any longer.”
Link: Read a list of gangs in Florida
For more articles this month with extra links, go to the Links page.
