McHenry County Blog

A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

NEW BREEDS GANG LEADER DANA BOSTIC SENTENCED TO 38 YEARS IN FEDERAL PRISON FOR CONTROLLING VIOLENT HEROIN TRAFFICKING

CHICAGO — A leader of the New Breeds street gang who controlled heroin trafficking in a 12-square block area on the west side near Pulaski Road and Van Buren Street for nearly a decade was sentenced to 38 years in federal prison following a two-day sentencing hearing in Federal Court.

The defendant, Dana Bostic, controlled a faction of the New Breeds, which intertwined lucrative heroin trafficking with acts of violence and was regularly “at war” with rival gangs, including the Undertaker Vice Lords and Four Corner Hustlers.

Bostic, 33, also known as “Bird” and “Mello,” had a reputation for violence since he was arrested for the murder of a rival gang member in 2002, and his willingness to “green light” violence and murder solidified his authority in his territory.

Yet, even as those closest to him were killed or went to prison, Bostic remained on the street and in control of a criminal organization that earned thousands of dollars a day in heroin sales.

Bostic “was involved in an organization that used violence from time to time to accomplish whatever goals it thought were appropriate,” U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly said in imposing the 456-month prison term on Friday in U.S. District Court.

Bostic, who was arrested in August 2010, admitted being the leader of a heroin trafficking organization when he pleaded guilty in February this year, but he denied committing or directing acts of violence and murder.

Bostic was held responsible for distributing up to 30 kilograms of heroin from 2009 until he was arrested in 2010, but Judge Kennelly noted that the amount was actually far greater over the course of a decade.

The government argued at sentencing that Bostic authorized shootings and a murder in retaliation for being shot himself and the murder of his brother, Curtis Ellis, on Aug. 18, 2008, outside a River North nightclub and fast food restaurant.

Three days later, Davon Taylor was killed because of his association with people who were perceived to have been involved in shooting Bostic and killing Ellis.

In a sentencing memo, federal prosecutors wrote:

“For those in the territory under his control, Bostic decided what was right and what was wrong, who was rewarded and who was punished, without regard to the law or the justice system. [. . .] Kilogram after kilogram of Bostic’s heroin made its way into the veins of addicts year after year as dollar after dollar returned to Bostic and his organization.”

Bostic and more than two dozen other members, associates and suppliers of his New Breeds faction were arrested in August 2010, following an investigation that was part of a sustained, coordinated effort by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to dismantle the leadership of Chicago’s highly-organized, and often violent, drug trafficking street gangs.

The investigation employed wiretaps, cooperating witnesses, undercover surveillance and drug transactions, and a steady progression of searches and seizures of evidence.

All of the other co-defendants were also convicted and most were sentenced previously.

Bostic and his co-defendants controlled “an open air drug market” in the area bordered by Pulaski, Kostner, Jackson and Congress Parkway. A gas station and a grocery store were among the alleged drug “spots” in the vicinity where Bostic’s organization sold heroin.

Members of Bostic’s drug organization met customers near busy city transit stations, providing a lucrative market with all of the drug spots together taking in as much as $10,000 per day.

The sales consisted primarily of “dime bags,” or small plastic bags or tinfoil wrappers that contained approximately 0.1 gram of heroin each and sold for $10 per unit.

The New Breeds street gang originated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, initially as a splinter group from the Black Gangsters (one of the three factions of the original Black Gangster Disciples, the other two being the Gangster Disciples and the Black Disciples.)

The New Breeds ultimately absorbed the Black Gangsters back into the gang, operating under the new name.

The sentence was announced by Gary S. Shapiro, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, together with Jack Riley, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the DEA; Garry F. McCarthy, Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department; and Anita Alvarez, Cook County State’s Attorney. The investigation was conducted under the umbrella of U.S. Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), and with assistance from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force (HIDTA).

The government is being represented by Assistant United States Attorneys Megan Church, Bethany Biesenthal and Yasmin Best.

A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office:

BOSS OF FRAUDULENT IDENTIFICATION DOCUMENT RING BASED IN CHICAGO’S CHINATOWN SENTENCED TO 81 MONTHS IN FEDERAL PRISON

CHICAGO — The leader of an identification document fraud ring that was based in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood for more than 10 years was sentenced today to nearly seven years in federal prison.

The defendant, Jun Yun Zhang, was the boss of an extensive conspiracy and enjoyed most of the profit from an illegal business that provided more than 7,000 customers with fraudulent documents and assisted thousands of them obtain genuine identification cards and driver’s licenses, in alias identities, from the Illinois Secretary of State’s office.

As part of the illegal business, Zhang sold customers a genuine Social Security card (issued to a third party) and a matching manufactured Chinese passport.

Zhang and his workers also paid more than 200 bribes to Secretary of State employees to pass customers, who were often unqualified, on the road test for an Illinois driver’s license, while teaching other customers how to cheat on the state’s written driving test.

Four former Secretary of State employees were among 35 defendants who were charged federally as a result of Operation Paper Mountain, an undercover investigation by the FBI and the Chicago Police Department, which became public in February 2009 when Zhang and others were arrested.

Zhang, 44, a Chinese national who has been in custody since 2009, previously pleaded guilty to passport fraud and aggravated identity theft and was sentenced today to 81 months in prison by U.S. District Judge John Darrah. The judge imposed a mandatory two-year sentence on the identity theft count, which must be served consecutively to the 57 months he ordered on the fraud count.

Zhang’s brother, Jun Yue Zhang, 52, was sentenced yesterday to 61 months in prison by Judge Darrah.

The Zhang brothers and 13 other defendants, including other relatives, were charged together in one case before Judge Darrah, with 13 of the 15 pleading guilty.

The remaining two defendants are fugitives.

One co-defendant, James Howell, a former employee at the Secretary of State licensing facility in Bridgeview, was sentenced previously to two years in prison after he pleaded guilty and cooperated in the investigation.

Twenty additional defendants were charged later in related cases. Of the 35 total defendants, 21 have pleaded guilty, four are fugitives, and charges against 10 others remain pending.

During the decade-long conspiracy, thousands of Illinois driver’s licenses and identification cards were issued to individuals using Social Security account numbers with the 586 prefix, which was unusual because it is assigned to individuals in American Samoa, Guam, the Phillippines and Saipan.

In several decades before 2000, the state issued only several hundred driver’s licenses and identification cards to individuals using the 586 Social Security account prefix.

The spike was due, in large part, to the illegal document mill operated by Jun Yun Zhang and others.

Jun Yun Zhang and other manufacturers, brokers and couriers sold fraudulent “identity sets” – ranging in price from $1,200 to $3,500 per set – to predominantly Chinese, Korean and Indonesian nationals who were smuggled into or were in the United States illegally.

The false documents included a counterfeit or altered authentic Chinese passport that was matched to a legitimate Social Security number usually beginning with 586, many of which were originally obtained legitimately by Chinese nationals working temporarily in Saipan.

While in Saipan or after these workers returned to China, the Social Security cards were collected and transported to the United States, where they wound up in the possession of the defendants and others.

Using the bogus passports containing customers’ actual photos, coupled with a legitimate Social Security number and fabricated proof of residency such as a utility bill, the defendants often accompanied customers to various Secretary of State facilities in the Chicago area and assisted them in fraudulently obtaining an authentic Illinois driver’s license or identification card that matched the alias identity on the passport and Social Security card.

Patrick Fitzgerald

After obtaining a set of fraudulent documents, customers who were in the country illegally could use them to obtain employment, housing, utility services, credit cards and bank accounts.

Today’s sentence was announced by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the FBI.

The Chicago Police Department was instrumental in the investigation, which was also assisted by the Illinois Secretary of State Inspector General and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Steven J. Dollear, Matthew Madden and Yasmin Best.

The employees aren’t paid that much.

People really need drivers’ licenses.

Some people have a hard time getting one.

Is that a recipe for corruption or what?

Today the U.S. Attorney’s Office sent the following  press release about corruption in the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office.

No, it’s not like when Democrat Paul Powell and Republican George Ryan were in office.  No checks made out to Jesse White were found in his desk, as was the case with checks made out to Paul Powell when he died.

Here are the details:

STATE ROAD TEST EXAMINERS INDICTED FOR ALLEGEDLY ACCEPTING CASH BRIBES TO GUARANTEE PASSING TEST

CHICAGO — Two former road test examiners for the Illinois Secretary of State were indicted for allegedly accepting cash bribes to pass customers who were unqualified or never took the road test, federal law enforcement officials announced today.

The charges stem from an investigation that was unveiled in 2009 when members and associates of an alleged crime ring were accused of selling fraudulent identification documents in Chinatown on the city’s near south side.

The new defendants allegedly conspired between 2005 and 2007 with several of the defendants charged previously to accept cash bribes in return for guaranteeing that an unspecified number of customers would pass the road test, enabling them to obtain an Illinois driver’s license.

One defendant, Christopher Wardlaw, 36, was arrested today, while the other defendant, Alanda Jackson, 31, both of Chicago, will be ordered to appear for arraignment at a later date in U.S. District Court.

Both were road test examiners at the Secretary of State’s Chicago South Facility, located at 9901 South Dr. Martin Luther King Dr.

They were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit extortion in an indictment that was returned by a federal grand jury last Thursday and unsealed today following Wardlaw’s arrest.

Wardlaw was released on his own recognizance after appearing this morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffery T. Gilbert.

The indictment seeks forfeiture of $40,000, representing alleged illegal proceeds.

The charges were announced by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the FBI; Chicago Police Superintendent Garry F. McCarthy; and Illinois Secretary of State Inspector General James B. Burns.  The charges are part of Operation Paper Mountain, which has resulted in federal charges against approximately three dozen defendants since 2009.

According to the indictment, Wardlaw and Jackson conspired with another former SOS employee, Timothy Johnson, as well as with Jun Yun Zhang, Lili Liu, Tiansheng Zhang, and others, who were indicted in 2009.

Each of those defendants has pleaded guilty to related federal charges.

The Zhangs and other defendants routinely escorted customers to Secretary of State driver’s license facilities to fraudulently obtain state identification cards or driver’s licenses, typically using counterfeit or altered authentic Chinese passports and legitimate social security account numbers with the prefix “586” that were assigned to other people.  The 586 prefix is unusual because it is assigned to individuals in the Northern Mariana Islands, including Saipan, Guam and American Samoa.

When co-conspirators accompanied customers to the Chicago South facility, Wardlaw and Jackson allegedly guaranteed passing results on the road test either by serving as the examiner and passing  the customer even if he or she failed the road test, or by obtaining the customer’s road test paperwork from a co-conspirator and indicating that the customer passed when, in fact, the customer never took the test.

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew Madden, Steven J. Dollear and Yasmin Best.

Extortion conspiracy carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.  If convicted, the Court must impose a reasonable sentence under federal statutes and the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines

The public is reminded that an indictment contains only charges and is not evidence of guilt.  The defendants are presumed innocent and are entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.