Maryland AG announces 26 indicted in prison gang investigation

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WBAL Updated: 1:12 PM EST Nov 30, 2017

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh on Thursday announced 26 defendants have been indicted after a nearly yearlong, multiagency investigation of gang activity in Maryland correctional facilities.

Charges in the indictments include attempted first-degree murder, gang participation, drug distribution, smuggling of contraband into prison facilities, and misconduct in office. The investigation was led by the Maryland Office of the Attorney General, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

Correctional Officer Sgt. Antoine Fordham, who is allegedly a high-ranking member of the 8-Trey Crips street gang, was the initial target of the investigation, officials said.

The 8-Trey Crips is a branch of the Crips that operates in Baltimore City, several Maryland counties, inside Maryland correctional facilities and on the street.

Fordham oversaw much of the 8-Trey Crips’ drug dealing and other illicit activities near the intersections of Frankford Avenue and Sinclair Lane in Baltimore City, officials said. He and other members of the gang authorized and/or committed acts of violence including shootings and assaults to protect the gang's turf and to maintain discipline within the gang, officials said.

The investigation grew to include additional gang members and other co-conspirators who together were running a large-scale, contraband-delivery operation in several Maryland correctional facilities, including Jessup Correctional Institution and Maryland Correctional Institution -- Jessup, as well as other facilities. Incarcerated members of the gang used contraband cellphones and Maryland’s prison phone system to arrange times and locations for outside facilitators, who acquired the contraband items, to meet and exchange payment and the contraband to the other co-conspirators who would actually bring the items into the correctional facilities.

Two of the indicted co-conspirators who brought the items into the facility are Fordham and another correctional officer, Phillipe Jordan. Ten of the other indicted co-conspirators are outside facilitators and include the mothers of three of the inmates. While some payments for the contraband were made in cash, the majority of payments were made using PayPal.

"Gangs are a blight on any community in which they operate," Frosh said. "As members of the 8-Trey Crips gang, Fordham and Jordan betrayed their positions of trust by organizing and assisting the import of violence, drugs and other contraband into the prison system where order is paramount to keeping inmates and staff safe."

The gang allegedly perpetrated violence inside the jails as well. During the course of the investigation, Crips leaders, including Fordham, ordered an attack on an incarcerated former Crips member because he was discovered to be homosexual, a violation of the gang's code. The victim was stabbed more than 30 times, but survived. In addition, two other co-conspirators were involved in a physical altercation with correctional officers who were trying to seize contraband, including drugs, that investigators learned had been delivered to the inmates the day before as part of the contraband-delivery operation, officials said.

"When elected, Gov. Larry Hogan pledged to expose misconduct and corruption in the state correctional system," DPSCS Secretary Stephen T. Moyer said. "Today is another down payment on that pledge sending a clear message to anyone who engages in criminal behavior that we will find you, arrest you and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law."

"This case, through the investigation and subsequent indictments, search warrants, and arrests, shows that the DEA is dedicated to not only investigating and dismantling large-scale drug trafficking organizations, but also cases where the distribution includes inmates and correctional officers," said Don Hibbert, assistant special agent in charge of the DEA Baltimore District Office. "DEA, with our federal, state and local partners, will continue to go wherever the case takes us, whether that be overseas, in the streets of Baltimore, or even in the prison system."

If convicted, penalties faced by members of the conspiracy range from three years to life imprisonment.

8-3 Gangster Crips in Bmore? That's new to me. Which side of Baltimore is their location? Also, 30 times ( DAM) stabbed smh.

A BGF member of Greenmount regime was recently sentenced as well.

The line between corrections officer and gang member gets blurrier by the day. I know some California corrections officers. To hear these guys talk, you'd think they were rooting for certain sides in the gang wars.

They are a East Baltimore Crip set.