LOS ANGELES – A leader of the Bounty Hunter Bloods (BHB) street gang was sentenced today to 168 months in federal prison for leading a manufacturing and distribution of crack cocaine organization in and around the gang’s “territory” of the Nickerson Gardens public housing projects in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Damion Baker, 46, a.k.a. “Fatts,” of the Harbor Gateway area of Los Angeles, was sentenced by United States District Judge Fernando L. Aenlle-Rocha. Baker pleaded guilty on February 17 to one count of conspiracy to manufacture, distribute, and possess with intent to distribute cocaine, and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Baker was the lead defendant in an indictment targeting members and associates of the BHB street gang for drug- and firearm-related crimes. He has been in federal custody since his April 2021 arrest in this case.

From August 2019 to May 2020, Baker organized and led a drug trafficking conspiracy in which he and his accomplices agreed to distribute cocaine. Specifically, Baker arranged to obtain powder cocaine from at least two drug suppliers. He then directed his co-conspirators to cook, and would himself cook, the powder cocaine and manufacture it into crack cocaine to sell to customers, including back to his powder cocaine suppliers to sell in crack form.

Baker directed his accomplices in the packaging, sale, and delivery of crack cocaine to customers, which included co-conspirators and other BHB gang members. Baker also directed the receipt and storage of drug proceeds throughout BHB-claimed territory in South Los Angeles.

As part of these activities, Baker arranged for an accomplice’s residence in the Nickerson Gardens housing projects in Watts to be used as a stash house in which Baker and his co-conspirators continuously sold crack cocaine over a period of many months. Baker recruited and hired co-conspirators to work at the Watts stash house and directed them in selling narcotics to customers there and in nearby areas, restocking the stash house’s drug supply, and transporting drug proceeds to Baker and other accomplices at various locations.

http://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr...QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2D9B0L4372Kk1VyFMYpeSO