8 Members of Two Six Nation Indicted on Racketeering, Drug & Murder Charges

Eight purported street gang members have been indicted on racketeering and drug trafficking charges in federal court in northwest Indiana.

WBBM Newsradio’s Mike Krauser reports the Two Six Nation street gang – which has roots in Chicago, and has spread into northwest Indiana – uses a cartoon rabbit with a bent ear as a symbol, but federal prosecutors allege the warm and fuzzy ends there.

David Capp, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana, and Chicago U.S. Atty. Zach Fardon said the gang’s violent crimes are numerous, including allegations they regularly moved hundreds of pounds of illicit drugs and killed at least two people.

“My message to those who are members of, or who continue to associate with violent street gangs – we are coming after you, and you are next” Capp said.

“Violent street gangs like the Two Six move drugs and guns and violence. We will follow,” Fardon said.

James Trusty, the Chief of Organized Crime in the U.S. Justice Department, said there are more than 40 alleged crimes detailed in the indictment against eight members and associates of the Two Six Nation, including:

• Frank “Pumpkin” Perez Jr., 33, of Verona, Pennsylvania;
• Adron “AWOL” Herschel Tancil, 36, of East Chicago;
• Jesus “Chu Chu” Valentine Fuentes, 39, of Gary, Ind;
• Anthony “P-nut” Cresencio Aguilera, 35, of Portage, Ind.;
• Oscar “Cos” Cosme, 41, of East Chicago;
• Ester “Mama D” Carrera, 61, of Gary;
• Paul “Big Brock” Brock, 27, of Gary;
• and Alma Delia Carrera, 28, of Gary.

“The indictment alleges that the Two Six Nation orchestrated and carried out a series of brutal crimes; including murders, kidnapping, drug trafficking, robberies, and other offenses spanning more than two decades,” Trusty said. “The gang brandished weapons like sawed-off shotguns and AK-47 assault rifles.”

Tancil, Fuentes and Cosme are charged in the May 2003 murder of Julio Cartagena in East Chicago. Another purported gang member, Kiontay Kyare Pennington, has pleaded guilty to murder for his role in the slaying.

Perez is charge in connection with the July 1999 murder of Jose Pena Jr. in Whiting. Perez made headlines in 2011 when he was arrested in Pennsylvania for Pena’s murder, following a shootout with police.

Capp said the work of the Chicago Police Department’s gang intelligence was invaluable to the case.

Federal prosecutors used the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act to go after the gang – a tactic once reserved for the mob – to charge them with an ongoing criminal conspiracy.

“This is our third use of the federal RICO statue over the past few years against a violent street gang in northwest Indiana. We are going to continue to use this powerful tool to get these individuals off the street,” Capp said.

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Michael Kaiser Gets 20 Years in Prison #OperationBadNickname

Michael Kaiser, one of the defendants arrested in a Longmont Police Department methamphetamine bust last August, was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison, to be followed by five years of mandatory parole, for racketeering under the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act.

Boulder District Court Judge Patrick Butler also sentenced Kaiser to 16 years for conspiracy to distribute between 450 grams and 1 kilogram of methamphetamine, a sentence to run concurrently with the one Butler ordered for the racketeering felony, according to Chief Deputy District Attorney Ken Kupfner.

The 41-year-old Kaiser, who originally had been charged with 33 felonies, had pleaded guilty on June 4 to the charges for which he was sentenced on Friday.

Kaiser and his wife, Geraldine Vodicka, were a Loveland couple at the center of what police called their Operation Bad Nickname investigation, which resulted in the arrests of more than 30 people accused of being involved in a methamphetamine-distribution ring.

This past Wednesday, a Boulder County District Court jury found Vodicka guilty of seven felony charges, including violation of the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act and five counts of conspiracy to distribute various weights of a controlled substance and possession of more than one kilogram of the illegal drug.

Also found guilty by that jury on Wednesday was Terry Romero, on five felonies, including a special-offender status, a violation of the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act and conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute between 25 and 450 grams of a controlled substance.

Sentencing hearings for Romero and Vodicka are scheduled for Oct. 24.

Longmont Police Cmdr. Jeff Satur said Operation Bad Nickname was a six-month multi-agency drug investigation into the sales of narcotics in Longmont, Loveland and northern Colorado. He said large quantities of methamphetamine, weapons and other dangerous drugs were recovered during the investigation. Several of the other defendants arrested in the meth-ring bust have also pleaded guilty and have received sentences or are awaiting sentencing.

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Frank Preve Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud in Massive Rothstein Ponzi Scheme

Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Donnell Young, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), and George L. Piro, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office, announce that Frank Preve, 70, of Coral Springs, pled guilty in Ft. Lauderdale before U.S. District Judge James I. Cohn to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. At his sentencing, scheduled for December 12, 2014, Preve faces a maximum statutory sentence of up to five years in prison.

In 2009, it was discovered that the law firm of Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler, P.A. (RRA) was being utilized by its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Scott W. Rothstein, to commit a massive Ponzi scheme stemming from the sale of fictitious confidential settlements. In a written factual stipulation filed in connection with his guilty plea, Preve admitted that he worked for a number of companies, referred to as “the Banyon Group,” which solicited lenders and investors into the confidential settlement business being offered by Rothstein. The defendant further admitted that, from on or about July 9, 2009 through October 31, 2009, he defrauded investors by not disclosing that Rothstein had failed to make payments that were due to the Banyon Group, that Rothstein had frozen certain bank accounts that were holding investor funds, that certain paperwork was not being prepared, and that verification of the investments was not taking place, all in violation of a private placement memorandum which had been circulated to potential investors by the Banyon Group. The defendant further admitted that, through these material misrepresentations and omissions, Preve caused more than $20 million to be paid by investors to the Banyon Group.

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Joint Statement from FBI & Justice Department on #Ferguson

The following joint statement was released by FBI Special Agent in Charge William P. Woods, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Richard G. Callahan and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Molly Moran:


“At the onset of our federal civil rights investigation, the Attorney General of the United States promised a thorough and complete investigation into the shooting death of Michael Brown.  That investigation is proceeding. We can confirm that FBI agents, working together with attorneys from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and US Attorney's Office, have already conducted several interviews of witnesses on the scene at the time of the shooting.  Over the next several days, teams of FBI agents will be canvassing the neighborhood where the shooting took place to identify any individuals who may have information related to the shooting and have not yet come forward.  We ask for the public's cooperation and patience, and again urge anyone with information related to the shooting to contact the FBI.  The FBI can be reached at (800) CALL-FBI, option 4.”

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Has the Aryan Brotherhood Gang Been Decapitated?

After a six-year investigation and a sweeping indictment naming dozens of suspects, federal authorities declared they have "decapitated" the notoriously violent prison gang known as the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.

The final two defendants snared in the long criminal probe have pleaded guilty, prosecutors announced, capping a wide-ranging case that led to 73 convictions and decimated the gang's leadership.

"All five of the active generals for each of the regions, one for each of the regions, have been prosecuted, convicted and will spend long sentences in federal prison," said Marshall Miller, principal deputy assistant attorney general with the Department of Justice Criminal Division.

The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a highly structured white-supremacist gang, emerged in Texas prisons during the early 1980s. As convicts involved in the gang during its formative years finished their sentences, they carried their criminal enterprises into the free world as an organized crime group often controlled from inside prison walls.

"The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas – or ABT – launched its brutal, murderous and racist ideology from within the prisons of the state of Texas," Miller said. "Unfortunately, ABT then unleashed a violent crime spree that jumped the prison walls and infected communities."

An indictment unsealed in 2012 drew a detailed portrait of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas as a sophisticated organized crime group with a military-style structure and a written constitution widely circulated in Texas prisons. The group's leadership routinely used murder, kidnappings, arson and severe beatings as enforcement tactics, the indictment said.

"You name it," Miller said. "Drugs, kidnappings, assaults, murders attempted murders. They ran the gamut."

The indictment makes the Aryan Brotherhood looks less like a prison gang than a classic organized crime syndicate with military titles. Five generals control five different regions of the state, authorities said, with each general controlling two separate chains of command – one inside prisons and one in the free world. Each general has an "inside major" and an "outside major" overseeing several captains, lieutenants, sergeants-at-arms and soldiers.

All five active generals have been convicted, authorities said, along with one "acting" general and a former general who was also a founding member of the gang. At a news conference attended by law enforcement authorities from some of the dozens of agencies that worked on the case, officials displayed a poster showing where each of 36 defendants swept up in the latest indictment fit into the group's organizational structure.

"Today was the plea of the last defendant in the case," said Ken Magidson, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas. "So all 36 defendants in the indictment have been convicted."

Only three of the gang members have been sentenced, facing prison terms of 10 to 30 years. A woman associated with the gang was sentenced to 6 ½ years. The rest of the defendants are scheduled for sentencing in October.

Thanks to Doug Miller.

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