Sin City Deciples members convicted of racketeering and drug conspiracy

 

Date: November 28, 2023

Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov

HAMMOND — Kenneth Christopher McGhee aka "Sonny" and "Angel," of Merrillville, Indiana, Richard White aka "Ignorant Bastard," of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Brandon Romand Parks aka "Baywatch," age 45, of Chicago, Illinois, and Herman Troy Jefferson aka "G-Rilla," of Jacksonville, Arkansas, were each found guilty of various felony charges following an eighteen-day jury trial presided over by United States District Court Judge Philip P. Simon, announced United States Attorney Clifford D. Johnson.

The jury found McGhee and Jefferson guilty of the racketeering conspiracy and the drug conspiracy and additionally found McGhee guilty of possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of controlled substances. The jury further found White and Parks guilty of the racketeering conspiracy.

According to the Second Superseding Indictment, the Sin City Deciples, originally formed in 1967 in Gary, Indiana, is a motorcycle organization in which its members and associates engaged in acts of violence, extortion, and narcotics distribution in the Northern District of Indiana and elsewhere.

The agencies involved in the Sin City Deciples prosecution are: the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (CI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the East Chicago Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Gary Police Department, the Griffith Police Department, the Hammond Police Department, the Lake County Sheriff's Department, Indiana High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area officers and agents, the Merrillville Police Department, the Munster Police Department, and the Schererville Police Department. The Lake County Prosecutor's Office and the U.S. Attorney's Offices for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Northern District of Illinois, Southern District of Indiana, Western District of Kentucky, and Western District of Pennsylvania also provided assistance.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys David J. Nozick, Michael J. Toth, and Kimberly L. Schultz.

This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks.

CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.