The Lex Mob: Cops, Feds Eliminate Entire Organized Crime Gang
Jim Kouri, CPP
October 28, 2005
Four members of a violent and murderous Jersey City, NJ street gang known as "Lex Mob" (or L.E.X Mob) pleaded guilty to multiple charges, admitting their involvement in a racketeering enterprise that involved retaliatory murder, conspiracy to murder rivals and drug distribution, according to the US Attorney based in Newark.
The four pleas -- which came just as the gang members were about to go to trial -- brings the number of guilty pleas in the case to 26 and eliminates the Lex Mob as an organized gang enterprise in Jersey City. A fifth and final guilty plea scheduled to occur was adjourned and is expected to be rescheduled soon.
Facing a Racketeering Influence and Criminal Organization or RICO trial, the last five Lex Mob defendants - including leader Rondell Warner, 34-year old Jersey City resident, signed plea agreements, after jury selection was halted upon word that the defendants wanted to negotiate pleas with Assistant US Attorneys Marc Agnifilo and Melissa Jampol. Each of the defendants appeared before U.S. District Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh, with four of the five entering guilty pleas to respective roles in murder, murder conspiracies and cocaine trafficking.
Their guilty pleas expose them to sentences ranging from 20 years to life in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 6, 2006, and all of the defendants were returned to custody, where they have been since their arrests in February and March 2002. There is no parole in the federal system, and defendants must serve most or all of their sentences.
"The Lex Mob is no longer," said US Attorney Christopher Christie. "It was targeted by all levels of law enforcement and dismantled, piece by piece, member by member, until the gang ceased to exist. This is the kind of prosecution we've used before and one that all organized gangs in New Jersey should fear."
The Lex Mob took its name from the corner of Lexington and Bergen Avenues, the base of operations for cocaine distribution and an area where numerous drug- and gang-related murders and shootings had taken place between 1993 and 2002.
Of the 27 defendants first charged federally in a criminal complaint in March 1, 2002, twenty-two had already pleaded guilty leading up to the scheduled trial of Warner and his co-defendants. Of those 22, about half of them had signed cooperating plea agreements and were expected to testify at trial
The U.S. Attorney's Office has used the federal RICO statute four times so far to target street gangs. As with traditional organized crime, for which the RICO statute was originally created, street gangs like Lex Mob and the Bloods gangs in New Jersey have sophisticated hierarchies with multiple layers of leadership. That hierarchy tends to insulate the top and most powerful members of gangs, who use lower-level members to commit individual crimes. That has made local prosecutions of the leading gang members difficult.
Instead, as was the case with Lex Mob, Jersey City police and the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office combined forces with the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office, which could employ the RICO statute, which allows prosecutors to focus on the organization as a whole, rather than focus on individuals or individual offenses.
Sources: Jersey City, NJ Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Attorney's Office, Hudson County Prosecutor's Office
The four pleas -- which came just as the gang members were about to go to trial -- brings the number of guilty pleas in the case to 26 and eliminates the Lex Mob as an organized gang enterprise in Jersey City. A fifth and final guilty plea scheduled to occur was adjourned and is expected to be rescheduled soon.
Facing a Racketeering Influence and Criminal Organization or RICO trial, the last five Lex Mob defendants - including leader Rondell Warner, 34-year old Jersey City resident, signed plea agreements, after jury selection was halted upon word that the defendants wanted to negotiate pleas with Assistant US Attorneys Marc Agnifilo and Melissa Jampol. Each of the defendants appeared before U.S. District Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh, with four of the five entering guilty pleas to respective roles in murder, murder conspiracies and cocaine trafficking.
Their guilty pleas expose them to sentences ranging from 20 years to life in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 6, 2006, and all of the defendants were returned to custody, where they have been since their arrests in February and March 2002. There is no parole in the federal system, and defendants must serve most or all of their sentences.
"The Lex Mob is no longer," said US Attorney Christopher Christie. "It was targeted by all levels of law enforcement and dismantled, piece by piece, member by member, until the gang ceased to exist. This is the kind of prosecution we've used before and one that all organized gangs in New Jersey should fear."
The Lex Mob took its name from the corner of Lexington and Bergen Avenues, the base of operations for cocaine distribution and an area where numerous drug- and gang-related murders and shootings had taken place between 1993 and 2002.
Of the 27 defendants first charged federally in a criminal complaint in March 1, 2002, twenty-two had already pleaded guilty leading up to the scheduled trial of Warner and his co-defendants. Of those 22, about half of them had signed cooperating plea agreements and were expected to testify at trial
The U.S. Attorney's Office has used the federal RICO statute four times so far to target street gangs. As with traditional organized crime, for which the RICO statute was originally created, street gangs like Lex Mob and the Bloods gangs in New Jersey have sophisticated hierarchies with multiple layers of leadership. That hierarchy tends to insulate the top and most powerful members of gangs, who use lower-level members to commit individual crimes. That has made local prosecutions of the leading gang members difficult.
Instead, as was the case with Lex Mob, Jersey City police and the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office combined forces with the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office, which could employ the RICO statute, which allows prosecutors to focus on the organization as a whole, rather than focus on individuals or individual offenses.
Sources: Jersey City, NJ Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Attorney's Office, Hudson County Prosecutor's Office
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