By Sue Lindsay
The Rocky Mountain News
DENVER — Denver jurors took less than five hours to convict the leader of a white supremacist prison gang on charges of racketeering for operating a criminal enterprise.
Benjamin Davis, 31, leader of the gang 211 Crew, was convicted Monday of five charges of racketeering, assault, conspiracy and solicitation to commit second-degree assault.
Jurors had heard closing arguments in the case Friday.
“We are certainly happy about it,” said Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey. “This and all those other 211 cases have been a big undertaking for all the law enforcement agencies involved. This was an overwhelming investigation.”
Davis was convicted of operating a criminal enterprise from prison that sold drugs and ordered beatings of inmates - and attacks on those outside the prison who broke the gang’s Byzantine code.
Davis started the gang for the protection of white inmates after he was beaten up in 1995. But he claimed that he had distanced himself from the gang.
The jury convicted Davis of ordering another inmate to beat up Michael Garren while he lifted weights in the prison yard. Later, a letter from Davis was found by prison officials that had Garren’s name with the number 187 next to it, signifying that he was to be killed.
Davis was indicted with 24 other prison gang members in December 2004. Eight more gang members were charged, bringing the total to 32.
Two defendants are awaiting trial. One was acquitted. All the other cases resulted in convictions or guilty pleas with lengthy prison sentences, Morrissey said.
Among those indicted, Zach Taylor and Brad Simpson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the killing of Donald Mayfield in the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in Ordway in 2001. Simpson has been sentenced to 24 years in prison; Taylor will be sentenced in October.
Davis will be sentenced Nov. 19. Prosecutors seek to sentence him as a life habitual offender, which would mean a life sentence.
Copyright 2007 Rocky Mountain News