He also was arrested in September for selling drugs in his new hometown.įourteen other Black Souls members pled guilty before the trial. Williams, who wore a wire for investigators, played a key role in identifying gang members and translating jargon in those recorded conversations.
Williams, who was caught repeatedly by his FBI handlers selling drugs while working for the government, received more than $100,000 in benefits for informing on the Souls - including nearly $40,000 in cash and relocation to a town downstate. Star prosecution witness Alex Williams, an FBI informant who claimed to have become close friends with Dawson while the two men were in the Cook County Jail, was a favorite punching bag for defense lawyers. Police dubbed the murder, then unsolved, the “Soul in the Hole” case.ĭefense lawyers consistently attacked the testimony of those former gang members, noting sweetheart plea deals that in some cases shaved decades of jail time off the witnesses’ testimony. Prosecutors said Spears shot Snulligan as he left a cell phone store not far from a Black Souls hangout, apparently in an attempt to aid Black Souls members who were facing criminal charges for beating Snulligan, who had been beaten and mugged in front of his house after making repeated complaints to police about drug dealing by the gang.ĭawson had offered Snulligan $3,000 to drop the charges, not realizing he was working with law enforcement.Īs they watched former underlings take the stand as state’s witnesses, the gang leaders often sneered at testimony that described a gang with a clear hierarchy and strict rules: one of the murders included as acts committed on behalf of the RICO conspiracy was a low-ranking Black Soul who was beaten to death for stealing drug money, then buried in a shallow grave next door to the abandoned house where the “violation” took place. Graffiti, hand signs, colors, and tattoos are indicators of gang affiliation. Speech is the most obvious however, gang members also make use of nonverbal methods of exchanging thoughts.
40-Caliber,” a reference to the caliber of bullets used by Black Souls enforcer Duavon Spears to execute police informant Claude Snulligan in 2012. Gang Awareness Guide Gang members communicate in many dif-ferent ways.
#BLACK SOULS GANG SIGNS TRIAL#
In addition to Dawson, the jury convicted Antwan Davis, Clifton Lemon, Teron Odum, Ulysses Polk and Duavon Spears.ĭawson and five men alleged to be his top lieutenants in the gang are the lone defendants to stand trial among 23 Black Souls and associates indicted in 2013, the culmination of a months-long investigation of the gang by Chicago Police and the FBI. The case was the first in Cook County to go to trial under the state’s 2012 Racketeer Influenced Criminal Organization laws adopted by the legislature at the urging of then-Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez. Prosecutors said the gang, headed by Cornell Dawson, controlled a six-square block area of the Near Northwest Side, centered on a brisk business selling cocaine and heroin near the corner of West Monroe and Pulaski.
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