Looking tired and resigned, Shaneka Penix stood before U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles in his Baltimore courtroom yesterday morning and quietly asked for mercy. "I believe I deserve a second chance," she said.
Penix was caught selling crack cocaine in August and September of last year. It was her first serious infraction. But because of her affiliation with the Maryland division of a drug gang known as the Tree Top Piru Bloods, she was charged and convicted of conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, or RICO. At 23, Penix, the mother of a 3-year-old girl, was facing a minimum mandatory prison sentence of 10 years.
"When you're convicted under RICO, the sentences are a lot longer than they are for the base offenses," said Frank Razzano, an adjunct law professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and an editor of a RICO law journal.
That is among the reasons prosecutors like it. The law was enacted nearly 40 years ago to take down traditional, Godfather-style Mafia members, though it is rarely used for that anymore. Instead, it has become a widely used tool against more contemporary mobsters, the drug gangs terrorizing U.S. cities.
It allows prosecutors to charge multiple members of a gang simultaneously with the crimes of their colleagues, simply because of their connection. They are charged and tried in federal court, which offers tough sentences and, unlike state courts, no parole.
Penix was one of 28 defendants listed on an indictment; 26 of them are charged with racketeering. Four people, including Penix, have pleaded guilty in the case so far. But Quarles appeared unconvinced yesterday that it was an appropriate conviction for Penix, in part because of the mandatory sentence it carries. The length of the term "will in fact create an injustice," he said. He sentenced her to 120 months anyway.
"I am bound by the law," he said.
In Baltimore, more than 1,800 adults belong to about 45 criminal street gangs - including the Bloods and Crips - according to a database developed by the University of Maryland and the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention. The Tree Top Piru Bloods are accused of planning and committing robberies, drug trafficking, murders, circulating firearms and committing violent acts "as deemed necessary," according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office.
