The conversation between the man called "Luse" and his imprisoned friend lasted 20 minutes, much of it in broken pig Latin.
Federal authorities say "Luse" was describing a home invasion robbery and fatal shooting in Baltimore's Reservoir Hill neighborhood a day after it had occurred in December last year.
Luce says the victim "ot-gay oot-hay in the ead-hay [got shot in the head]. He used three, I used two [reference to bullets]."
The man told his friend that the victim, Antonio Coby, lied about where he had hidden his drug money, saying it was "up airs-stay" hidden in "ocks-say" when it was someplace else. "Even-say," Luse said, meaning the haul was $7,000.
The informant noted that his friend could lay off dealing drugs for a while, and Luse responded, "You know, right now I'm iced out [wearing jewelry]. I got like, like 10,000 on my neck." Later, Luse bragged that the shooting made television, "Shorty, that's the top story, you heard me?"
After enduring a federal trial of a man who used a smuggled cell phone to order a key witness killed, this fragmented but chilling conversation - the victim "ot-gay oot-hay in ead-hay" - represents a turning of the tables by a Baltimore police detective, Michael Coleman, who was working with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The cell phone that authorities said Luse used to call his friend imprisoned at Supermax was equipped with a hidden listening device, and the inmate was working with police as an informant.
I don't like quoting from statements, but the head of Baltimore's ATF office, Special Agent Theresa R. Stoop, said it best: "Technology trumps crime," adding that agents, as part of Operation Dial-a-Cell, "reversed the tables on these violent offenders by using the same tools of the trade against them as they use to carry out their crimes."
I'm pleased that law enforcement found a way to pull a switch on the bad guys - in fact, the feds say that the single cell phone helped them arrest five people in recent weeks "who were collectively responsible for at least 12 murders or shootings." I'm still waiting for some details on these.
But I was disappointed with the pig Latin, which falls well short of Anthony Ayeni Jones, who designed his own language to thwart the cops - one so sophisticated it took a prosecutor 100 hours to decipher it and learn that back in 1997, Jones was ordering hits from his federal prison cell:
