“Philly Black Mafia” on Biography

[Lolly]

Just heard an announcement that this show will be aired next Friday night. Should be interesting.

Bio's Bad Boys - Philly Black Mafia

“Philly Black Mafia”
Friday, January 08 @ 9 pm ET
Rated: TV14
Running Time: 60 Minutes

The "Black Mafia" was the most feared force in Philadelphia's criminal Black underworld. One of the most ambitious criminal enterprises in the history of Black America, the group extorted, hustled, plundered and murdered with impunity. It also maneuvered skillfully through many worlds, shielding itself inside the Nation of Islam, conning politicians and other leaders, and devising multiple layers of protection and cover.

[CHIOSSO]

One of the Black Mafia's most brutal, inexplicable crimes included the Dubrow furniture store robbery. On January 4, 1971, eight Black Mafia members robbed DuBrow's on South Street in Philadelphia. They entered the store one by one posing as customers. Once all were inside, they pulled guns on the twenty employees present and forced them to lie on the floor in the back of the store where they bound them with tape and electrical cord. Thirteen employees were beaten while two others were shot. A janitor who walked in on the robbery while doing his job was shot and killed. One employee was doused with gasoline and set on fire. After their vicious treatment of the employees, they looted the offices in the store and set more fires to destroy evidence of the robbery. The eight criminals fled the scene as soon as the fire alarm went off, purposefully trampling on one of the victim's bodies as they left. This crime was so brutal that W.E.B. Griffin wrote a novel based on it, The Witness, and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo was quoted as saying that the DuBrow crime was "the most vicious crime I have ever come across

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/ne.../38371249.html

[seand]

Considering how lurid a lot of this history is, its connections to Shamsud Din Ali and the whole "pay-to-play" scandals of the Street administration, in a way its surprising it hasn't been made into a TV drama before. If its well made and popular, I imagine we can expect hip-hop songs to drop references for another 5 years on the other hand.

[Username1613]

Was this a well-known crime organization in the 1970's? I lived in New York back then, so maybe that's why I've never heard of them before.

[Lolly]

The reminder we set just popped up - for anyone else interested, this is on right now.

[blindingsun]

Considering how lurid a lot of this history is, its connections to Shamsud Din Ali and the whole "pay-to-play" scandals of the Street administration, in a way its surprising it hasn't been made into a TV drama before. If its well made and popular, I imagine we can expect hip-hop songs to drop references for another 5 years on the other hand.

Sylvester Johnson actually walked up and shook "shams" hand right before a trial. When the Police Commissioner of the City of Philadelphia does something like that what kind of message does that send? Its disgusting and tells you what kind of leadership the city really has. He shouldn't have been running a police force. He should have been running from a pair of hand cuffs along with his co-hort Ali.

[CHIOSSO]

Why is it that this stuff just slides away into history?

[CHIOSSO]

Police are shown standing inside and outside of Dubrow's Hardware at 417 South Street. A police van is also parked outside

[Username1613]

Dubrow's is now Pearl Arts and Crafts (the one going out of business.)

[Jayfar]

Police are shown standing inside and outside of Dubrow's Hardware at 417 South Street. A police van is also parked outside

Wasn't it a furniture store at the time of the robbery. That'a what I had read previously and in the photo I think I see furniture displays in the window. That location did later become a hardware store – that's what it was when I moved here in 1980 – and in more recent years Pearl's Art Supplies.

[CHIOSSO]

Wasn't it a furniture store at the time of the robbery. That'a what I had read previously and in the photo I think I see furniture displays in the window. That location did later become a hardware store – that's what it was when I moved here in 1980 – and in more recent years Pearl's Art Supplies.

Yes it was a furniture store the caption is from Temple. Temple always seems a bit disconnected from Philadelphia. Slipped past me.

[CHIOSSO]

Black Mafia Victims
These are the names of the identified victims who were murdered by the Black Mafia. This list is in chronological order.


Richard James 1969 Overdosed by a heroin shot administered by his Black Mafia cohorts in prison to ensure silence in a murder case.

Nathaniel Williams 1969 Murdered on the street after setting up a crap game for the Black Mafia and then robbing it.

Shane Albert 1971 Janitor shot during the Black Mafia's robbery of the Dubrow furniture store.

Wardell Green 1971 Shot by Black Mafia member, Russell Barnes, for unknown reasons.


Velma Green 1971 Shot to death answering her door a week before she was to testify against Barnes in her brother Wardell's murder.

Richard Harris 1972 Shot in a bar at 17th and Dauphin sts. in North Philadelphia for cheating Richard Smith, on a narcotics deal.

Richard Smith 1972 Shot in a parking lot at 3700 Brown St. in Philadelphia for cheating Tyrone Palmer on the Richard Harris narcotics deal.

Tyrone Palmer 1972 Shot to death by Samuel Christian in Atlantic City's Club Harlem for drug related reasons involving both the Harris and Smith murders.

Gilbert Satterwhite 1972 Shot to death with Palmer while serving as his bodyguard.

James Boatright 1972 Shot to death in South Philadelphia for unknown reasons.

Seven Hanafi Muslims 1973 Shot or drowned in a bathtub by seven Black Mafia affiliates stemming from an ideological dispute with Black Muslims.

Major Coxson 1973 Shot in his home at Cherry Hill, New Jersey home by Ronald Harvey and other Black Mafia members for reneging on a drug deal.

Charles Cooper 1973 Shot to death with two other women in a West Philadelphia apartment by Russell Barnes, through a contract by the Black Muslims and the Black Mafia.
Lita Luby 1973 Shot along with her common-law father, Major Coxson.

Hilton Stroud 1973 Shot in Camden, New Jersey, for intercepting a drug shipment originally destined for Bo Baynes.

Walter Tillman 1973 Shot in Camden, New Jersey, for intercepting a drug shipment originally destined for Bo Baynes.

Thomas Farrington 1973 Shot to death by Charles Russell, under contract by George "Bo" Abney, over a drug territory dispute.

Robert James 1973 Shot near his home for an unknown reason
.
Joseph Borisch 1973 Shot in his home at Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, for an unknown reason.

John Clark 1973 Shot in Camden, New Jersey, for his involvement in a community group which was actually a Black Mafia front.


George Abney 1974 Decapitated after the Black Mafia put out a hit on him for skimming narcotics proceeds from Farrington's former drug distribution network.

Jeremiah Middleton 1974 Shot at 19th & Carpenter Sts. by Clarence Starks.


Charles Price 1974 Tortured and hanged in prison for turning states evidence against the Black Mafia in the Hanafi murder case.


Herschell Williams 1975 Shot by Jo-Jo Rhone and Roy Hoskins in a drug related dispute.

James Hadley 1976 Shot at 20th & Pierce Sts. by Jo-Jo Rhone over a dispute.
Louis Gruby 1976 Executed in his home for testifying against the Black Mafia in the Dubrow furniture store robbery case.

Yetta Gruby 1976 Executed with Louis in their home.

Barry Kelly 1980 Killed in retaliation for his father's incriminating testimony in a robbery/kidnapping case.

Frederick Armour 1980 Shot by Larris Frazier over a territorial dispute in the Richard Allen Projects.

[CHIOSSO]

By KITTY CAPARELLA

caparek@phillynews.com

THEY MANIPULATED politicians.

They misused government funds.

They extorted businesses.

They ripped off drug dealers.

And they claimed investigators were racists and anti-Islam.

Sound like the ongoing public corruption investigation?

Not so.

That was the controversial, violent Black Mafia of 30-some years ago, which provided the fertile seedbed for a crop of crooks being harvested by law enforcement today.

At least three men in the current probe - Muslim cleric Shamsud-din Ali, Dawud Bey and Eugene Hearn, known as Fareed Ahmed - can trace their roots to the Black Mafia.

Ali and Bey were convicted in related cases this year, and Ahmed was identified by authorities as a "person of interest" regarding city-related contracts.

The trio are cited in Black Brothers Inc., The Violent Rise and Fall of Philadelphia's Black Mafia, a $14.95 book released today by Milo Books Ltd. of Great Britain.

Author Sean Patrick Griffin has delivered a richly detailed narrative of the murderous history of the city's first African-American crime syndicate, initially ignored by law enforcement.

The Black Mafia emerged from violent gangs amidst the racial turmoil of the mid-1960s. Its membership grew to 200 members and 100 associates in 1974. Then, prosecutions followed through the mid-1980s.

Griffin, an ex-Philly cop-turned-criminology professor at Pennsylvania State University in Abington, drew on hundreds of interviews, court records, documents, news accounts and confidential law-enforcement files to document his 461-page account, which has 117 pages of footnotes and 72 photos and illustrations.

The prof even obtained the FBI file of the late Black Mafia "godfather" Jeremiah Shabazz, onetime minister of Temple No. 12 in the Nation of Islam, who protected the gangsters in his so-called "hoodlum temple." Shabazz was never arrested.

In appendices devoted to the current probe, Griffin described how Ali, Hearn and others - on the street and in jail - continue to impact the city, its politics and generations of young African- Americans, such as Bey, the son of a deceased Black Mafia founder, Roosevelt "Spooks" Fitzgerald, known as Roosevelt Bey.

Sons and nephews of the Black Mafia created the Junior Black Mafia in the late 1980s. They, in turn, influenced Ram Squad, which morphed into the 20-member Kaboni Savage-Gerald Thomas drug network, indicted last year. Bey pleaded guilty on Feb. 7 to federal drug charges in the Savage-Thomas case.

Griffin called the Black Mafia, which was responsible for more than 40 murders, the "most ruthless, malevolent killers ever spawned in the U.S., who became untouchable because no one dared testify against them."

A photo of the headless corpse of George "Bo" Abney, a major drug dealer who failed to pay enough Black Mafia street tax is included in the book.

Initially, gang members ripped off crap games, shook down drug dealers and committed other crimes, honing ruthless, violent reputations mainly in South Philadelphia.

By 1968, Sam Christian, Eugene "Bo" Baynes, Ronald Harvey, Robert "Nudie" Mims, Fitz-gerald and nine others adopted the name Black Mafia and were enlisting recruits.

With Christian's OK, Baynes was soon conducting meetings for 40 to 60 members. A secretary took minutes at rotating locations. Rules and procedures were established, including a mandatory oath never to divulge information to law enforcement. Members even adopted procedures for applying for government funds, according to Griffin.

Squads were organized for murders, drug trafficking, extortions, armored-car robberies, loan-sharking, numbers and credit- card scams.

Protected by pols, dirty lawyers and community leaders, they worked and sparred with the Italian La Cosa Nostra, the Irish K&A Gang and New York-based Frank Matthews, one of the nation's largest narcotics dealers with a distribution network in 21 states.

Between 1972-1974, the Drug Enforcement Administration estimated the Black Mafia controlled 60 percent of the heroin trade in the city.

"They want it all - all the heroin traffic," a drug dealer complained, according to Griffin. "They be their own little army."

Their sphere of influence stretched from New York to Chicago and Atlanta to Detroit, and their crimes drew national notoriety.

Christian, who sported a Superfly image, and Harvey were the two most feared gangsters in the Black Mafia, earning spots on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

Griffin details one murderous rampage after another:

• 1971: The Dubrow Furniture store owner on South Street would not pay protection, resulting in one employee dead, two wounded, one set on fire, 24 tied up and doused with gasoline and five fires set inside the store. Led by Robert "Nudie" Mims with others.

• 1972: Philly's top heroin and cocaine supplier Tyrone Palmer, known as "Mr. Millionaire," was fatally shot in the face by Christian in Atlantic City's crowded Club Harlem on Easter Sunday. Led by Christian with others.

• 1973: Rival Hannafi Muslims were attacked in Washington, D.C., in a house donated by basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Three adults killed, two wounded, and four babies, from nine to 22 months, drowned. Led by Ronald Harvey with six others.

• 1973: Major Coxson, a narcotics financier, a onetime Camden mayoral candidate and entrepreneur, and a child were fatally shot execution style, and two others were wounded and blinded in Pennsauken. Led by Christian and Harvey.

• 1974, Hannafi killer-turned-informant James "Bubbles" Price, bound and hanged in a vacant Holmesburg Prison cell, his testicles crushed and a knife thrust in his rectum.

But on South Street, the Black Mafia put up a good front. In 1973, Black Mafia gangsters - James Fox, Hearn and others - created Black 'B' Inc., a nonprofit that claimed it sought to stop gang killings and clean up trash.

Once jailed, these gangsters, like the notorious Russell Barnes, thought they could come home and take back their turf. Like Barnes, they usually ended up dead.

Hearn wised up. Released in 1980, he first turned to drugs, then politics. His political work quickly proved a liability for candidates. He later assumed a low profile in the construction and trash businesses.

But recently, his name surfaced as "a person of interest" in the ongoing corruption probe in connection with Odyssey Waste, of which Hearn is chief executive, and West Insurance, of which he's vice president, according to Griffin.

Griffin found that Ali first learned about the politics of public funding in 1969. Known as Clarence Fowler, the ex-gang member was handpicked by then-Municipal Judge Paul Dandridge to direct Safe Streets, Inc.

The anti-gang program was the first of three government-funded agencies to be run by Black Mafia leaders. One of Safe Street's first checks, from $100,000 in donations, was sent to Temple No. 12.

Prominent figures such as then-District Attorney Arlen Specter and attorney James Giles, now chief justice for U.S. District Court, supported Safe Streets and helped it to receive nearly $1 million by 1974 from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, plus private money. There was little or no oversight of the money.

The FBI later discovered that Black Mafia members were using Safe Street's credit cards, after a secretary - the wife of a Black Mafia figure - had "verified" their employment, even though they did not work for Safe Streets.

Fowler was working at Safe Streets when he was arrested in the 1970 fatal shooting of Dr. Clarence Smith of Wayland Baptist Church in North Philadelphia.

He was convicted of murder and, as a Fruit of Islam captain, converted inmates to the Nation of Islam and drilled them in martial arts while at Holmesburg Prison.

In 1976, his murder conviction was overturned because of a faulty photo lineup shown to the witness, Smith's daughter, who was also threatened. The D.A.'s office decided not to retry the case.

By the time he was released from Graterford State Prison, he had changed his name to Shamsud-din Ali. But he quickly demonstrated his political prowess:

State Rep. Leroy Irvis persuaded the Legislature to award $450,000 to Ali for his wrongful imprisonment.

[CHIOSSO]

Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Philly Imam Shamsud-din Ali sentenced to 87 months on municipal corruption charges- linked to Mayor Street's office

Philly Imam Shamsud-din Ali sentenced to 87 months on municipal corruption charges- linked to Mayor Street's office
Imam who became convert to Islam after being jailed on drug charges ran Islamic school "as private piggy bank"
September 21, 2005

Cleric Sentenced in Philly Corruption Probe

Monday, September 19, 2005

FOXNews.com - Cleric Sentenced in Philly Corruption Probe - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum



PHILADELPHIA — A prominent Muslim cleric on Monday was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on racketeering and other charges, the latest in a string of convictions stemming from the FBI's sweeping probe of municipal corruption.

Prosecutors said that Shamsud-din Ali (search), 67, used his political connections to obtain dubious loans, donations and city contracts. In addition to his 87-month sentence, Ali was ordered to pay restitution. He was released pending an appeal.

The investigation of the so-called "pay to play" culture in Philadelphia's city government has led to the convictions and guilty pleas for more than a dozen people, including a former city treasurer, two bank executives and several business owners seeking city contracts.

The probe became public when police discovered an FBI bug in Mayor John F. Street 's office. The mayor has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged.

Ali, the leader of a west Philadelphia mosque, was charged with 34 counts. After six days of deliberations, jurors convicted him in June of 22 counts, including racketeering.

According to prosecutors, he and his wife, Faridah, used the Muslim school they ran as a private piggy bank, soliciting donations and public education funds for adult education classes that were never held. The Alis had at least five family members on the payroll, including two adult children who lived out of state.

Faridah Ali was convicted and sentenced to a year of house arrest on related charges.

[drewrob23]

Isn't Shamsud-din Ali the same man that Street picked to head the parole board? If that's true, I always thought that was a questionable move by Street, regardless if Ali was acquitted.

[seand]

Isn't Shamsud-din Ali the same man that Street picked to head the parole board? If that's true, I always thought that was a questionable move by Street, regardless if Ali was acquitted.

Yes he was the one who Street picked to sit on the parole board and who had the charter school that took school district money (yours and my tax dollars) to give to "ghost teachers" that were not even in the state - even though the school had no heat or books. And who Street staffers lined up a bogus 20% "commission" for collecting Robert Snowden of Chestnut Hill's property taxes - even though Snowden had already written a check in full and given it to Donna Reed Miller's chief of staff Stephen Vaughn.

Oh and the same guy Jannie Blackwell as head of the board overseeing the Water Department's sewage treatment arranged special meetings to shake down the guy hauling away our solid sewage byproduct to use as fertilizer on former strip mines. The hauler had Ali on the books as a no-work minority subcontractor to get the contract and Ali wanted a bigger slice. The contractor said no. Blackwell called a meeting and Ali immediately got the money - at least according to the Federal indictments.

Ali was given all kinds of handouts and questionable job assignments by politcians in this town.

The part about the parole board is especially problematic because the FBI basically says Ali was still collecting "street taxes" from various drug gangs in the city while all this government largess was being shown to him - and then funneling some of that money into political donations.

Real life Philly makes the Wire look like General Hospital.

[seand]

Does anyone know if this series is available on DVD or on a hulu-type site?

[CHIOSSO]

OIG Investigative Reports, Shamsud-Din Ali, Faridah Ali, and Five Others Charged in Connection With Racketeering Enterprise

[seand]

OIG Investigative Reports, Shamsud-Din Ali, Faridah Ali, and Five Others Charged in Connection With Racketeering Enterprise

Very succint.

John Christmas is charged with 4 counts of mail fraud and mail fraud conspiracy, 2 counts of perjury and 1 count of making false statements to the FBI. He faces a maximum sentence of 35 years imprisonment.

He actually got off I think and currently is on Jannie Blackwell's Council staff.

[drewrob23]

Yes he was the one who Street picked to sit on the parole board and who had the charter school that took school district money (yours and my tax dollars) to give to "ghost teachers" that were not even in the state - even though the school had no heat or books. And who Street staffers lined up a bogus 20% "commission" for collecting Robert Snowden of Chestnut Hill's property taxes - even though Snowden had already written a check in full and given it to Donna Reed Miller's chief of staff Stephen Vaughn.

Oh and the same guy Jannie Blackwell as head of the board overseeing the Water Department's sewage treatment arranged special meetings to shake down the guy hauling away our solid sewage byproduct to use as fertilizer on former strip mines. The hauler had Ali on the books as a no-work minority subcontractor to get the contract and Ali wanted a bigger slice. The contractor said no. Blackwell called a meeting and Ali immediately got the money - at least according to the Federal indictments.

Ali was given all kinds of handouts and questionable job assignments by politcians in this town.

The part about the parole board is especially problematic because the FBI basically says Ali was still collecting "street taxes" from various drug gangs in the city while all this government largess was being shown to him - and then funneling some of that money into political donations.

Real life Philly makes the Wire look like General Hospital.

That's just crazy. It makes you lose faith in elected officials. I would say that we need more oversight, but then they mess around and get paid off too.