My apologies to the Crew-Nards and the Horowitz Boys, Tetris Lox, the 138s ...

From today’s mlive.com

Detroit drug gang founder spared death sentence The Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) — The co-founder of the notorious drug gang Young Boys Inc. is expected to avoid the possibility of a federal death sentence under a plea deal, the U.S. Justice Department says.

Milton Jones, 50, known as "Butch," entered a guilty plea before U.S. District Judge John Corbett O'Meara, U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy said in a news release Thursday.

In 2003, the U.S. attorney's office requested the death penalty for Jones and two others should they be convicted of murder.

Jones was among 14 people indicted in Detroit in 2001 on charges of selling heroin, cocaine and marijuana during the 1990s. Authorities say the Detroit gang engaged in robberies, kidnappings and murders of rival drug traffickers.

Jones was accused of ordering the killings of rivals Mark Grice and Antoine Carruthers.

As part of the deal with prosecutors, Jones pleaded guilty to federal drug charges in the case, Murphy said.

"Under the terms of the plea agreement, Jones has agreed to cooperate fully with federal authorities," and prosecutors will recommend he get a 30-year sentence, Murphy's office said. It said sentencing guidelines would have called for life imprisonment.

O'Meara is scheduled to sentence Jones on April 6. If the guilty plea is accepted then, Murphy said the death penalty request will be withdrawn.

Jones wrote an autobiography, titled "Y.B.I.," about his life of crime.

In 2001, Jones wrote to federal prosecutors that Youssef Hmimssa, a key witness in a Detroit terrorism conspiracy prosecution, lied to the FBI. Jones was with Hmimssa in the Wayne County Jail and the federal prison at Milan.

The terror case later was dismissed.

I’ve long had an interest in all gang-related matters and I could never really understand why. I mean, this stuff dates back to ninth-grade, when I got my hands on my first Hunter Thompson book, “Hell’s Angels.” We also became kind of obsessed with the Blood-Crips situation in L.A. in the late ‘80s, thanks to CNN blasting stories every nine minutes about the shit.

Motorcycle gangs, skinheads, homeboys, those fucking crazy, super violent dudes of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), I don’t know, I don’t condone it by any means, but it’s always held some weird, unexplained interest in the corridors of my brain. Detroit gangs, especially, because you don’t really hear so much about them. Locally, they were legend and serious as shit, and there were some who really terrorized the the city, with names like the Coney Oneys and the Errol Flynns, who would just start knifing packs of people at concerts or randomly fucking up and slicing neighborhoods at will. The violence element I don’t understand, nor do I find all that fascinating. But what does captivate for a moment is the weird camaraderie. That a bunch of somewhat like-minded guys, mainly in the same age group and from similar backgrounds, all of them believing that society has cast them away, come together as a group and establish a bond that many of them equate to a family. Which is interesting, because a lot of those cats have shredded and faded versions of what you and I would consider a family. So, they make their own. Except in this family, they do a lot of damage and commit some serious crimes. I think I’m going to put “Colors” at the top of the Netflix queue today.