The feds have charged more than 40 members and associates of a notorious Jamaica Plain gang with a number of serious charges following a two-year investigation. Four Maine residents are among those charged.
The Heath Street gang, which is also called “Heat” and the “Trottie Gang,” operates mainly out of the Mildred C. Hailey Apartments, which were formerly known as the Bromley Heath Housing Developments, one of the largest public housing developments in Boston.
The feds announced the charges against 41 people at a news conference at the U.S. Attorney’s office at the federal courthouse in Boston’s Seaport district. The charges include racketeering conspiracy (RICO), drug trafficking, illegal firearms, wire fraud as well as a medley of financial frauds, including COVID assistance fraud.
The Mainers charged were:
• Amanda LaPointe, 39, of Ripley, Maine, is charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances;
• Jacob Lyford, 32, of Milo, Maine, is charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances;
• Michael St. Pierre, 54, of Dedham, Maine, is charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances;
• Kayla Tasker, 31, of Dexter, Maine, is charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances.
The gang preys on the youth of the projects, “enticing” them, in the words of acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy, to join through both violent coercion and through a dedicated public relations campaign where the gang makes themselves seem essential in rap lyrics and associated music videos.
In some of those videos, Levy said, gang members boast of killing rivals and even at one point rapped “I can say the names, but I might make the feds come for us.”
“Well, the Feds have come for you,” Levy said. “And we showed up with our federal, state, and local partners in a highly coordinated effort to root out violence, stop gun and drug trafficking, and bring peace to this public housing development.”
Levy was flanked by Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox, as well as the special agents in charge of the local offices for the federal agencies the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — or ATF — and Homeland Security Investigations. Each in turn asserted that this was a joint and massive undertaking by the various agencies involved.
The feds say that the Heath Street Gang started in the 1980s and is now made up of more than 150 members who each partake in violence to spread the gang’s influence, reputation and power.
In that pursuit of street fame, authorities say the Heat members have even “brazenly assaulted local law enforcement officers,” expanded drug trade routes from their base in the projects outward to the rest of Massachusetts to Maine and even California. And, authorities say, the gang has committed numerous murders and shootings, largely targeting the rival Mission Hill Gang and the H-Block gang.
But it’s not just fellow gangbangers who have borne the weight of such violence as the feds say that others have been caught in the crossfire, including in October 2016 when a 9-year-old girl was shot and severely injured.
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