Opinion ID: 449643
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: 14 According to the proof at trial, all the defendants and several co-conspirators (including Leroy Nicky Barnes, James Fisher and Joseph Hayden) were associated in a huge narcotics ring run by a governing body called the Council. In existence for 12 years--from 1972 to 1983--the Council purchased bulk quantities of pure heroin. Its members were Barnes, Hayden, James, Guy Fisher, Rice, Muhammed and Forman. The Council's purpose was to pool the members' resources, share narcotics sources, allocate sales territories, adjudicate disputes among members and handle the narcotics business of jailed members. Each Council member had a separate narcotics business and employed subordinates to dilute and distribute the heroin in his territory. The Council also dealt in cocaine, PCP, and marijuana. Council members routinely approved the murders of those suspected of being potential witnesses against the Council or of people who had been insubordinate. 15 The three defendants who were not members of the Council--Wheelings, Morris and Thomas--were connected to the Council's business. Wheelings, along with Walter Centano who later was a government witness, was a member of the crew of mill workers in Guy Fisher's narcotics business, and eventually became Fisher's partner. Elmer Morris and Kenneth Thomas were also members of Fisher's crew. Morris, a former Tuckahoe, New York police officer, was responsible for providing the Council with information about suspected police informants.