Opinion ID: 1607200
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Drug Enterprise and Organization

Text: A number of witnesses who had been involved in John Doe testified about the organization and operation of the seven drug holes. According to their testimony, Smith was the head of John Doe, Latravis Gallashaw was the second-in-command, and Julian Mitchell was the third. Smith started out as a member of the Lynch Mob, a drug group that predated John Doe in the same neighborhood. The leader of this group was Mark Roundtree, who had both a friend and mentor relationship with Smith. Smith opened his own drug hole across the street from his mother's house on Northwest 58th Street and 15th Avenue in 1994. Smith engaged in intimidation and violence to take over other drug spots or to run competitors out of business. Each drug hole employed a number of workers, including a bombman who sold the drugs, a watchout who looked out for the police and marketed the drugs by yelling slogans to potential customers, a gunman who kept the peace and enforced the rules, and a street lieutenant who dropped off drugs and collected money. In addition, John Doe also employed tablemen who processed and packaged the drugs for street sale, turnover lieutenants who tracked the money to provide a count for paying the workers, and enforcers or hit men who carried out the group's violence. The employees worked regular shifts at their jobs and were paid in cash by the lieutenants. Various witnesses and documentary evidence also revealed a type of accounting system through tally sheets which enabled John Doe to keep track of how much and what kind of drugs were sold and how much money was collected and paid out. Letter codes were used to indicate the type of drug and the size of the bags. Witnesses also testified that workers at the drug holes were permitted to buy guns that they might be offered by individuals and pay for them with John Doe money. The guns were kept by the workers at the holes. However, the workers had to get special permission to buy machine guns, which were stashed in a special location and not kept by the general drug hole workers. When a drug unit officer attempted to conduct a controlled buy at the residence of Antonio Allen in September 1998, Allen was alerted when the officer's radio made a transmission. Allen was arrested with over 500 bags of cocaine, a .380-caliber semiautomatic gun with a four-inch barrel, and $922 in cash. Allen admitted the possession of these items. In September 1998, the wiretap revealed that a sack of narcotics was going to be delivered to the residence of Charles Clark. The search produced over 100 bags of crack cocaine, $846 in cash, two handguns and ammunition, and rubber bands for bundling cash. The task force executed search warrants for various residences of John Doe members in late October and early November of 1998. The search of Smith's mother's residence revealed two homemade grenades in the attic, a 9-millimeter pistol in Smith's room, various boxes of ammunition, magazines, and clips, a bullet-proof vest, a loaded derringer in the mother's bedroom along with $850, drug residue in the kitchen, and a copy of the police report in the Johnson case in the nightstand of Smith's bedroom. The search of the home of Todra Smith and William Austin, Smith's sister and brother-in-law, uncovered several bricks of marijuana, hundreds of small bags of marijuana, a loaded 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, a .25-caliber pistol and magazine, and a variety of drug paraphernalia. The search of Latravis Gallashaw's house uncovered various paraphernalia for processing and packaging cocaine, including scales and thousands of empty bags for packaging, tally sheets of packaging and sales, two bricks of marijuana, rock and powder cocaine, empty kilo wrappers in the garbage, and $16,000 in cash. The search of the residence that Smith shared with his girlfriend Crystal Boyd uncovered a radio frequency detector to detect bugs or wires, a phone guard that was supposed to detect wiretaps, a diamond-studded Rolex watch, $500 in cash in Smith's shorts pocket, a bag containing $185,724 in cash bundled with rubber bands, an AK-47 drum that can hold up to 75 rounds of ammunition, and a small amount of marijuana. In November 1998, a search of the Steady Mobbin' Car Wash [2] on Northwest 17th Avenue uncovered a number of weapons in a locked storage room, including a .357 handgun, a Mac-10 semiautomatic handgun, a Rueger Mini-14 rifle, and a Mac-90 rifle. There was also a ski hat in the storage room. On December 11, 1998, the John Doe hitmen Jean Henry, Julius Stevens, and Eric Stokes did a drive-by shooting of the Northwest 98th Street residence of Patricia Harvey, who is related to Anthony Fail. There were a number of adults and children at the residence that day, as they were celebrating the Soul Bowl football game between Miami Northwest High School and Jackson High School. There were thirty-seven bullet holes in the front of the Harvey house and other bullets struck the trees in front of the house. Two of the bullets actually went through the Harvey house and struck a duplex behind it. Based on this shooting, the crime suppression team of the Metro Dade police conducted surveillance of the residence of Eric Stokes and Jean Henry at 1255 Northwest 100th Terrace. The officers observed black males getting into two different vehicles at this location. The officers observed that the individuals in each car were armed. A white station wagon containing Julian Mitchell and Eddie Harris traveled to the west and led the officers on a high-speed chase for about ten minutes. The officers observed items being thrown from the vehicle. The chase ended at a Costco Warehouse approximately sixty blocks away. Eric Stokes, Jean Henry, and Julius Stevens left in a blue LeSabre and fled at a high speed. The three men abandoned their vehicle and then fled on foot. The police officers were able to arrest them after being alerted by a resident on 74th Street that the men were running through his house. The police found a loaded .44-caliber Colt pistol in a holster and a blue Dickie shirt that had been dumped over a fence as the men fled on foot. The police got court authorization for a search of the house on Northwest 100th Terrace. In Stokes' bedroom, the police found a 9-millimeter assault rifle and a bullet-proof vest. In Stevens' bedroom, they found a total of $23,000 in cash and ammunition. A small amount of marijuana debris was found in the kitchen and living room. Numerous boxes of ammunition of different calibers were found in a garbage can. In January 1999, the task force executed warrants for the residences of Julius Stevens and Ketrick Majors. In Stevens house, the search uncovered a number of boxes of ammunition and loose rounds, tally sheets, a triple-beam scale, a bullet-proof vest, a ski mask, and small bags of cocaine. In Major's house, the search uncovered empty bags for packaging drugs, an AK-47 magazine and clip, six boxes of ammunition, a box of .22-caliber long rifle rounds, and a ski mask.