Opinion ID: 175470
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ellis’s Crimes

Text: Ellis was the chief enforcer for the Chicago Gangster Disciples street gang and in that role obtained firearms for himself and other members of this violent street gang. Because he is a convicted felon, however, his possession of firearms is illegal, so he regularly arranged for others to make straw purchases of guns in Indiana. As charged in the Indiana case, on at least five occasions between 2003 and 2005, Ellis traveled to a gun store in Osceola, Indiana, and gave his girlfriend (or the girlfriends of two of his nephews) money to purchase firearms. The straw purchasers submitted false ATF 1 forms stating they were buying the guns for themselves. After each purchase Ellis took possession of the guns, returned to Chicago, and instructed the women to report them as stolen. The ATF office in Chicago was alerted to these illegal transactions after the last one in June 2005. In late July 2005, federal agents went to Ellis’s mother’s house in suburban Chicago, where Ellis was then living, to question him about the straw purchases and other criminal activity. The agents told Ellis he was suspected of having guns, drugs, and money stored at the house. Ellis admitted he was a member of the Gangster Dis- ciples, acknowledged he was an enforcer for the gang, and said that he always carried a gun for protection. He 1 “ATF” refers to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Nos. 08-2512, 08-2443 & 08-4055 5 also admitted to orchestrating an illegal purchase of two 9-millimeter handguns in Indiana in June 2005. One of these guns was in the house, and Ellis turned it over to the agents. The other gun, he explained, was then in the possession of a fellow gang member named “OG.” Ellis offered to retrieve it for the agents. He then went to Chicago’s South Side, retrieved the gun, and gave it to the agents. In August 2005 federal agents caught Ellis on audiotape giving a detailed and gruesome account of acts of torture and extortion he committed while shaking down Chicago drug dealers as an enforcer for the Gangster Disciples. The agents also learned of a plot by Ellis to carry out a home-invasion robbery of a Chicago fireman who was dealing cocaine on the side. They arrested Ellis before this robbery took place.