Aaron Ford, Racketeering, Pennsylvania 2011

Aaron Ford, a 22-year-old member of the Brighton Place Crips gang, was sentenced to 88 months in prison for conspiring to conduct a racketeering enterprise, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer and U.S. Attorney David J. Hickton.

Ford pleaded guilty on July 12, 2011, to one count of conspiracy to engage in a racketeering enterprise before Senior U.S. District Judge Gustave Diamond. He was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release following his prison term.

According to the guilty plea, Ford and others participated in a pattern of racketeering activity that included robberies at gun point; attempted murders; distribution of cocaine, heroin and crack cocaine; and obstruction of justice and witness intimidation.

The Brighton Place Crips gang, which was formed in the early 1990s, controlled an area of Brighton Place and Morrison Street in the Northside area of Pittsburgh. The gang maintained exclusive control over drug trafficking in these neighborhoods through continuous violence and intimidation of rivals and witnesses.

Ford was considered a soldier for the gang, providing protection for the enterprise through the possession and use of firearms, and committing acts of violence. He is one of 26 defendants charged in February 2010 with being members or associates of the Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips, a racketeering enterprise.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charles A. Eberle and Troy R. Reisinger of the Western District of Pennsylvania and Trial Attorney Kevin Rosenberg of the Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang Section. The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the City of Pittsburgh Bureau of Police; the Allegheny County, Penn., Police Department; and the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office.

The prosecution resulted from a Project Safe Neighborhoods Task Force investigation that began in 2005. To date, all members or associates of the Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips who were charged in this indictment have pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.

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