Simon City Royals, Racketeering Conspiracy, Mississippi 2023

The Simon City Royals, a gang aligned with the Gangster Disciples, have finally faced justice. Thirty-seven gang members have pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy in Mississippi.

The 37th and final defendant charged as part of the case against members and associates of the Simon City Royals gang pleaded guilty today to racketeering (RICO) conspiracy.

According to court documents, the Simon City Royals were a violent prison gang operating primarily in the Mississippi Department of Corrections, but with members and associates acting on their behalf outside of prison throughout Mississippi, Louisiana, and elsewhere.

Through an alliance with the violent Gangster Disciples gang and with a sophisticated structure, the Simon City Royals engaged in a host of criminal activities, including murder, attempted murder, assault, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, witness tampering, money laundering, interstate travel in aid of racketeering, large-scale drug trafficking, and fraud.

“The Simon City Royals terrorized Mississippi prisons and communities for far too long,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Criminal Division. “These convictions underscore the Justice Department’s dedication to disrupting and dismantling violent criminal enterprises, regardless of where they operate.”

The Simon City Royals were responsible for the brutal murder of a prison inmate in 2018, when a Simon City Royals leader issued a “kill on sight” order, directing any gang member who encountered the targeted inmate to murder him. In January 2018, Dillon Heffker and Robert Williams acted on the order, stabbing the victim dozens of times with improvised prison knives.

Leaders of the Simon City Royals rewarded Heffker and Williams for the murder by arranging for hundreds of dollars to be directed to their prison commissary accounts.

“These convictions mean that the Simon City Royals’ time is over,” said Special Agent in Charge Joshua Jackson of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) New Orleans. “Protecting the safety of our communities is one of the cornerstones of what our agency seeks to accomplish every day.

The final guilty plea ended a reign of terror for 37 career criminals, who were responsible for a tremendous amount of violence and destruction in Mississippi prisons and communities.

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