Pittsburgh Man Sentenced to 128 Months in Prison for Crips Gang Membership

A Pittsburgh man, Vallon Wallace, 24, aka ‘VL,’ was sentenced to 128 months in prison for conspiring to conduct a racketeering enterprise related to his membership in a Pittsburgh Crips gang, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney David J. Hickton of the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Wallace pleaded guilty on Feb. 24, 2011, before Senior U.S. District Judge Gustave Diamond to one count of conspiracy to engage in a racketeering enterprise. His sentencing was held on July 12, 2011.

According to court documents, Wallace, along with Aaron Ford, 22, aka ‘.40 Cal.,’ participated in a pattern of racketeering activity that included multiple acts involving robberies at gunpoint, attempted murders, distribution of controlled substances, including cocaine, heroin, and crack cocaine, and obstruction of justice and witness intimidation.

The Brighton Place Crips, a criminal street gang that controlled an area of Brighton Place and Morrison Street, also known as the Mad Cave, and Federal Street in the Northside area of Pittsburgh, was formed in the early 1990s. In 2003, it formed an alliance with the Northview Heights/ Fineview Crips, expanding the gang’s drug trafficking territory and increasing the number of gang members and associates available to preserve and protect the gang’s power, territory, and profits through violence.

The Brighton Place/Northview Heights Crips gang maintains exclusive control over drug trafficking in these neighborhoods through continuous violence and intimidation of rivals and witnesses. Members of the gang support each other through payment of attorneys’ fees and bonds, as well as payments to jail commissary accounts and support payments to incarcerated members’ families.

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