Jury convicts Minneapolis Highs gang members in final major racketeering trial

The final major racketeering trial against members of the Minneapolis Highs gang ended Tuesday in guilty verdicts, bringing to a close one part of the government’s ongoing strategy to break up the violent street groups.

Jurors convicted Cortez Blakemore, 35, and Robert Lesure, 23, of federal charges related to racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances after an eight-day trial at the federal courthouse in Minneapolis.

The pair are among the final members of the Highs gang to stand trial in a series of complex proceedings beginning this year following a sweeping federal indictment against 40 of the group’s members in 2023. All but one defendant in the Highs trials were found guilty.

During trial, prosecutors described Blakemore and Lesure as “prolific” and “longstanding” drug traffickers for the Highs gang that sold fentanyl at the intersection of Broadway and Lyndale avenues, an area the gang controlled. The Highs had long “wreaked havoc” in their territory north of West Broadway Avenue in north Minneapolis, and they enforced their territory through violence, kidnapping and murder, according to federal prosecutors who assisted in the case.

The group became more brazen after the civil unrest in 2020, including sending a “groundswell” of illicit fentanyl onto the streets, Assistant U.S. Attorney Carla Baumel said.

The gang’s propensity for violence was the cornerstone of many of the members’ RICO trials, including the killing of a man, Prince Martin, outside the troubled Winner gas station that became known as the “murder station.” The shooting prompted a slew of retaliatory violence that led to the death of a bystander.

The attorneys for Blakemore and Lesure didn’t immediately return requests for comment on Tuesday.

To the assistant U.S. attorneys who prosecuted the back-to-back Highs trials, RICO charges allowed them to strike at the heart of the gangs.

“The initial response is often to disrupt the cycle of violence,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Calhoun-Lopez said. “RICO can take it a step farther by doing more than disrupting, but dismantling.”

The tactic was credited by Minneapolis police as one of the factors behind the city’s drop in violent crime.

“The outstanding work of MPD officers and our partnership with the U.S. Attorney’s Office have been instrumental in targeting the small number of individuals committing a disproportionate amount of violence in the city,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a statement. “This conviction is the latest result of efforts that can not only be seen in the reduction of crime, but also felt by the community as we work to rebuild trust.”

Prosecutors said a decline in gun violence was also noticed at the Winner gas station since the indictments.