The U.S. Attorney’s Office has announced drug charges against alleged members of a Minneapolis street gang in the latest initiative by the feds to dismantle the city’s street crime.
The indictments and complaints against five members of the Family Mob gang were unsealed on Wednesday, Feb. 25, alleging the group’s involvement with conducting an open air drug market along Lake Street in south Minneapolis. Prosecutors said more charges were expected by the end of Wednesday against 12 alleged members of the gang, which originated in the 1990s. The group’s violent grip on the territory came to a head last year when two mass shootings erupted within a 12-hour span along the Lake Street corridor, leaving 10 people injured and two dead.
Charges include possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and cocaine. If convicted, defendants Silk Lamond Davis, 48; Alexisus Jarmon Mosby, 44; Kiron Jamoll Williams, Rashshon Jamahl Taggett and Lakendrick Darnell Gilliam, could face a range of penalties, including life in prison.
The new charges come as federal prosecutors have continued to dismiss drug- and gun-related cases in recent weeks amid a major turnover in staff in the U.S. Attorney’s Office since the beginning of the year. Earlier this week, a federal judge threw out a criminal case against a man accused of illegally possessing a firearm after prosecutors repeatedly missed deadlines, in part because of the sudden exodus of personnel. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning prosecutors can’t refile the same charge.
The office’s departures included many veteran prosecutors who left over disagreements with the Justice Department’s directives tied to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the state. The exits included many in the office’s narcotics unit. The Minnesota Star Tribune previously identified six criminal cases where prosecutors had asked for the typically rare dismissal, including a case that was tossed shortly after nobody from the prosecution showed for a routine hearing.
The dismissals are a sharp departure from the aggressive effort seen by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in years past when it came to prosecuting Minneapolis street gangs. Under former U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, the office’s crackdown led to charges against 80 accused gang members with the same racketeering laws used to topple mob families decades ago in the East Coast. Local law enforcement has credited the federal gang prosecution as a factor in the city’s continued drop in gun violence, particularly in north Minneapolis, which recorded a decade low in shootings last year.
Minnesota U.S. Attorney Dan Rosen was adamant on Wednesday that the office has the personnel to staff the most recent cases, and he rejected media reports about the dismissals as wrong. The appearance was his first public news conference since taking over the office in October.
“Our office has all of this bandwidth and more. Our office continues to grow,” he said.
