sentenced Jamal Shakir of the Rollin' 90s Crips for his role in arranging drug deals and killings, and executing power over a gang enterprise authorities say stretched from Los Angeles to Nashville.On Monday, the 34-year-old Shakir wore a yellow prison jump suit and was shackled at the wrists and ankles. Several U.S. Marshals guarded him in the courtroom.Assistant U.S. Attorney Sunny A.M. Koshy told the judge that officials found a handwritten note in Shakir's cell Monday morning with instructions on how to get out of handcuffs. Koshy said authorities have found letters Shakir wrote in the past few months calling for people to be killed and urging fire bombings.Several family members of the victims testified Monday about losing their loved ones. Thea Gibson said her daughter, Shannon, who was killed in 1996, will never know the joy of raising her two children — now 17 and 21.
"You left my grandchildren without a mother," Gibson said. "You are the punk that you are. I want the maximum for what my family has gone through and others because of his manipulative enterprise."Shakir then interrupted the witness to tell the judge he didn't want to be there."Excuse me your honor, but I shouldn't have to hear this again," Shakir said of the testimony, which was also given at his trial earlier this year. "I've heard it hundreds of times."When Nixon told Shakir he needed to listen, Shakir threatened to keep interrupting, but made only one more comment, saying, "You don't know me."Loretta Johnson spoke somberly of losing her youngest daughter, Regina, also in 1996. According to trial testimony, Regina was shot to death in her bed and her decomposed body was discovered about 10 days later. Her 3-year-old daughter was shot in both elbows and survived by drinking toilet water, prosecutors said.Johnson said that little girl, now 16, still has occasional nightmares but has managed to get on with her life."She's the miracle in our family," Johnson said.James Pilcher, the father of a Crip gang member whose killing was ordered in 1997, said he's become an ordained minister since the death of his son, Woody. Pilcher said he's asked God to forgive Shakir's sins, but he often reflects on the life his son could have had.
"Woody got the death penalty, and I got the possibility of life without parole," Pilcher said. "I have to go through this every day of my life."
Before the sentencing, Nixon gave Shakir an opportunity to speak, and he painted himself as the victim of "political aspirations" by Koshy, the lead prosecutor.
"If everybody say they're looking for justice, I say they're looking in the wrong place," Shakir said.Koshy responded that Shakir was once again being manipulative and that "nothing the defendant says can take ... away from what he did."
"This defendant is evil," Koshy said.
Koshy said the Federal Bureau of Prisons will decide where Shakir will be housed.
In October, a federal grand jury indicted two people on charges they plotted to steal a helicopter to help Shakir escape.Prosecutors claim the two conspired between June and September to find a helicopter, direct street gang members to restrain the aircraft's owner and then take it
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