Philadelphia Man Pleads Guilty to Intimidating Witnesses

PHILADELPHIA—Dawud Bey, 41, pleaded guilty today to conspiring with Kaboni Savage, charged in a separate indictment, and others, to tamper with witnesses slated to testify against them in a federal narcotics trial, announced United States Attorney Michael L. Levy. Bey agreed to tamper with witnesses between December 2003, and January 2005. His actions included multiple attempts to threaten, intimidate, and coerce witnesses into refusing to testify in federal court. The four witnesses that Bey admitted to intimidating include Eugene Coleman. Coleman’s family home, on the 3200 block of N. 6th Street, was firebombed on October 9, 2004, killing six people, including Coleman’s mother, Marcella, his infant son, Damir, and four other family members. Bey is not charged with the murder or conspiracy to murder the Coleman family, crimes for which Savage and others were separately indicted in 2009. Savage, in fact, is awaiting trial for those murders and five others.

Bey is facing a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison when sentenced on May 27, 2010.

The case was investigated by the FBI and Philadelphia Police Department and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys David E. Troyer and Christine E. Sykes.