Brockton Gang Member Sentenced to 204 Months for Drug Trafficking After He Serves 18 Months for Contempt

BOSTON, MA—A Brockton man alleged to be associated with a violent street gang was sentenced to 17 years in prison for drug trafficking.

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, James C. Burrell, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Colonel Marian McGovern, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police and Brockton Police Chief William Conlon, announced today that JOHNNY RICHMOND, 22, of Brockton, was sentenced to 204 months in prison by U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young.

RICHMOND previously admitted to selling crack cocaine to an undercover police officer within 1,000 feet of the Ithaka Lincoln public school, in Brockton. According to a previously-filed affidavit, both RICHMOND and his co-defendant, Daquawn Jones, are alleged to be associated with the Green Street gang, a violent street gang in Brockton.

At today's hearing, Judge Young determined that RICHMOND was a career offender, based on prior convictions for larceny, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and carjacking. Judge Young also found that RICHMOND obstructed justice when he refused an earlier order to testify at the trial of his co-defendant. Judge Young ruled that RICHMOND’s 204-month sentence will start after RICHMOND serves the 18-month maximum sentence for civil contempt (or purges the contempt order).

At his plea hearing in April, RICHMOND identified Jones as his co-conspirator in the drug sale to the undercover officer. When the government sought to call RICHMOND as a witness at Jones’s trial last month, RICHMOND refused to testify and was held in contempt of court by Judge Young. After a four-day jury trial, Jones was convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine base and distribution of cocaine base within 1,000 feet of a school. His sentencing hearing has been scheduled for September 30, 2010.

RICHMOND and Jones were two of several cases charged after a long-term investigation into the Green Street gang by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Massachusetts State Police and the Brockton Police Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Pohl in Ortiz’s Organized Crime Strike Force Unit.