Hogsett Announces Sentencings of Diablos Ember, Federal Prisoner
U.S. Attorney Says Prosecutions are Part of Comprehensive Effort to Keep Wabash Valley Safe

TERRE HAUTE—Joseph H. Hogsett, the United States Attorney, announced today the sentencing of two Terre Haute defendants. They included Michael E. Pitts, age 51, of Terre Haute, a Diablos Motorcycle Club member who pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute methamphetamine throughout the Wabash Valley and was sentenced to 192 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker. Also sentenced this week was Daniel L. Delaney, age 47, a California native imprisoned at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole by U.S. District Judge Jane E. Magnus-Stinson following his conviction at trial.

“Over the last two years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has made the safety of the Wabash Valley a priority of our law enforcement efforts,” Hogsett said. “Working with our local partners here in Vigo County, that focus has produced significant successes, and today I am pleased to announce more results in this ongoing effort.”

Michael Pitts, a member of the Diablos Motorcycle Club in Terre Haute, was a Wabash Valley distributor for a dangerous methamphetamine trafficking organization operating out of Indianapolis. Pitts received his methamphetamine from Stephen Davis, a member of the Vigilantes Motorcycle Club in Indianapolis. Davis received his methamphetamine from James Taylor, a member of the Sons of Silence Motorcycle Club in Indianapolis.

Pitts admitted to distributing approximately one-half pound of methamphetamine per week for Davis during a five-month period running from March 2011 through August 4, 2011. Davis is scheduled to be sentenced on July 30, 2012.

“This prosecution has taken us from Terre Haute, to Indianapolis, to Michigan, and all the way back again,” Hogsett noted. “This criminal organization was complex and destructive, and the Wabash Valley is a safer place now that these people have been taken off the streets.”

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley A. Blackington, who prosecuted the case for the government, Pitts was sentenced to five years of supervised release following his release from federal prison. The conditions of supervised release subject him to random urinalysis and random searches of his person, vehicle, and residence by probation officers.

Also sentenced this week, Daniel Delaney was convicted at trial of murdering his Terre Haute Federal Correctional Complex cellmate, Teddy L. Turic, late in the evening of September 14, 2010.  Delaney first beat Turic with Turic’s cane, then tried to stab him with a homemade weapon, and then bound Turic’s wrists together with bed sheet material. Finally, Delaney wrapped more bed sheet material around Turic’s neck and tied it multiple times so as to strangle him to death. When correctional officers discovered Delaney’s crime, he said that Turic “had to go.”

“Last year, I met with Warden Lockett and made a public a commitment that our office would do all that it can to protect the 700 employees of the Federal Correctional Complex,” Hogsett said. “Prosecutions such as this one, and others we have filed since then, make clear that we are serious about our zero-tolerance policy toward violence and lawlessness in our prison system.”

Hogsett applauded the work of Assistant U.S. Attorneys James M. Warden and Matthew P. Brookman, who prosecuted the case for the government, and said the prosecution represented more results in the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s ongoing effort to protect the safety of those working in and around the Federal Correctional Complex.

The U.S. Attorney also recognized the investigative partners who spearheaded these cases, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Safe Streets Task Force in Indianapolis, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.