New Orleans Man Pleads Guilty to Drug-Related Murder

Evans Lewis, a/k/a “Easy,” 22, a resident of New Orleans, pleaded guilty yesterday to the murder of Gregory Keys and shooting of Kendrick Smothers during the course of a drug trafficking crime, announced U.S. Kenneth Allen Polite, Jr. In December 2011, Lewis and co-defendant Gregory Stewart, a/k/a “Rabbit,” a/k/a “D-Nice,” 22, were charged with participating in the homicide of Keys and the shooting of Smothers. Stewart’s trial is scheduled for July 14, 2014.

Lewis’s guilty plea resulted from a multi-year investigation of a heroin trafficking organization that operated in an area known as the “G-Strip” in New Orleans. The G-Strip is an area encompassing the 1300 block of Gallier Street in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Many of the members of the G-Strip were also affiliated with a gang known as the 39ers, an alliance of heroin traffickers in the Third and Ninth Wards of New Orleans. To date, 11 individuals related to the G-Strip organization have pleaded guilty to drug trafficking-related offenses.

According to Court records, on or about May 24, 2011, Lewis and Stewart knowingly carried and used two firearms, a 40-caliber semi-automatic handgun and a 7.62-caliber assault rifle, during and in relation to the commission of a drug trafficking crime and, in the course of this violation, caused the death of Keys through the use of a firearm.

Lewis will be sentenced on July 17, 2014, at 10:00 a.m. He faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, and a period of supervised release of not more than five years.

The investigation is being conducted by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; the New Orleans Police Department, Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office; and St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sharan Lieberman, Maurice Landrieu and Matthew Payne.