Club manager pleads guilty to gang, drug ties
The former manager of a Northeast Baltimore club that had once been padlocked by police was sentenced on Friday to four years in federal prison for conspiring with a dangerous street gang to distribute heroin and participating in a stolen credit card ring.
Tomeka V. Harris, 34, had defended the Belair Road nightspot, Club 410, in interviews and before a padlock hearing chaired by a Baltimore police commander. But federal authorities put her in the center of a criminal enterprise and she pleaded guilty along with five other defendants who are serving up to 12 years in prison.
Prosecutors say Harris conspired with the leader of the Maryland Black Guerilla Family, a national gang that operates in the Maryland prison system and which authorities say still runs crews on city streets (these are also the guys who feasted on lobster and champagne while in prison).
In a statement, prosecutors in U.S. District Court in Baltimore say secretly recorded conversations with gang members implicated Harris "in the smuggling of contraband into Maryland prisons" that turned out to be drugs.
But the prosecutors also say that she stole more than a half million dollars using stolen credit cards and credit information. Authorities estimate that she and her conspirators used more than 1,000 stolen cards from 10 different financial institutions.
For more background on Harris and Club 410:
Back in March 2009, Harris, who identified herself as a law student who represented the club, showed up at city police headquarters to argue against an initiative by top police commanders to padlock Club 410.
Police said its owners and managers harbored crime and violence and cited instances of finding a gun in a car near the club that belonged to a patron. A police commander said the clubs eats up department resources.
Police ended up padlocking the club.
In May this year, police said the club opened illegally for a party drawing 350 people and that two men pretending to be police officers and armed with loaded handguns were providing security. Police arrested the men. The man who owned the building claimed that the nightclub had opened legally, which was countered by the chairman of the city liquor board.
Categories: Gangs, Northeast Baltimore
