#BLACK SOULS GANG TRIAL TRIAL#

The top leaders of one of Chicago’s most violent street gangs have been charged in a sweeping racketeering case that alleges they controlled their West Side drug empire through pattern of intimidation, kidnappings, shootings and murder dating back to the mid-1990s, according to an affidavit unsealed today in Cook County Criminal Court.īefore sunrise today, police armed with 'no knock' search warrants fanned out across the Chicago area surprising dozens of leaders of the Black Souls, including Cornel Dawson, known as the gang’s chief, and Teron Odum, described as Dawson’s second-in-command. He also was arrested in September for selling drugs in his new hometown.įourteen other Black Souls members pled guilty before the trial.Officials: Murder, intimidation kept $11 million-a-year gang going Williams, who wore a wire for investigators, played a key role in identifying gang members and translating jargon in those recorded conversations. Williams, who was caught repeatedly by his FBI handlers selling drugs while working for the government, received more than $100,000 in benefits for informing on the Souls - including nearly $40,000 in cash and relocation to a town downstate.

Star prosecution witness Alex Williams, an FBI informant who claimed to have become close friends with Dawson while the two men were in the Cook County Jail, was a favorite punching bag for defense lawyers. Police dubbed the murder, then unsolved, the “Soul in the Hole” case.ĭefense lawyers consistently attacked the testimony of those former gang members, noting sweetheart plea deals that in some cases shaved decades of jail time off the witnesses’ testimony. Prosecutors said Spears shot Snulligan as he left a cell phone store not far from a Black Souls hangout, apparently in an attempt to aid Black Souls members who were facing criminal charges for beating Snulligan, who had been beaten and mugged in front of his house after making repeated complaints to police about drug dealing by the gang.ĭawson had offered Snulligan $3,000 to drop the charges, not realizing he was working with law enforcement.Īs they watched former underlings take the stand as state’s witnesses, the gang leaders often sneered at testimony that described a gang with a clear hierarchy and strict rules: one of the murders included as acts committed on behalf of the RICO conspiracy was a low-ranking Black Soul who was beaten to death for stealing drug money, then buried in a shallow grave next door to the abandoned house where the “violation” took place. 40-Caliber,” a reference to the caliber of bullets used by Black Souls enforcer Duavon Spears to execute police informant Claude Snulligan in 2012.

#BLACK SOULS GANG TRIAL TRIAL#

In addition to Dawson, the jury convicted Antwan Davis, Clifton Lemon, Teron Odum, Ulysses Polk and Duavon Spears.ĭawson and five men alleged to be his top lieutenants in the gang are the lone defendants to stand trial among 23 Black Souls and associates indicted in 2013, the culmination of a months-long investigation of the gang by Chicago Police and the FBI. The case was the first in Cook County to go to trial under the state’s 2012 Racketeer Influenced Criminal Organization laws adopted by the legislature at the urging of then-Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez. Prosecutors said the gang, headed by Cornell Dawson, controlled a six-square block area of the Near Northwest Side, centered on a brisk business selling cocaine and heroin near the corner of West Monroe and Pulaski.

Black souls gang trial