A federal jury in Georgia last week found three members of the Gangster Disciples guilty of carrying out a string of murders that started in retaliation to the slaying of a fellow gang member.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia said the jury convicted Andrea Paige Browner, 28, of Athens and Philmon Deshawn Chambers, 34, of Atlanta, who was the gang’s chief enforcer in Georgia, on murder and gun charges.
Browner, Chambers and Lesley Chappell Green, 35, of Stone Mountain were all convicted of racketeer influenced and corrupt organization conspiracy.
All defendants face up to life in prison for their crimes. No sentencing hearings have been scheduled.
“These defendants placed the Gangster Disciples’ rule of revenge above the rule of law. Their days of violence in the name of the Gangster Disciples are now over,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a release.
Prosecutors said the murders were set off by the December 2018 killing of Gangster Disciples member Walter James Brown, who was gunned down at an apartment in Athens.
Chambers decided to kill Rodriguez Apollo Rucker in retaliation because he was related to one of the suspects named by police.
Court documents said Browner lured Rucker to an Athens motel for sex, then tipped Chambers off about when the victim was leaving. Chambers followed Rucker to his home and shot him dead.
After law enforcement pegged Chambers as the suspect in Rucker’s death, the gang leader and Browner fled. Browner was soon captured in Mount Enterprise, Texas.
Chambers then ordered hits on fellow gang members Derrick Ruff and Joshua Jackson because he suspected the pair were feeding police information about the gang.
A plan was hatched where Ruff and Jackson would break into a storage unit in Lawrenceville, Georgia, and send the stolen goods to Chambers’ hideout in Killeen, Texas, according to phone records shared at the trial.
Instead, the two victims were ambushed and murdered at the site by Lesley Green, Shabazz Larry Guidry, 28, of Decatur, and Robert Maurice Carlisle, 34, of Lithonia.
The three gangsters left Ruff and Jackson’s bodies inside the storage unit, where police discovered them four months later in March 2019.
Guidry and Carlisle previously pleaded guilty to RICO charges.
“Philmon Chambers, Andrea Browner and Lesley Green were Gangster Disciples who engaged in a pattern of violent criminal activity for years, to include three heinous murders; now, justice has been served,” U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary for the Middle District of Georgia said in the release. “Violent gangs, intimidation and murder have no place in our lawful society, and I commend the federal, state and local partners who worked so closely to solve this case of exceptional complexity.”
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.