Leaders of a Brooklyn gang known as the Bully Gang have been arrested by federal agents on charges of murder, racketeering and drug trafficking, including a murder at a gender reveal party for the baby of one of their gang members.
Derrick “Dee” Ayers, 37, Mauryk “Mo Money” Harrell, 34, Franklin “Spaz” Gillespie, 33, and Anthony “Biggie” Kennedy, 38, were indicted on Tuesday after a 13-week trial that stemmed from a years-long investigation into criminal activity ranging from murder to the distribution of dangerous drugs up the East Coast and into Rikers Island.
“Their criminal enterprise is the remnants of a gang that wreaked havoc in Bedford-Stuyvesant, other parts of New York City and on the East Coast with murder, broad daylight shootings, robberies, arson, drug trafficking and bribery,” said Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Harrell was one of the gang’s founding members and a leader before his arrest, while Ayers and Kennedy were longtime, high-ranking members, and Gillespie was one of the enforcement officers who used violence to achieve his goals, prosecutors said.
Ayers was convicted of killing Jonathan Jackson, a member of the rival Stokes Crew gang, at Harrell’s child’s gender reveal party in 2018. Ayers and Harrell were also convicted of conspiring to murder others associated with the rival gang.
Gillespie was convicted of conspiring to kill Mike Hawley to stop him from telling police about a murder that occurred in April 2020. Hawley was killed four days after speaking with authorities.
Prosecutors said the dangerous gang distributed hard drugs including cocaine, fentanyl and heroin throughout New York and New Jersey, and even as far north as Maine.
They were transporting the drugs in hidden compartments that experts had installed in their vehicles.
One of their plans was to soak comic books and other paper products in a synthetic marijuana compound and smuggle them into Rikers Island.
Once drugs are brought into the prison, connected inmates will sell the product to other inmates.
Prosecutors said Harrell and Kennedy continued their criminal activities outside of prison while incarcerated on Rikers Island.
The four are the latest of 49 members of the bullying gang to be convicted of serious crimes since 2020.
“This conviction brings to an end this gang’s reign of terror and shatters the myth that criminals can commit heinous acts with impunity,” said Special Agent in Charge Miller of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Both charges carry a possible life sentence, with minimum sentences ranging from 15 to 55 years.
