By Bill Torpy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The long weekend of terror started brazenly: Nine Trey Blood members rolled up to a home, leapt onto the front porch and stabbed two men after one refused to let his girlfriend leave with the group.
Then it grew horrific: A reluctant Blood, thinking about cutting his ties to the crew, was executed two days later, along with a teenage sidekick, in a disciplinary ritual at an Atlanta park. When the dead man’s girlfriend had the temerity to make inquiries into his well-being, they came to her home and shot dead her 17-year-old son while he cowered in his closet. Their dog, Princess, was also killed. The woman survived the Oct. 6, 2008, attack only because the gun, aimed at her face, jammed.
The sheer lawlessness of the spree stunned law enforcement officials and prompted prosecutors and police to step up their efforts to confront a growing gang presence in metro Atlanta. At the time, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard called the attacks a wake-up call.
Four of those alleged gang members involved in the 2008 crime spree are now on trial in a Fulton County courtroom, where the armed guards sometimes outnumber spectators.
“You are about to enter into the world of Nine Trey Bloods,” prosecutor Eleanor Ross told jurors as the trial began.
It’s a land of twisted loyalties, casual violence and quick retaliation.
The trial, set to resume this week, gives an inside look at a motley cast of characters who call themselves Nine Trey Bloods and the vicious code members lived by. On trial are alleged gang leader Darryl “Mac Jones” Christmas, 31, and John “Jersey” Auletta, 25, both from New Jersey. Also being prosecuted are Scott Tobin, 26, a former U.S. Marine who served in Iraq and is known as “Black”; and Kenneth Robinson, a big-boned youth called “Baby Boy,” who was just 14 when he allegedly wielded a 9 mm pistol in the deadly home invasion. All four have pleaded not guilty to murder, gang activities and related charges. Another defendant, Derek “Montana” Davis, a 28-year-old former Morehouse College student, pleaded guilty to reduced charges last week. Davis — from an accomplished family headed by a mother who’s a banker, a father who is a counselor and his stepfather, a school board president in Texas — testified for the prosecution.
In all, six of the 10 originally charged have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors.
‘Bloods’ bible’
The testimony portrays a fiercely aggressive gang, held together by a core of recent New Jersey transplants and manned by some star-struck locals.
Christmas was in a hurry to build up a hearty core in his adopted city, prosecutors said. Authorities say he handed out the “Bloods’ bible” to recruits, a packet of papers laying out the rules that members were called to learn and live by. They were given 31 days to absorb their new creed and were to be tested. If they failed, they’d get a beat down.
But defense attorneys argue that Christmas was merely a member and not a leader. That Tobin was only a hanger-on. That Baby Boy was young and impressionable. And that many witnesses are lying to save their own skins.
The “bible” spelled out gang vocabulary, loyalties and what a Blood should and should never do.
Witness and former co-defendant Rico “Mookie” Maddox, a wiry, self-described Bloods “soldier,” was 17 in 2008 when he got “jumped in” to the gang, getting pummeled for 31 seconds by four of his future friends.
Maddox is still getting attacked, only now for breaking the code. He said he was stabbed five times by Auletta while in “the hole” at Fulton jail. In fact, nine of the 10 Bloods originally charged in this spree, including three on trial, have been labeled “food,” which in gang parlance means, “You’re dead,” Maddox testified.
It’s unclear who allegedly issued that order. But others, too, have been attacked in jail. Auletta, an alleged triggerman in the two shootings, is the only one not on that hit list.
Why did Maddox originally join the Nine Trey Bloods?
“From what I seen, they were getting a lot of money,” he said.
But the reality was far from the resplendent gangsta life portrayed in hip-hop videos. Several members worked in food service and recounted taking MARTA to their gang meetings and criminal activities. Christmas drove a burgundy Cadillac but it was unreliable. Seemingly, the only Blood with dependable wheels was Tyeisha “Lady Tye” Marshall, a 26-year-old New Jersey native who ran a kitchen at Turner Field and ferried Christmas and other crew members in her Chevrolet Blazer.
Aside from being the driver, Marshall was to teach new female members the ways of the gang. The most recent recruits were two sisters who had to fight each other as their way in. It was at their home that the two men were stabbed on Oct. 3, 2008.
During that incident, witnesses said, Christmas ordered four gang members to attack, then called them off by yelling “Blat!” — which stands for “Blood love all the time.”
While the spree of violence was notable, the highly organized gang is not typical of Atlanta, police said.
“We have more loose-knit groups, centered around the neighborhoods where they grew up,” said Atlanta police Lt. Johnny Fagler, who heads the gang unit. “We have more hybrid gangs, not like the traditional gangs like those in Los Angeles who sleep and eat the lifestyle. These are more opportunistic.”
Atlanta gangs have shifted from drugs and more violent endeavors to smash-and-grab burglaries that carry less risk of punishment if caught. The department has identified about 1,400 active gang members in Atlanta.
Newcomers to the city sometimes try to set up chapters of established national gangs, he said. “But they never really establish a foothold here like they do in other places.”
One reason the new chapters don’t take, police say, is they are often started by outsiders who don’t have strong connections in town and because the violence thrusts them front and center for prosecution.
That was certainly the case with the Nine Trey Bloods.
Jesus “Dice” Cintron signed his death warrant for breaking the Bloods credo forbidding cooperating with police, prosecutors said.
‘Violation’ punished
Cintron, 27, a native New Yorker, was trying to ease out of the gang, said his girlfriend, Charmisa Witherspoon. Cintron worked at IHOP and lived with Witherspoon and her 17-year-old son, Devontae Jones, a senior at Carver High. The couple augmented their income by running an illegal “shot house,” where patrons bought drinks and food, got massages, played pool and gambled. In late September 2008, a man was seriously injured when he was shot in the face during an argument at the home, and Cintron helped police who were investigating.
The word filtered back to fellow gang members and a week later, on Oct. 5, Cintron was summoned to Anderson Park in Northwest Atlanta. He was nervous but dutifully went.
Maddox — a lean, young ruffian who two days earlier had pounded on the two men in the ruckus on the front porch — recounted the situation last week in court: “Dice was gonna get DP’d [disciplined]. Darryl Christmas said Dice was under a violation. He said, ‘Do you accept your violation?’ Dice said, ‘Yes.’ ”
It was to be a barbaric ritual. Five Bloods encircled Cintron and punched and kicked him for 120 seconds as he fought back. Maddox was selected to be a discipliner, as was 15-year-old Fernando “Snoop” Wingfield, a fledgling Blood who Dice had taken under his wing and brought to the park that night.
Well into the beating, Cintron fell for a third time and refused to rise. “Do what you want,” he told them.
Marshall said Christmas got on a phone to New Jersey. “He was calling someone above him to bring it to the next level.”
Ross, the prosecutor, said Christmas conferred with Auletta and Tobin and then left. Leaders don’t stick around for the dirty work, he explained.
Auletta stood maybe five feet from the battered Cintron and aimed a gun at his head. Snoop turned from Blood discipliner to terrified kid: “Don’t do it!” he screamed. “He’s like my father.”
But young Snoop broke another Bloods’ rule, Ross said. “He showed compassion.”
Tobin, the Iraq veteran and Christmas’ roommate, finished off Dice, Ross said. He was shot through the eye. Auletta then turned and allegedly shot the fleeing Snoop. In court, a photo of his body was flashed up on the screen. His body was curled like a sleeping baby, still wearing his Blood red hoody.
Soon, Witherspoon was frantically calling Cintron’s comrades asking them where he was. Finally, she told them she would call the police.
Christmas would have none of that, Marshall testified, and told his closest mates, “Go over there and shut her up.”
Soon, Lady Tye was driving her SUV toward Witherspoon’s home.
“Baby Boy,” the 14-year-old who had gained favor with the gang, was along for the ride and allegedly asked his superiors if he could be part of the killing crew.
In the vehicle, authorities say, were Tobin and Auletta, the gunmen from the previous night, and Marquis Robbins, or “KB,” who knew the woman. She would open the door for him.
The frazzled woman let Robbins in, and two more rushed in. Prosecutors say it was Auletta and Baby Boy. Witherspoon fled and banged on her next-door neighbor’s door. She heard shots. It was her son. Then the dog.
Auletta allegedly found the screaming woman next door on the front porch, stuck the revolver to her head and pulled the trigger twice with no result. The gang then scurried away.
But almost immediately, they knew they had screwed up, prosecutors said. They left someone alive.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The long weekend of terror started brazenly: Nine Trey Blood members rolled up to a home, leapt onto the front porch and stabbed two men after one refused to let his girlfriend leave with the group.
Then it grew horrific: A reluctant Blood, thinking about cutting his ties to the crew, was executed two days later, along with a teenage sidekick, in a disciplinary ritual at an Atlanta park. When the dead man’s girlfriend had the temerity to make inquiries into his well-being, they came to her home and shot dead her 17-year-old son while he cowered in his closet. Their dog, Princess, was also killed. The woman survived the Oct. 6, 2008, attack only because the gun, aimed at her face, jammed.
The sheer lawlessness of the spree stunned law enforcement officials and prompted prosecutors and police to step up their efforts to confront a growing gang presence in metro Atlanta. At the time, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard called the attacks a wake-up call.
Four of those alleged gang members involved in the 2008 crime spree are now on trial in a Fulton County courtroom, where the armed guards sometimes outnumber spectators.
“You are about to enter into the world of Nine Trey Bloods,” prosecutor Eleanor Ross told jurors as the trial began.
It’s a land of twisted loyalties, casual violence and quick retaliation.
The trial, set to resume this week, gives an inside look at a motley cast of characters who call themselves Nine Trey Bloods and the vicious code members lived by. On trial are alleged gang leader Darryl “Mac Jones” Christmas, 31, and John “Jersey” Auletta, 25, both from New Jersey. Also being prosecuted are Scott Tobin, 26, a former U.S. Marine who served in Iraq and is known as “Black”; and Kenneth Robinson, a big-boned youth called “Baby Boy,” who was just 14 when he allegedly wielded a 9 mm pistol in the deadly home invasion. All four have pleaded not guilty to murder, gang activities and related charges. Another defendant, Derek “Montana” Davis, a 28-year-old former Morehouse College student, pleaded guilty to reduced charges last week. Davis — from an accomplished family headed by a mother who’s a banker, a father who is a counselor and his stepfather, a school board president in Texas — testified for the prosecution.
In all, six of the 10 originally charged have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors.
‘Bloods’ bible’
The testimony portrays a fiercely aggressive gang, held together by a core of recent New Jersey transplants and manned by some star-struck locals.
Christmas was in a hurry to build up a hearty core in his adopted city, prosecutors said. Authorities say he handed out the “Bloods’ bible” to recruits, a packet of papers laying out the rules that members were called to learn and live by. They were given 31 days to absorb their new creed and were to be tested. If they failed, they’d get a beat down.
But defense attorneys argue that Christmas was merely a member and not a leader. That Tobin was only a hanger-on. That Baby Boy was young and impressionable. And that many witnesses are lying to save their own skins.
The “bible” spelled out gang vocabulary, loyalties and what a Blood should and should never do.
Witness and former co-defendant Rico “Mookie” Maddox, a wiry, self-described Bloods “soldier,” was 17 in 2008 when he got “jumped in” to the gang, getting pummeled for 31 seconds by four of his future friends.
Maddox is still getting attacked, only now for breaking the code. He said he was stabbed five times by Auletta while in “the hole” at Fulton jail. In fact, nine of the 10 Bloods originally charged in this spree, including three on trial, have been labeled “food,” which in gang parlance means, “You’re dead,” Maddox testified.
It’s unclear who allegedly issued that order. But others, too, have been attacked in jail. Auletta, an alleged triggerman in the two shootings, is the only one not on that hit list.
Why did Maddox originally join the Nine Trey Bloods?
“From what I seen, they were getting a lot of money,” he said.
But the reality was far from the resplendent gangsta life portrayed in hip-hop videos. Several members worked in food service and recounted taking MARTA to their gang meetings and criminal activities. Christmas drove a burgundy Cadillac but it was unreliable. Seemingly, the only Blood with dependable wheels was Tyeisha “Lady Tye” Marshall, a 26-year-old New Jersey native who ran a kitchen at Turner Field and ferried Christmas and other crew members in her Chevrolet Blazer.
Aside from being the driver, Marshall was to teach new female members the ways of the gang. The most recent recruits were two sisters who had to fight each other as their way in. It was at their home that the two men were stabbed on Oct. 3, 2008.
During that incident, witnesses said, Christmas ordered four gang members to attack, then called them off by yelling “Blat!” — which stands for “Blood love all the time.”
While the spree of violence was notable, the highly organized gang is not typical of Atlanta, police said.
“We have more loose-knit groups, centered around the neighborhoods where they grew up,” said Atlanta police Lt. Johnny Fagler, who heads the gang unit. “We have more hybrid gangs, not like the traditional gangs like those in Los Angeles who sleep and eat the lifestyle. These are more opportunistic.”
Atlanta gangs have shifted from drugs and more violent endeavors to smash-and-grab burglaries that carry less risk of punishment if caught. The department has identified about 1,400 active gang members in Atlanta.
Newcomers to the city sometimes try to set up chapters of established national gangs, he said. “But they never really establish a foothold here like they do in other places.”
One reason the new chapters don’t take, police say, is they are often started by outsiders who don’t have strong connections in town and because the violence thrusts them front and center for prosecution.
That was certainly the case with the Nine Trey Bloods.
Jesus “Dice” Cintron signed his death warrant for breaking the Bloods credo forbidding cooperating with police, prosecutors said.
‘Violation’ punished
Cintron, 27, a native New Yorker, was trying to ease out of the gang, said his girlfriend, Charmisa Witherspoon. Cintron worked at IHOP and lived with Witherspoon and her 17-year-old son, Devontae Jones, a senior at Carver High. The couple augmented their income by running an illegal “shot house,” where patrons bought drinks and food, got massages, played pool and gambled. In late September 2008, a man was seriously injured when he was shot in the face during an argument at the home, and Cintron helped police who were investigating.
The word filtered back to fellow gang members and a week later, on Oct. 5, Cintron was summoned to Anderson Park in Northwest Atlanta. He was nervous but dutifully went.
Maddox — a lean, young ruffian who two days earlier had pounded on the two men in the ruckus on the front porch — recounted the situation last week in court: “Dice was gonna get DP’d [disciplined]. Darryl Christmas said Dice was under a violation. He said, ‘Do you accept your violation?’ Dice said, ‘Yes.’ ”
It was to be a barbaric ritual. Five Bloods encircled Cintron and punched and kicked him for 120 seconds as he fought back. Maddox was selected to be a discipliner, as was 15-year-old Fernando “Snoop” Wingfield, a fledgling Blood who Dice had taken under his wing and brought to the park that night.
Well into the beating, Cintron fell for a third time and refused to rise. “Do what you want,” he told them.
Marshall said Christmas got on a phone to New Jersey. “He was calling someone above him to bring it to the next level.”
Ross, the prosecutor, said Christmas conferred with Auletta and Tobin and then left. Leaders don’t stick around for the dirty work, he explained.
Auletta stood maybe five feet from the battered Cintron and aimed a gun at his head. Snoop turned from Blood discipliner to terrified kid: “Don’t do it!” he screamed. “He’s like my father.”
But young Snoop broke another Bloods’ rule, Ross said. “He showed compassion.”
Tobin, the Iraq veteran and Christmas’ roommate, finished off Dice, Ross said. He was shot through the eye. Auletta then turned and allegedly shot the fleeing Snoop. In court, a photo of his body was flashed up on the screen. His body was curled like a sleeping baby, still wearing his Blood red hoody.
Soon, Witherspoon was frantically calling Cintron’s comrades asking them where he was. Finally, she told them she would call the police.
Christmas would have none of that, Marshall testified, and told his closest mates, “Go over there and shut her up.”
Soon, Lady Tye was driving her SUV toward Witherspoon’s home.
“Baby Boy,” the 14-year-old who had gained favor with the gang, was along for the ride and allegedly asked his superiors if he could be part of the killing crew.
In the vehicle, authorities say, were Tobin and Auletta, the gunmen from the previous night, and Marquis Robbins, or “KB,” who knew the woman. She would open the door for him.
The frazzled woman let Robbins in, and two more rushed in. Prosecutors say it was Auletta and Baby Boy. Witherspoon fled and banged on her next-door neighbor’s door. She heard shots. It was her son. Then the dog.
Auletta allegedly found the screaming woman next door on the front porch, stuck the revolver to her head and pulled the trigger twice with no result. The gang then scurried away.
But almost immediately, they knew they had screwed up, prosecutors said. They left someone alive.
