EAST ST. LOUIS — Seven members of the Gangster Disciples, including gang leaders from Missouri and Illinois, have been accused of murder and drug trafficking in federal court in East St. Louis, prosecutors said Monday.
“The long list of violent crimes alleged in this indictment — including two murders and multiple violent assaults — make plain the threat to our communities posed by criminal organizations like the Gangster Disciples,” Nicholas L. McQuaid, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a statement announcing the charges.
Prosecutors said three Cape Girardeau gang members, Sean Clemon, 50, Dominque Maxwell, 28, and Perry Harris, 29, killed Leroy Allen at a Gangster Disciples meeting in Bridgeton on April 28, 2018, amid a leadership dispute. They did so on the orders of Frank Smith, 47, of Naperville, Illinois, who was a national “board member” of the gang, prosecutors said.
Clemon is a Gangster Disciple leader in Missouri known as the “governor,” they said. Maxwell is “assistant governor” and Harris is “treasurer” and “chief of security,” prosecutors said.
Warren Griffin, 51, of Lancaster, Kentucky, and Anthony Dobbins, 53, of Troy, Illinois, killed a rival board member in Chicago on May 18, 2018, prosecutors said.
The indictment says Barry Boyce, 44, of Charleston, Missouri, sold methamphetamines, smuggled the drug K2 in state prison and offered someone $10,000 per head to kill six people allegedly involved in the murder of a gang leader’s daughter.
Prosecutors said the conspiracy also resulted in a stabbing at a nightclub in East St. Louis, a shooting in Cape Girardeau, drug trafficking and “multiple unsuccessful murder plots.”
“These charges target national and state leaders of one of the most notorious street gangs in America,” said U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft.
The seven face racketeering, conspiracy and various other charges.
No lawyers were yet listed for any of the men.
Robert Patrick • 314-340-8131 @rxpatrick on Twitter RPatrick@post-dispatch.com
Robert Patrick
Robert Patrick is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
