Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia is covering the federal trial of Kaboni Savage for Bigtrial.net.
Jurors deliberating the fate of cocaine kingpin Kaboni Savage heard 13 weeks of testimony that was full of murder and mayhem. The case featured 12 homicides, including a firebombing in which two women and four children were "cooked" alive, according to the prosecution.
But what the panel of nine women and three men (in addition to six alternates) also got during the trial was an insider's view of the drug underworld, a seldom heard, first-person account delivered in bits and pieces by a series of government witnesses who did business on some of the meanest streets in the toughest neighborhoods in the city of Philadelphia.
"We were like the Black Mafia," said Eugene Coleman, one of several former Savage drug associates who testified against him.
"He would supply the drugs and if there was any problems, he would have my back," said Lamont Lewis, a Savage hitman-turned-witness.
"You need protection in the drug game," added Paul Daniels, another Savage associate who took the stand.
The jury, which began deliberations today, heard from nearly a dozen former drug dealers who had cut deals with the government.
While some of the particulars varied, they all told parts of the same story, a cold and brutal saga of death and destruction played out against the backdrop of what authorities say was a multi-million dollar cocaine distribution network. Prosecutors said Savage, 38, headed a drug ring that dumped hundreds of kilos of the deadly powder on the city during an eight-year period beginning in 1995.
You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:
http://www.bigtrial.net/2013/05/the-savage-story-cold-and-brutal-saga.html#more
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