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Thread: Kaboni W. Savage - Federal Death Row

  1. #11
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    "Kill what they love" was Savage's goal

    By John P. Martin
    The Philadelphia Inquirer

    The murder and racketeering trial of accused drug kingpin Kaboni Savage entered its final phase Monday much as it opened three months ago: with photos of the North Philadelphia family killed in a 2004 firebombing that prosecutors say Savage ordered to retaliate against a witness.

    As jurors glimpsed once more at television screens with the smiling images of 54-year-old Marcella Coleman, her 15-month-old grandson, and four other victims, Assistant U.S. Attorney John M. Gallagher played snippets of jailhouse recordings in which Savage seethed and vowed to punish cooperators by attacking their children and mothers.

    " 'I'm going to kill what they love' - that was his guiding philosophy," Gallagher said.

    The prosecutor's remarks launched what could be three days of closing arguments in the case against Savage, his sister Kidada Savage, and two others.

    Savage, 38, is accused of overseeing a vast and violent network that for a decade flooded North Philadelphia corners with drugs and relied on beatings, shootings and killings to silence competitors or others who threatened the operation.

    "They created a climate of fear, and in that climate, the defendants were able to thrive," Gallagher told the jurors.

    Savage is charged with committing or directing a dozen murders, including the deaths of five rival drug dealers, and a man who had bumped his car in their Hunting Park neighborhood.

    But the centerpiece of the case is the firebombing that killed the mother, son and four other relatives of Eugene "Twin" Coleman, one of Savage's top associates who had agreed to testify against him. Officials have called the October 2004 attack among the most heinous examples of witness retaliation in city history.

    Gallagher opened his summation by recounting the testimony of a veteran firefighter who climbed through the scorched remains of the Coleman house after the predawn firebombing. In a second-floor bedroom the firefighter was stunned to find the body of Coleman's cousin, 34-year-old Tameka Nash, sprawled on the floor in a vain attempt to protect a child. Under her he found the body of Coleman's 15-month-old son, Damir Jenkins.

    "That home had become a tomb for the Coleman family," Gallagher said.

    Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if Savage is convicted of the murders. His codefendants, Steven Northington and Robert Merritt Jr., also face the death penalty if convicted for their alleged roles in murders. Savage's sister faces life in prison.

    Savage, a onetime professional boxer with a shaved head and beard, sat through the prosecutor's statement with pen-in-hand and head down, as he has done through much of the trial.

    He chose not to testify, but jurors have heard hours of his voice. Prosecutors introduced his testimony from a 2005 drug trafficking trial and scores of jailhouse conversations secretly recorded by the FBI, many of them talking about "rats" and how he dreamed of punishing them.

    "Kids count to me," he said in one tape played by Gallagher. "I'm killing what they love."

    Savage's court-appointed lawyers don't dispute his drug dealing. He's already serving a 30-year-term for trafficking.

    But they have tried to sow doubt as to his role in the murders, casting his comments as jailhouse bravado, noting that he never specifically claimed credit for the Coleman killings, and challenging the credibility of the former associates who have testified against him in the case.

    One of his lawyers, Christian Hoey, is expected to start his closing statement late Monday or early Tuesday.

    U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick told jurors they could get the case later this week.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...ge_s_goal.html

  2. #12
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    Savage's defense rails against prosecution's 'trial magic'

    By JAD SLEIMAN
    The Philadelphia Daily News

    THE LINCHPIN witnesses in the racketeering/murder trial of reputed Philly drug boss Kaboni Savage were simply reading from the prosecution's script, defense lawyer Christian Hoey said during his closing arguments yesterday.

    Hoey spent nearly five hours calling out the witnesses as "case jumpers" who used "trial magic" to get lighter sentences. He dug into the shady backstories and shifting testimonies of federal witnesses that he said inaccurately paint Savage as the head of a highly organized and powerful drug operation.

    Eugene "Twin" Coleman lost his mother, son and four other relatives in an October 2004 firebombing he said was ordered by Savage, his former friend and boss, in retaliation for Coleman's cooperation with federal investigators. Savage is charged with murdering six others, most deeply enmeshed within the city's drug trade.

    The prosecution's case draws heavily from testimony from Coleman and other insiders facing jail time, Hoey noted.

    Lamont Lewis, who admitted to kicking in the door of Coleman's mother's home so that his cousin could toss in two gas cans, testified during the trial that he agreed to cooperate against Savage and the other defendants in the hopes of avoiding the death penalty after admitting to a total of 11 murders.

    Hoey said Paul Daniels, son of late drug boss Gerald "Bubbie" Thomas, initially told investigators that Savage was running 10 to 15 kilograms of cocaine out of one of his houses in 2005, but that Daniels upped the weight to 25 to 50 when asked again in February.

    The authorities wanted to nail Kaboni as a big-time kingpin pulling the strings, Hoey said, and they had few reservations about squeezing damning, questionable testimony from crooks looking for lighter sentences.

    "That kind of motivation produces whatever the government wants to hear," Hoey said, adding that physical evidence is lacking.

    Coleman testified in March that he had overheard Savage vowing to "kill all the f---ing rats" while both men were detained at the Federal Court's holding cells, and later watched as Savage ran a finger across his throat and smiled at him.

    Hoey noted that no surveillance footage supports Coleman's account, and the longtime drug dealer had little credibility among investigators before he started pointing fingers at Savage.

    The attorney said that Coleman told authorities in 2003 that associate Kareem "Bree" Bluntly was behind the slayings of associates Tyrone Tolliver and Mansur "Shafiq" Abdullah, but that law enforcement doubted Coleman enough to let Bluntly remain free until he also was slain nine months later.

    "They didn't believe him then, so why should you now?" he asked the jury.

    The defense is set to continue laying out their closing arguments over the coming days.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/lo...al_magic_.html

  3. #13
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    Jury mulls case against Philly drug kingpin

    Jurors in federal court have begun deliberations in the murder and racketeering trial of a convicted Philadelphia drug kingpin.

    Thirty-eight-year-old Kaboni Savage is charged in the deaths of 12 people, including six in the 2004 firebombing of the home of a man who planned to testify against him.

    Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. The trial began in February.

    Savage, a former boxer, has denied any role in the attacks. He's currently serving a 30-year drug-trafficking sentence.

    The U.S. attorney's office said deliberations in the case began at about 3 p.m. Monday.

    http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/art...#ixzz2SYvPHEum
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  4. #14
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    Kaboni Savage jury finishes 1st week of deliberations

    Jurors at the federal murder and racketeering trial of accused drug kingpin Kaboni Savage closed their first week of deliberations without a verdict.

    U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick discharged the nine women and three men early Friday afternoon after five days of talks without any signals of their progress.

    The group had only a few evidence requests over the week, including one for a transcript of testimony by Lamont Lewis, the admitted killer who said Savage directed him in October 2004 to firebomb the North Philadelphia home of a former gang associate cooperating with the FBI.

    Two adults and four children died in the fire, which officials have called one of the worst cases of witness retaliation in city history.

    Savage, 38, is charged with those deaths and six more, five of whom were rival drug dealers. If he is convicted, prosecutors will ask jurors for the death penalty.

    Savage's lawyers contend the charges are overblown and unproven, built on questionable testimony by admitted criminals and informants out to save themselves. Under his plea deal, Lewis will be spared the death penalty but faces 40 years in prison.

    Also on trial are Savage's sister, Kidada, who is accused of helping to plot the fire; Robert Merritt Jr., who allegedly assisted Lewis in the firebombing; and Steven Northington, an alleged enforcer in Savage's crew accused in another homicide.

    Merritt and Northington also could face death-penalty hearings if convicted. Kidada Savage faces up to life in prison.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/lo...berations.html
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    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  5. #15
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    Kaboni Savage convicted in 12 murders

    A federal jury on Monday found drug kingpin Kaboni Savage guilty of ordering the 2004 North Philadelphia rowhouse firebombing that killed four children and two adults, one of the worst cases of witness retaliation in city history.

    After a week of deliberations, jurors convicted the 38-year-old onetime professional boxer of all 17 charges against him, including racketeering, arson and murder related to those killings and six others. Next week, the panel of nine women and three men will start to decide if Savage should die for his crimes.

    They convicted Savage's 30-year-old sister, Kidada, of helping to plot the October 2004 predawn attack on the family home of Eugene "Twin" Coleman, a onetime associate in their ring who was cooperating with the FBI. Two others were convicted of related charges.

    As the verdicts were read in U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick's courtroom, another Savage sister cursed aloud and was ushered from the room.

    Assistant U.S. Attorney David Troyer praised the decisions. "We're very pleased and gratified that the jury saw it the way they did," he said later.

    Savage is already serving a 30-year prison for drug trafficking. But the trial recounted a decade-long FBI investigation that showed how a 1990s street dealer used murder and violence to become one of the city's biggest, most feared traffickers.

    Jurors heard how Savage casually gunned down Kenneth Lassiter in 1998 because Lassiter bumped his car as they both tried to park on the street. They heard how he routinely ordered hits against rivals who threatened him, or the success of the network he operated in the Hunting Park section.

    As much as anything, jurors heard Savage cackle and boast about the violence he had wrought or hoped to do, especially against people who betrayed him.

    "That's all I dream about - killing rats," Savage said in one of scores of secretly recorded jailhouse conversations played for the jury. "Their kids gonna pay, their mother gonna pay."

    That's what authorities said Savage intended after Coleman, a longtime friend and close associate, was arrested on drug charges and agreed in 2004 to become a government witness.

    Prosecutors played the cryptic phone conversations Savage had from prison the night before the firebombing, first with his sister then with Lamont Lewis, one of his enforcers.

    Lewis, the star government witness, told jurors that Savage ordered the bombing and Kidada Savage gave him the address, showed him the house along North Sixth Street where she said Coleman's mother and twin brother would be.

    Lewis said he enlisted his cousin, Robert Merritt, Jr. for the job and that both men tossed cans full of gas into the house. He said he fired gunshots up the stairs to keep the occupants from leaving, and later sat blocks away watching the house burn.

    He only learned hours later that four children, including Coleman's 15-month-old son, had perished in the blaze. When he confronted Kidada Savage, Lewis said, she told him: "F--- them."

    Prosecutors also played for jurors secretly recorded prison tapes of Savage joking about the murders, including one in which he said that on the way to his relatives' funerals, Coleman should get some barbecue sauce and "pour it on them burnt bitches."

    Savage's court-appointed lawyers, Christian Hoey and William Purpura, urged jurors not to be swayed by the jailhouse bravado, or the testimony of criminals like Lewis, who has admitted to 11 murders. They portrayed Savage as a street dealer - not a kingpin - and suggested others had just as much reason to retaliate against Coleman.

    Neither Savage nor his codefendants testified at trial and it was unclear if he would do so during his sentencing phase.

    Hoey declined to comment on the verdict.

    But jurors sent a mixed message to Merritt, 32. They convicted him of participating in the racketeering conspiracy to commit murder but acquitted him of the actual arson - a verdict that perplexed his relatives and his lawyers, William Spade and Paul George.

    "We are gratified by the six not guilty verdicts," Spade said after the hearing, "but we're just trying to figure out what the guilty verdict means."

    Prosecutors say Merritt still faces life in prison, as does Kidada Savage. Her lawyers, Christopher Phillips and Teresa Whalen, said they respected the jury's decision.

    Surrick did not schedule their sentencing hearings.

    A fourth defendant, Steven Northington, 41, was convicted of two counts related to other murders. He also faces the death penalty, in a separate proceeding that will follow Savage's hearing. Each are expected to last a week or more.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...2_murders.html
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    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  6. #16
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    Jurors to mull death penalty in Pa. slayings of 12

    Jurors return to federal court in Philadelphia on Tuesday to hear arguments and evidence on whether a drug dealer convicted in the deaths of a dozen people should be sentenced to death or to life in prison without possibility of parole.

    The panel last week convicted 38-year-old Kaboni Savage of the slayings, including a 2004 firebombing that killed six relatives of a man who was planning to testify against him. Court officials said penalty phase proceedings scheduled for Monday would be delayed a day.

    Authorities said that although Savage has mostly been in prison since 2003, he gave orders through phone calls and prison visits and communicated with other inmates through prison plumbing pipes.

    His 30-year-old sister, Kidada Savage, faces life in prison after being convicted in the firebombing the killed the mother of the prospective witness as well as another woman and four children.

    Kaboni Savage, a former boxer who has denied any role in the attacks, is serving a 30-year drug trafficking sentence. Defense attorneys portrayed him as a drug dealer but not a kingpin and attacked the credibility of prosecution witnesses.

    Co-defendant Steven Northington was convicted of 2 counts of murder in aid of racketeering and could face the death penalty in penalty phase deliberations.

    Another defendant, 32-year-old Robert Merritt, was convicted of racketeering conspiracy but acquitted of charges in the firebombing.

    http://www.njherald.com/story/222921...slayings-of-12
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  7. #17
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    Jury In Kaboni Savage Trial Requests Gruesome Evidence During Penalty Phase

    By Tony Hanson
    CBS

    PHILADELPHIA – The federal jury considering the penalty — life in prison or death — for convicted drug kingpin and murderer Kaboni Savage, seeks gruesome evidence for its deliberations.

    The jury convicted Kaboni Savage of committing or ordering 12 murders, including the retaliation murders of a cooperating witness’s family in 2004. And the jury has sought the autopsy photographs for those six victims, including four children.

    The defense strongly objected. But the judge ruled the jury should get the pictures, which were entered into evidence but not actually shown to the jury during trial. The judge sent out the pictures with a warning to jurors, “the photos are not pleasant and your verdict must be based on the evidence, not bias or prejudice or emotion.”

    Among the alleged aggravating factors being considered by the jury is heinous, cruel or depraved manner of murder.

    http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/201...penalty-phase/

  8. #18
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    Jury Recommends Death Penalty for Kaboni Savage

    A federal judge will formally sentence Savage on Monday morning

    A federal jury has recommended the death penalty for a Philadelphia drug kingpin convicted of killing a dozen people, including six relatives of an informant.

    Kaboni Savage is already serving 30 years for drug trafficking.

    Jurors on Friday unanimously returned 13 death sentences against Savage, one for each of the 12 murders and one for intimidating a witness. He didn't visibly react when the verdicts were read.

    The sentencing will be formally imposed on Monday morning.

    Savage, 38, a former boxer, ordered seven of the slayings from prison, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Troyer said.

    "He slaughtered and burned up children just to get back at a witness, and then he laughed about it,'' Troyer said as the sentencing phase of Savage's trial got underway.

    Authorities said that although Savage has mostly been in prison since 2003, he gave orders through phone calls and prison visits and communicated with other inmates through prison plumbing pipes.

    Federal prosecutors arguing for the death penalty said prison cannot contain Savage's rage.

    http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/...209711161.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  9. #19
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    Judge makes it official: death penalty for Kaboni Savage

    By John P. Martin
    The Philadelphia Inquirer

    A federal judge on Monday imposed 13 death sentences on Kaboni Savage, sending the former drug kingpin off to await an execution that almost certainly is years away, if it happens at all.

    Flanked by his lawyers and two federal marshals, Savage declined a final opportunity from U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick to say anything about the trial, the sentence or the murderous rampage that made him one of the city's most notorious criminals.

    Within two weeks, his court-appointed attorneys, Christian Hoey and William Purpura, are expected to take the first formal steps to overturn his sentence or conviction.

    The 10-minute hearing was a formality after a jury on Friday unanimously recommended the death penalty for each of 12 murders Savage committed or directed between 1998 and 2004 and for a separate conviction of witness retaliation. That stemmed from the 2004 firebombing in North Philadelphia that killed six relatives of Eugene Coleman, a witness prepared to testify against Savage.

    Still, Surrick's crowded courtroom was silent as his words - "You, Kaboni Savage, are sentenced to death" - hung in the air 13 times.

    The judge also imposed separate sentences on non-capital charges to ensure Savage, 38, will never be free. Surrick ordered him to serve a life prison term for racketeering conspiracy, 10 years for conspiring to commit murder in aid of racketeering, and 10 years for arson.

    Minutes after the hearing ended, the judge was scheduled to begin a separate death penalty phase for Steven Northington, one of Savage's enforcers and codefendants.

    Prosecutors plan to ask the jury that ordered death for Savage to do the same for Northington, who was convicted of committing or plotting two murders.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...kJD2F5HHHWT.99

  10. #20
    joerodney
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    Jury: Accomplice of Savage should get life

    "The jury that ordered death for drug kingpin Kaboni Savage unanimously recommended life in prison Thursday for an accomplice, prosecutors said.

    The panel of nine women and three men announced its decision Thursday after a two-week penalty hearing in U.S. District Court for Steven Northington, 41.

    As they did with Savage, prosecutors sought the death penalty for Northington, an enforcer in the drug ring who was convicted in the murders of two rival dealers, Tybius Flowers and Barry Parker, in 2003 and 2004.

    Flowers was killed as he was preparing to testify against Savage in another murder case. Defense lawyers Thomas Egan, William Bowe, and Michael Wiseman called Northington's mother and medical experts to bolster their claim that he suffered from limited mental capacity, a situation compounded by his upbringing in a poor, drug- and crime-ridden swath of the city.

    Savage, 38, is awaiting execution for 12 murders, including the deaths of Parker and Flowers. He also ordered the 2004 firebombing of a North Philadelphia home that killed two women and four children related to another witness.

    Two other defendants, including his sister Kidada, face life in prison when they are sentenced this year by U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick.

    A senior Justice Department official said officials hope the verdicts bring some measure of justice to the victims in the case.

    "For more than a decade, Kaboni Savage and members of his organization used murder and violence to intimidate and retaliate against anyone who threatened their drug trade," said acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman, "and along the way mercilessly killed a cooperating witness's family members, including innocent children."

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20..._get_life.html

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