Sixteen alleged members and associates of a street gang that has terrorized communities in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan have been charged in a wide-ranging charge of using extreme violence to sell drugs, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
The defendants were part of the so-called Own Every Dollar gang, or OED, and committed murders, shootings, robberies and assaults on rivals and fellow gang members to protect and expand the organization’s drug trade, the indictment said. Some of the suspects were charged with conspiracy to extortion.
Prosecutors said the gang was part of the Trinitarios, a well-organized Dominican gang in New York that was founded nearly three decades ago by inmates on Rikers Island. The OED defendants sold fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, oxycodone, ecstasy and marijuana around Manhattan and the Bronx, according to the 42-count indictment.
At least nine suspects named in the indictment were indicted in March of a broad-based drug smuggling conspiracy. At the time, Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, said several of the accused often carried firearms while dealing drugs.
Keechant L. Sewell, the New York Police Commissioner, said at the time that “the details of this investigation make it clear: Criminal gangs, illegal weapons, and illegal drugs are a dangerous combination — and will never be tolerated in our city.”
The new charges will be announced at a news conference in Manhattan at noon by Mr. Williams, Ms. Sewell, Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, and Frank A. Tarentino III, the New York City Chief of Drugs Enforcement Administration. .
The indictment also charged that members and associates of the gang used social media and YouTube to promote and celebrate the gang’s criminal behavior.
