This episode features the case of Clarence Heatley and his "Preacher" Crew. The "crew" extorted, kidnapped, and even killed to gain notoriety on the streets of the Bronx and Harlem. Heatley's top lieutenant was a former housing cop named John Cuff. His team included "janitors" whose job was to clean up the mess after Preacher's victims were tortured and murdered. It was rumored that they once kidnapped singer Bobby Brown and held him for ransom over a drug debt. By the early 1990s, the NYPD and FBI formed a task force to take down the Preacher Crew. Both Heatley and Cuff admitted their crimes in plea deals to avoid the death penalty.
The crew also was said to have kidnapped and brutalised bobby brown and had whitney houston pay a $400,000 ransom. He also gets mentioned in The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia in reference to case of the kidnapped 12 year old brother of rich porter a drug kingpin. They killed the 12 year old. Heres the section of the book.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NYGfl...ley&f=false 18 Indicted on Murder and Drug Charges
By LYNDA RICHARDSON
Published: November 15, 1996
Eighteen people identified as members of a violent, multimillion-dollar crack gang, including a former New York City housing police officer, were indicted yesterday on racketeering charges that involved 11 murders and drug dealing that terrorized Harlem and Bronx neighborhoods for the last decade.
The 47-count indictment, unsealed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, charges that Clarence Heatley, a 43-year-old man who grew up in Harlem, founded the gang, Preacher Crew, in 1983. He was was called Preacher because of his persuasive oratory, the authorities said.
Mr. Heatley later recruited the housing police officer, John Cuff, who was working in the Bronx from 1982 to 1987, to help run the enterprise, law enforcement officials said. The former housing officer alone is charged with eight murders.
Fourteen gang members are in custody and four others are being sought, the authorities said.
Since 1983, the gang members extorted money from drug dealers, dealt drugs and maintained the group's business by systematic violence against their enemies, the indictment said. The gang is charged with 11 murders, 11 conspiracies to commit murder and narcotics trafficking.
''They were very good at what they did and they always made an effort to make sure there were no witnesses,'' the United States Attorney in Manhattan, Mary Jo White, said at a news conference yesterday. ''They were careful. They were smart and they intimidated all those around them, drug dealers and citizens alike.''
The Preacher Crew was most recently headquartered in the Bronx, where Mr. Heatley lived with Yvonne Miller, an accused gang member. But the gang is said to have carried out most of its activities in central and west Harlem.
A law enforcement official said Mr. Heatley was also known by residents as the ''Black Hand of Death'' and was so feared by dealers in Harlem that they paid him $10,000 to $30,000 to be left alone to operate their own drug businesses.
Mr. Heatley is said to have rigidly controlled the gang, prohibiting members from using drugs, fighting with each other or stealing drugs or money from the gang. Their victims included competitors and other gang members, the indictment said.
Mr. Heatley is charged with nine murders. He and Mr. Cuff have been in prison since late August, when they were arrested on Federal racketeering and narcotics charges stemming from the killing of two gang members whose bodies were found in Queens in December 1993.
Mr. Cuff was dismissed from the housing police force after he was caught in a robbery and failed a drug test, according to law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. In 1989, he was arrested for a killing in Baltimore but was acquitted in a trial after witnesses changed their testimony.
While Mr. Cuff was a housing police officer and a gang member, the United States Attorney said yesterday, ''there was some use made of his official position in order to get payments made on time.''
Off duty, Mr. Cuff drove Mr. Heatley around as a bodyguard, law enforcement officials said.
Mr. Heatley is said to have frequently supervised the punishment of members of the Preacher Crew, which at times was bringing in $1 million annually in profits.
