April 5, 2010

RACKETEERING CONVICTION DRAWS 17+ YEARS

WICHITA, KAN. – A Wichita man convicted in the first federal racketeering case ever filed in Kansas has been sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison, U.S. Attorney Lanny Welch said today.

Clinton A.D. Knight, 31, Wichita, was sentenced to 210 months. Knight was convicted Nov. 5, 2008, when a federal jury returned guilty verdicts on two counts of racketeering, one count of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, one count of possession with intent to distribute crack and one count of maintaining a residence for the purpose of drug trafficking.

Knight was one of 28 members of the Crips street gang in Wichita indicted in September 2007. The Wichita Police Department partnered with federal prosecutors and more than a dozen other local, state and federal agencies to develop a case using the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to prosecute the Crips. During trial, prosecutors presented evidence that the Crips used violence and threats of violence to build and protect an ongoing criminal enterprise in drug trafficking.

Welch commended the Wichita Police Department, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Housing and Urban Development, the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Marshal Service, the Kansas Department of Health and Human Services, the Kansas Attorney General’s Office, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, the FBI, Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Oakley and Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Barnett for their work on the case.