New Orleans Man, Evans Lewis, Pleads Guilty To Drug-related Murder

EVANS LEWIS, a/k/a “Easy”, 22, a resident of New Orleans, pleaded guilty yesterday to the murder of Gregory Keys and shooting of Kendrick Smothers during the course of a drug trafficking crime, announced U.S. Kenneth Allen Polite, Jr.  In December 2011, LEWIS and co-defendant Gregory Stewart, a/k/a “Rabbit”, a/k/a “D-Nice”, 22, were charged with participating in the homicide of Keys and the shooting of Smothers.  Stewart’s trial is scheduled for July 14, 2014. 

LEWIS’s guilty plea resulted from a multi-year investigation of a heroin trafficking organization that operated in an area known as the “G-Strip” in New Orleans.  The G-Strip is an area encompassing the 1300 block of Gallier Street in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Many of the members of the G-Strip were also affiliated with a gang known as the 39ers, an alliance of heroin traffickers in the Third and Ninth Wards of New Orleans.  To date, eleven individuals related to the G-Strip organization have pleaded guilty to drug trafficking-related offenses.

According to Court records, on or about May 24, 2011, LEWIS and Stewart knowingly carried and used two firearms, a 40-caliber semi-automatic handgun and a 7.62-caliber assault rifle, during and in relation to the commission of a drug trafficking crime, and in the course of this violation, caused the death of Keys through the use of a firearm.

LEWIS will be sentenced on July 17, 2014, at 10:00 a.m.  He faces a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, a $250,000 fine, and a period of supervised release of not more than 5 years.

The investigation is being conducted by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, the New Orleans Police Department, Jefferson Parish Sheriff=s Office and St. Tammany Parish Sheriff=s Office.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sharan Lieberman, Maurice Landrieu and Matthew Payne.

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