Southwest Philadelphia Gang Leader Gets Life + 130 Years
By Tony Hanson
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A federal judge today sentenced a convicted drug gang leader to life in prison plus 130 years for what the judge calls "a real reign of terror" spanning nearly a decade in the Bartram Village housing development in Southwest Philadelphia.
Authorities say gang members, rivals, residents, even passersby were all targets of the threats, beating, shootings, and attempted murders (see related story).
According to federal judge Lawrence Stengel, it was a true pattern of terrorism.
"This was a lawless section of the town for a long time," the judge noted. "There was a law, but the law was Mr. Moten and his friends, who acted at thier own discretion, on their own whim, and in their own time in determining what was going to be allowed and what was not going to be allowed."
Defendant Ramel Moten told the court he's no angel but denied the violence. The judge rejected that claim.
Then, after Moten's comment in court that he wasn't "snitchin' just to go home" was met with applause by some of his supporters, the judge said he was outraged, appalled, and discouraged by the response.
