Leader of gang gets term of 30 years
He, others pleaded guilty to drug charges
By Gail Gibson
Sun Staff
Originally published May 24, 2003
Of the various city homicides attributed by federal authorities to the violent East Baltimore gang known as the Hot Boys, the death of Darrin "D-Nice" Griffin on Sept. 16, 2000, was among the least noticed. A friend of some of the gang's leaders, Griffin was shot to death in a wooded area off Clifton Road because they believed he had stolen drugs and money from a stash house they controlled.
To Griffin's mother, who helped raise and often cooked meals for some of the young men eventually implicated in her son's death, it was a loss that crystallized the senselessness of Baltimore's violent street culture, in which victims frequently know their killers well and the smallest slights can prove deadly.
"They's supposed to all be friends," Sara Griffin said yesterday as she stood before U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz, her graying hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, a tiny book of Bible verses in her hand. "Friends don't do things like that."
Griffin spoke as Motz sentenced gang leader Leon Coleman yesterday to 30 years in prison. Coleman, 26, was one of a dozen young men from the gang indicted last year on federal drug and weapons charges that could have brought the death penalty or life sentences. He and most of the other defendants pleaded guilty this year to drug conspiracy charges.
Two other members of the group were sentenced this week in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. On Thursday, Darryl "D.J." Hairston, 24, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. On Tuesday, Maurice Boston, 23, also is known as "Moan," was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Authorities said the men were part of a violent, well-armed drug operation in East Baltimore, known as the Hot Boys or the Lafayette Project Boys, that was responsible for at least five city murders, including the well-publicized shooting two years ago at a "Rest in Peace" party thrown to remember a rival gang member.
The party, on Memorial Day weekend 2001, ended in a spray of gunfire outside a rowhouse on East North Avenue. When the shooting stopped, 11 people had been wounded and one woman had been killed - Lakeisha Moten, 24, who had dated one of the leaders of a gang that had encroached on the Hot Boys' turf, authorities said.
In court yesterday, Coleman said that although he admitted playing a role in the gang's drug operation, he was not responsible for any of the violent acts attributed to the group, including the block party shooting or the killing of Darrin Griffin, which authorities had linked to Coleman and two other men.
The federal indictment said Griffin and another man, Randolph "Bert" Holmes, were driven by Coleman, Charles "Bok" Byers and Kevin "Manny" Glenn to a wooded area in the 4500 block of Clifton Road on Sept. 16, 2000, then executed because they were thought to have stolen drugs and weapons from the gang.
Given a chance to address the judge before his sentence was imposed, Coleman turned to Sara Griffin and swore that he had nothing to do with the death of her son, whom he said he considered a friend.
"I took the loss as well as she did. I don't know what's being told to her," Coleman said, standing in court in an air-brushed painted T-shirt that read "R.I.P. W. Libby," a memorial to another friend who had died on the streets, and explaining to Motz that Sara Griffin had "raised me since I was a little kid."
"I took the loss just like you did, Miss Sara," he said. "Don't be mad at me."
Sitting behind the prosecution table, Sara Griffin gave Coleman a sad nod.
"I'm not mad, honey," she said. "I'm just hurt."
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