The 29-page indictment carries the names of 26 Crips street gang members including two prison guards that served as high-ranking members of the gang.
It's alleged they dealt in drugs, cigarettes and cell phones behind bars, and allegedly at the very top of the Crips operation was Sgt. Antoine Fordham---a veteran correctional officer with 11 years of service.
"He was basically running operations for the 8-Trey Crips up in the Northeast section of Baltimore after work and then going into work and basically providing direction to many of the inmates," said DEA Special Agent in Charge Don Hibbert.
According to the indictment, another correctional officer, Phillipe Jordan, also acted as a key facilitator in bringing in contraband that filtered through both the Jessup and Maryland Correctional Institutions with the help of as many as two dozen other gang members.
"Several of them are mothers of folks who are in prison. According to the indictments, they were providing contraband," said Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh.
But it was the ringleader, Antoine Fordham, who will now face charges in connection with a shooting in December near Frankford Plaza after another drug dealer failed to heed his warnings after trespassing on the 8-Trey Crips turf.
As Fordham's stature in the gang rose, his ego followed suit.
"He told another co-conspirator in a recorded call, 'Let me tell you, cuz. The route I'm going, they're going to have to build a statue out there with my face on it,'" said Frosh.
At this point, investigators haven't ruled out the possibility that Fordham and Jordan were members of the gang before securing jobs as correctional officers, and long before the prison system used polygraph tests to try to weed out criminal applicants.
"This is a loud and clear message to anyone in our department who engages in criminal behavior,” said Maryland Public Safety and Corrections Secretary Stephen Moyer, “We will find you. We will arrest you and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law."
Fordham also faces an attempted first degree murder charge after an assault on a former Crip behind bars when it was learned he was a homosexual in violation of gang rules.
