Gang leader describes jail's 'upside-down world'

Tavon "Bulldog" White, the leader of a violent gang that controlled life inside one of America's most notorious jails, testified that he directed guards motivated by sex and money to smuggle in drugs and cellphones and facilitate attacks on inmates who challenged his authority.

The Black Guerrilla Family inside the centuries-old Baltimore City Detention Center has a hierarchy that includes a "minister of education" who quizzes members on gang literature and a "minister of finance" who manages the profits sent by cellphones from behind bars.

White testified this week gang leaders, not guards, are the ultimate authority inside the jail.

"We're about to go into a strange place, an upside-down world where inmates ran the prison and correctional officers took directions from the gang leader," prosecutor Robert Harding told jurors in opening statements, and White didn't disappoint, describing a gang-run economy made possible by official corruption.

Once the government's primary target, White has since become the prosecutors' most valuable asset, providing information that led to a 160-count indictment against 44 people.

He is now testifying against the few who didn't plead guilty - five corrections officers, one kitchen worker and two inmates who are on trial in a federal court in Baltimore.

The vast majority of the guards at the Baltimore jail are women, and White got four of them pregnant while being held on an attempted-murder charge.

Defense attorneys sought on Wednesday to discredit White's testimony by drawing attention to his plea deal with prosecutors, which could potentially result in reduced prison time.

"There was plenty of money to be made inside the Baltimore jail", White said.

According to one search warrant, graffiti painted on a jail wall named 14 guards willing to have sex with inmates for $150 a time, including two of the women White impregnated.

White told jurors drugs and cellphones would be hidden inside walls and ceilings.

Inmates paid guards by arranging for cash to change hands outside or by texting codes on their cellphones to draw on prepaid debit cards.

Gang members enlisted guards to carry parcels to inmates on other floors or wings of the crowded jail, and the proceeds "went into a finance bank", White explained.

White said one of the guards on trial, Travis Paylor, eagerly made deals to pick up packages of drugs on the street and smuggle them inside.

White said another defendant, guard Ashley Newton, allowed the gang to stab an inmate accused of killing a gang member outside.

White testified that he personally saw one defendant, kitchen worker Michelle McNair, smuggle tobacco in between her thighs.

Earlier, Wendell M. "Pete" France, an operations director for the state's prisons, described guards carrying contraband inside their lunches and in other ways that defied pat-down searches.

White is now serving a 20-year sentence for attempted murder at a location his attorneys won't disclose.

He was asked about the gang's "constitution" that includes "We do not participate in snitching or working with the police."

(China Daily 12/05/2014 page10)