Influence of Chicago Gang Boss Compared to Capone’s

CHICAGO —  On street corners from “the Hundreds” to “the Hole,” Larry Hoover was known in this city’s cocaine markets as the Chairman of the Board. He may have shared a nickname with singer Frank Sinatra, but prosecutors here say he had far more in common with mobster-bootlegger Al Capone.

Hoover was indisputably the leader of thousands of members of the Gangster Disciples, Chicago’s largest and most notorious street gang--even though his address during the last two decades has changed from downstate Joliet to Vienna to Dixon, all sites of state prisons where he was serving a 150- to 200-year sentence on a murder conviction.

Issuing orders to get involved with Chicago politics, allegedly directing a stream of money and drugs from his jail cells, the Chairman was shrouded in myth to the vast majority of his followers on the outside who had never seen or met him.

Now, at age 46, the man himself--brow slightly furrowed, beard neatly trimmed, heavy gray sweatshirt zipped to the top--is on display to anyone who passes through the extra metal detector installed before the entrance to Courtroom 1941 in the Dirksen Federal Building downtown. His most private conversations, captured on transmitters hidden in his visitors’ prison passes, are being played aloud before an anonymous jury of nine women and three men.

Along with six compadres, Hoover faces federal conspiracy charges that could bring a mandatory life sentence and change his place of residence yet again--this time to a far more distant federal prison, which would make it much more difficult to pass along directives.

Already, discipline among the troops is breaking down. “It’s chaos on the street,” said one law enforcement source, and there is fear that a wave of shootings will result.

The Chairman bragged, prosecutors said, that he was responsible for bringing the first cocaine to Chicago’s South Side, on the numbered streets (like the Hundreds) and in the housing projects (like the Robert Taylor Homes, a.k.a. the Hole).

In a taped discussion, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Ronald Safer in opening arguments last week, Hoover and a lieutenant agreed that “there is no difference between what they’re doing and what the gangsters in the ‘30s did.”

Prosecutors now are laying out what they say are Hoover’s secrets to building and holding on to a ruthless narcotics empire with $100 million in annual sales.

He exerted extraordinary control over Illinois state prisons, they say, and used that power inside to keep order among outside foot-soldier drug dealers who knew they would probably do time someday. More than half of the state’s 39,000 prisoners are affiliated with gangs, the bulk of those Gangster Disciples.

A GD arriving in custody got one of two greetings--the official gang “care package” of toothpaste and deodorant, one witness testified, or, if he failed his “reference check,” retribution for his sins. Such punishment would likely be painful.

Hoover knew better than to discuss gang business over the phone, which is monitored, or by mail, which is routinely read by corrections officials. “Come see me,” he told his callers when they raised important matters. They obediently drove hundreds of miles, showing up for visitors’ day wherever the Chairman was incarcerated.

But for six weekends in 1993, Hoover did not realize that his guests unknowingly were wired for sound. The recorded talk, Safer said, shows Hoover approved laundering drug profits through a carry-out seafood restaurant and rap concerts, and that he founded a political action committee, 21st Century V.O.T.E., that later shocked Chicago’s power structure.

Of the $42 in weekly dues paid by every GD drug dealer, $5 was earmarked for political purposes, testified the first of many gang turncoats who are prosecution witnesses. Considerable sums must have been raised. A computer printout confiscated by federal agents from Hoover’s wife showed a list of 6,799 Gangster Disciples reporting to 96 mid-level executives.

The political organization, which has been vague about donations, turned out thousands for rallies and got two aldermanic candidates into runoffs against incumbents in 1995.

One of those candidates, Wallace “Gator” Bradley, sat with defendants’ families in the courtroom last week.

“21st Century V.O.T.E. did good stuff,” Safer said. “The problem is it’s funded by drug money and supported by gang muscle.”

The political group’s organizers have steadfastly denied that Hoover created 21st Century V.O.T.E., although its directors visited him and campaigned for his release on parole. “If a person has influence, that does not mean he started it,” said the committee’s chief of staff, Derrick McClain.

But Hoover’s lawyer, Anita Rivkin-Carothers, said her client played a supervisory role. “The evidence will show,” she said in her opening argument, “that under Larry Hoover’s direction, 21st Century V.O.T.E. registered 10,000 young black voters.” He was inspired, she said, by “Boss,” Mike Royko’s biography of former Mayor Richard J. Daley, “about a man who was involved with gangs and moved on to become the mayor of this city.”

The political activity, she maintained, sparked the federal investigation leading to this trial, the second following a wave of charges filed in 1995 against 53 people involved with the gang. So far, 28 have been convicted and three remain fugitives.

The Gangster Disciples, said Rivkin-Carothers, “did what gangs do, whether they be the Crips and Bloods or the Mafia.” But she wondered why Hoover--”who is already serving a 200-year sentence”--became a target.

“You’ll have questions about the motives and values of people who worked this case,” she promised.

Hoover speaks on the tapes of wanting to get out of the drug business, Safer conceded. At the same time, however, in the manner of politicians everywhere, he unveiled a new program. His was called One Day a Week.

On a tape played Thursday, Hoover ordered a census of every dealer on Gangster Disciple turf. “I wanna know . . . everybody doing everything, reefer, cocaine, all them,” he said.

The GDs would supply “Nation Dope” one day a week, and that day all the dealers would turn over their take to the gang’s leadership. “Everybody in town knows Monday’s mine,” Hoover said. “Then the next week, it’s Tuesday’s mine. Next week, they know Wednesday’s mine. Every week, you get a different day.” He estimated he would take in $200,000 or $300,000 each time, “at a minimum a million dollars a month.”

Hoover has said he was trying to broker a gang truce to stop the drive-by shootings that have ravaged Chicago, as they have other U.S. cities.

Meanwhile, on tape he explained that he wanted to promote a gang member named Icky Red because “he wild . . . he used to shoot at all them [Black Disciples, a rival gang]. . . . He always talking about hurting somebody.”

In other words, Hoover’s recorded voice summed up, “he the kind of [expletive] you send at a [expletive], you know.”

Times researcher John Beckham contributed to this story.