Notorious gangster behind bloody crime wave to spend next 45 years behind bars

A notorious Newark gang leader who dodged a federal death penalty prosecution prior to trial was sentenced Tuesday to 45 years in prison after eventually admitting his role in an almost decade-long wave of violent crime that included five homicides.

U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, who imposed the sentence Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Newark, in January had ruled Farad Roland, 33, ineligible to face the death penalty because of an intellectual disability.

Just over a month later, however, the onetime leader of the South Side Cartel appeared in front of Judge Madeline Cox Arleo to plead guilty to seven of the 27 charges against him in exchange for the 45-year sentence.

“After seeking the death penalty for Farad Roland, the United States Attorney agreed to a 45 year sentence as appropriate in a case where the defense would have shown the effects of widespread failure to protect children from dysfunction families, and city agencies whose mission is to protect,” defense attorney Richard Jasper said in email Wednesday. “This is not an excuse, or justification to commit crimes. These are reasons not to sentence a person to death.”

From 2003 to 2011, federal authorities said, members of what became the South Side Cartel were responsible for what prosecutors later called a “reign of terror” that encompassed crimes ranging from carjackings and kidnappings to street killings.

Investigators said the South Side Cartel had its roots in the Carter Boyz, a neighborhood gang in the South Ward that later became part of the 93 Bloods set.

Operating out of buildings in the 500 block of Hawthorne Avenue known as the “Twin Towers,” the gang had about 20 members at its peak, many of whom had tattoos of the buildings or the gang’s initials, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

By the late 2008, the gang’s members had gained a stark notoriety among Essex County law enforcement. Describing for The Star-Ledger how a single group of criminals could drive the city’s violence, then Newark Police Deputy Chief Samuel DeMaio pointed to the South Side Cartel as a “perfect example.”

Amin Roland, Farad Roland’s older brother and a co-founder of the gang, has since also wound up in federal prison, where he’s serving a 10-year sentence for weapons possession. He’s scheduled to be released in 2020, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

Other members of the gang weren’t so lucky. In court filings, prosecutors said two of the five people in whose killings Roland was involved associates who ended up on his bad side.

Investigators believe Roland shot and killed Fuquan “Fu” Billings for fear he would cooperate with police and implicate Roland in a Feb. 20, 2005, robbery during which Newark resident Jamar Stewart was fatally shot.

An indictment obtained by prosecutors said Roland later fatally shot Abdul “Dubird” Billups after South Side Cartel members came to believe Billups had been involved in the killing of a fellow member of the gang.

The final two victims, Kasan Prince and Maurice Silas, were shot dead in front of Oasis Liquor & Bar on Lyons Avenue on March 27, 2008 in what prosecutors said was an attempt at retaliation for Roland’s shooting by rival Bloods gang members, who often congregated at the bar.

At least one of Roland’s accomplices in those killings, a 15-year-old boy was himself gunned down in an apparent retaliatory shooting, according to court filings. Prosecutors said many other South Side Cartel members have since been slain in various gang-related killings.

Roland was first charged in the killings in December 2013 under a 24-count indictment, which also levied criminal charges against gang members Mark Williams and Malik Lowery. Lowery was sentenced in August to more than 26 years in prison after pleading guilty to racketeering, conspiracy, carjacking and other charges.

Records show Williams, who took a similar plea deal in 2016, is scheduled to be sentenced in September.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Roland, Lowery and Williams were the South Side Cartel’s last remaining active members.

Roland’s case had been only the second federal death penalty prosecution ever pursued in New Jersey, a choice that required then U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman to obtain authorization from the Justice Department.

The last capital case in the District of New Jersey, the prosecution of a drug dealer who ordered the killing of an FBI informant, ended with a sentence of life in prison after the jury could not agree on whether the man deserved to die.

In his comments to NJ Advance Media, Roland’s attorney argued a possible death sentence is no deterrent to would-be gang members.

“The death penalty does not stop crime, or gang membership,” Jasper said Wednesday. “Address the social conditions that cause young people to join gangs in the first place. This is the only rational answer.”

In addition to the prison term, Salas sentenced Roland to five years of supervised release.

NOTE: This story has been updated with comments from Roland’s defense attorney.

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty.

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