Syndicate boss "Mum" Cuong Thi Le, 50, received a maximum term of 12 1/2 years' jail with a minimum of 10 for trafficking

Syndicate boss "Mum" Cuong Thi Le, 50, received a maximum term of 12 1/2 years' jail with a minimum of 10 for trafficking almost 2.08kg of heroin between March and June, 2005. Hao Van Nguyen, 81, received a maximum eight-year sentence with a 4 1/2-year minimum for trafficking a large commercial quantity. Three other female traffickers -- My Cao, 40, Thi Truong, 55, and Nhung Ta, 33 - received sentences ranging from 3 1/2 to two years. All except Ta had pleaded not guilty. Le's son, Dung Le, had previously received a suspended sentence after pleading guilty. In the County Court last week Judge Geoff Chettle described Cuong Le as the principal of a "sophisticated drug empire". After Le's arrest in July 2005 police told an out-of-sessions court hearing she had turned over about $2 million through transactions at Crown that year. Le was subsequently added to a list of 32 Victorians banned for life from the casino. During raids on Le's gang, detectives found about $1 million worth of street-grade heroin and $50,000 in cash and casino chips. As part of her plea before being sentenced, Le claimed a gambling addiction led to her drug-trafficking exploits. Police had listened in on phone calls between gang members, who used codes during conversations to try to hide their activities.

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Timothy “Fuzzy” Timms, a 45-year-old member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle club, stood up Monday for his First Amendment right to freedom of expressi

Timothy “Fuzzy” Timms, a 45-year-old member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle club, stood up Monday for his First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Timms, a resident of the San Diego community of South Park, refused to take off a black leather vest with the motorcycle club's “death's head” insignia when he reported for jury duty. He's a big burly man, 5 feet 8 inches, 250 pounds, with a full beard and auburn-colored, shoulder-length hair. At 7:45 a.m., Timms' stance got him booted from the San Diego Superior Court's Hall of Justice by sheriff's deputies, along with another Hells Angel who also refused to remove his insignia vest. Nine hours later, representatives of both the Superior Court and the sheriff's department apologized to Timms and club member Mick Rush for “misunderstanding” an order issued April 24 by Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser. Rush also had been reporting for jury duty. “It all boils down to a misunderstanding of Judge Fraser'

Rashawn and Deon Beneby Someone mowed down the brothers, some 15 yards apart, on a grassy strip

''They may have been into drugs but they didn't do anything to harm anybody,'' said their aunt, Cheryl Watkins. ``It was cold-blooded murder to lay them out like that.''Miami-Dade County's 80th and 81st homicides of 2008: Rashawn and Deon Beneby, brothers and suspects in a string of violent robberies, shot dead Thursday afternoon next to the Liberty City middle school they once attended. ''It's cold-blooded, outright killing out there -- and we're not even in the summer yet,'' said the Rev. Richard Dunn, a community activist who lives three blocks away. Witnesses said a group of men were gathered outside an apartment at the Annie Coleman Gardens housing project when the shooting started.Someone mowed down the brothers, some 15 yards apart, on a grassy strip next to the chain-link fence that separates the community from the baseball field at Charles R. Drew Middle School, 1801 NW 60th St. Rashawn was executed -- shot in the head an

LaAunzae was a Vice Lord, and Donald Ragland was a Gangster Disciple

2005 execution-style murder in Frayser was a case marked by "gangs, guns and death." And not incidentally, they added, there was an element of revenge when defendant Donald Ragland Jr. shot 26-year-old LaAunzae Grady three times in the back on a cold December afternoon outside of St. Elmo's Market."He didn't have a problem taking this job, because LaAunzae had killed his brother five or six years before this," gang unit prosecutor Ray Lepone told a Criminal Court jury. "LaAunzae was a Vice Lord, and Donald Ragland was a Gangster Disciple."Asst. Public Defender Trent Hall said prosecutors would not be able to prove their case and asked jurors to acquit Ragland, 27, of first-degree murder.On Wednesday, jurors watched a surveillance video from the store that showed an apparently nervous Grady looking out the front door of the store several times before finally leaving.A half-dozen loud gunshots then quickly follow, though the shooting on the outside p

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