Two DeKalb County men were sentenced to prison Wednesday in gang-related shootings that left three people dead in North Georgia in 2018, officials said.
Shabazz Larry Guidry, 29, of Decatur, pleaded guilty to violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and was sentenced to 20 years, plus four years of supervised release. Robert Maurice Carlisle, 37, of Lithonia, pleaded guilty to the same charge and was sentenced to 15 years, followed by four years of supervised release.
On March 20, two other people tied to the same December 2018 shootings were sentenced, said Melissa Hodges, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia. Philmon Deshawn Chambers, 35, of Atlanta, will serve two life sentences, plus 10 years and five years of supervised release, and Andrea Paige Browner, 29, of Athens, was sentenced to 60 years followed by five years of supervised release for violating the RICO Act, murder and causing the death of another using a firearm.
The final suspect, 35-year-old Lesley Chappell Green of Stone Mountain, was sentenced Feb. 20 to life in prison for violating the RICO Act.
Hodges said all five were members of the Gangster Disciples, a national gang that started in the 1970s in Chicago. The deaths of the three men were triggered by the Dec. 10, 2018, killing of a Gangster Disciples member identified as Walter Brown, Hodges added.
On Dec. 14, 2018, Chambers, who held a position of authority within the gang, followed Rodriguez Apollo Rucker to his Athens home, where he shot and killed him, authorities said. That shooting came after Rucker met with Browner at a hotel and she learned that he was related to someone she believed killed Brown.
After the shooting, Browner notified a Gangster Disciples member that she and Chambers would be leaving town before police caught up to them, Hodges said. Browner was taken into custody a day later in Texas, while Chambers, who was in the vehicle with her at the time, was able to flee from police.
Chambers became suspicious that other gang members were cooperating with officials, later believing that Derrick Ruff and Joshua Jackson were “snitches,” so he ordered Green to kill the two, officials stated. Hodges confirmed that Ruff and Jackson were not cooperating with law enforcement.
Phone records between Chambers, Green, Carlisle and Guidry revealed that Ruff and Jackson were lured by Green to drive to Gwinnett County to break into storage units and steal items to then send to Chambers to aid in his escape from police, Hodges said.
Ruff and Jackson were killed Dec. 19, 2018, and their bodies were found inside an Extra Space Storage along Lawrenceville Highway on March 17, 2019. Text messages between the defendants showed that they conspired to burn and then dump the bodies in a landfill, according to officials.
“These sentences conclude a lengthy investigation and complex prosecution of all those involved in the murderous conspiracy that took the lives of three Athens men whose murders have caused unbearable pain for their families and friends,” U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia Peter Leary said.
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