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Gang leader Gregory Butler - also known as “Gotti,” “Sags,” and “Little Dick,” 31, and member James Henry Roberts, also known as “Bub,” 32, both of Baltimore, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise related to their activities in the NFL gang.
Federal prosecutors said that the gang operated in the Edmondson Village area in Southwest Baltimore, specifically, Normandy, Franklin, and Loudon (NFL) streets.
According to their guilty pleas, from 2016 to March 2020, Butler was the leader of, and Roberts was a member of, the NFL enterprise and participated in its illegal activities with other members, including the NFL drug trafficking organization (DTO).
During the conspiracy, NFL members distributed heroin and cocaine to drug customers and re-distributors from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, prosecutors said.
Butler and Roberts admitted that they obtained drugs from multiple sources of supply and stored the narcotics in stash houses that they controlled, they continued. Over the course of the conspiracy, the pair and their co-conspirators distributed more than a kilogram of heroin and more than 280 grams of cocaine base.
The gang leader also admitted that he and his co-conspirators distributed more than 400 grams of fentanyl, leading to several fatal overdoses.
“Butler agreed that these fatal overdoses were reasonably foreseeable to him, in light of his direct oversight of the enterprise’s drug trafficking activities,” according to prosecutors.
As part of the conspiracy, Butler and Roberts also paid members and associates of the NFL gang to commit multiple murders on behalf of the enterprise.
The murders included a 2018 bounty that was put on the head of someone who Roberts believed was working with the police and at least one other bounty that involved NFL members.
As part of their pleas, both Butler and Roberts are expected to be sentenced to 30 years in prison. No sentencing date has been scheduled.
“More than 30 people in this and related cases have pleaded guilty and been sentenced to between 15 years and time served,” according to the DOJ. “Four others, including Butler and Roberts have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing."
The final suspect is scheduled to go to trial on Monday, Nov. 28.
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