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Federal prosecutors used the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law to charge Tre Byrd, 22, and dozens of other reputed gang bangers rounded up by a collection of crime-fighting “supergroups.”
Byrd, they said, belonged to the Rollin’ 60s Neighborhood Crips – a violent drug-selling gang -- for seven years.
He was in on planning the rubout of a rival who was shot dead in March 2019 in Irvington, then more than a year later robbed a victim at gunpoint in Newark, investigators have maintained.
Byrd, also known as “Bands” and “G Bandz,” chose not to take his chances with a trial by jury.
Instead, he pleaded guilty to RICO conspiracy in federal court in Newark in a bid for leniency, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said on Wednesday, Oct. 4.
U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton scheduled Byrd’s sentencing for Feb. 7, 2024. He’ll remain in federal custody until then.
No one has said whether Byrd was prepared to testify against any of his colleagues as part of his deal with the government.
Representatives of various law enforcement agencies are continuing to work the case under the auspices of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation.
OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach
Sellinger primarily credited special agents of the DEA, IRS - Criminal Investigation and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) with the investigation, while citing the work of many other agencies, among them:
- the U.S. Marshals Service;
- the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI);
- New Jersey State Police;
- the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office;
- the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office:
- the Union County Prosecutor’s Office;
- the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office;
- the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office;
- Police departments in Newark, Paterson, Elizabeth, Irvington, Bloomfield, East Orange, Edison, New Brunswick, Franklin Township (Middlesex County), Spotswood;
- the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation Fugitive and Missing Person Task Force.
Handling the case for the government is Assistant U.S. Attorney Francesca Liquori of Sellinger’s Special Prosecutions Division.
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