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Alleged BGF Leader Takes The Stand Again

BALTIMORE (WJZ) ---Sex, cellphones, cash and drugs and today more explicit testimony. The self-proclaimed leader of the Black Guerilla Family gang takes the stand again today in the sweeping corruption case against officers and inmates at the Baltimore City jail.

Mike Hellgren reports on BGF's gangleader, Tavon White's, second day of testimony.

He appeared confident on the stand Tuesday as he talked about the officers he impregnated and how inmates were able to keep control. In one intercepted phone call played in court, he said everything that happened in that jail had to go through him.

White laid bare the inner workings of how his violent BGF gang ran the Baltimore City Detention Center as the star witness in the Federal government's corruption case. Defendants include a kitchen worker, five correctional officers and two inmates.

"I have an ethical obligation not to talk during the trial," Carmen Hernandez, defense attorney said.

While their lawyers were not talking outside court, they objected vigorously inside as White revealed a system where he said officers smuggled in thousands of dollars of contraband including marijuana, cigarettes and popular Percocet pills which sold for $25 each.

White said he would hide contraband in pipe insulation. He said he would put drugs down the pipe to get it to a lower section in the jail.

White testified he paid one of the officers on trial at least $10,000 for contraband. The prosecutor played phone calls made from cellphones, illegally smuggled inside the jail. White described seducing officers and a love triangle between an officer and two inmates. White fathered several children with correctional officers.

Retired correctional officer, Sergeant Ralph Johnson Jr., wrote a book about the scandal.

"Well he seems pretty credible. I mean that's jail culture and he got caught up with a situation and he's trying to save his neck and he's giving up everybody else," Jackson said.  "Always quiet. Stayed to himself. He was involved, but not on this level. I think the CO's actually empowered him. When it's time to save your neck, you're going to give up whoever you have to give up."

Til this day, White said he's still a member of the BGF despite his testimony detailing the gang's power structure and against some fellow members.

White is expected to remain on the witness stand for the rest of this week.

 

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