‘Kill Bill’ and 7 others in Omerta gang committed murders, shootings, and fraud around Strawberry Mansion, feds say

Eight Philadelphia men have been charged with killing people, shooting unintended targets, trafficking guns, and resorting to unusual financial fraud — including robbery, gambling, and the use of counterfeit money and unemployment programs — to boost the wealth and status of their Strawberry Mansion-based gang known as Omerta, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.

In a sprawling racketeering indictment, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the men — who range in age from 23 to 46 — sought to control territory between 25th and 30th Streets for years starting in 2018, using social media and music videos to promote their image and their violent crimes.

Some Omerta members were also either part of, or worked with, other local gangs, including Zoo Gang and the Big Naddy Gang, prosecutors said. And in two instances in 2021, some of the Omerta associates turned to murder — first killing a 24-year-old woman and wounding two other women, all unintended targets, in a botched murder-for-hire plot, prosecutors said, then, weeks later, killing a 14-year-old boy at a bus stop over a perceived slight.

The men are also accused of committing nearly $2 million in financial fraud, sometimes by using counterfeit cash at retail shops or grocery stores across the region, and also by filing fraudulent applications for Pennsylvania’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.

And one defendant, Jahlil Williams — who also goes by “25th Street Bill,” or “Kill Bill” — attempted to arrange a murder-for-hire while he was behind bars, prosecutors said, and separately, in 2023, tried to have drugs smuggled into the prison where he was housed so he could sell them.

The indictment is only the latest legal setback for Williams, whom prosecutors described as an Omerta leader. He had already been arrested in 2022 and charged in state court with killing the 14-year-old boy, Samir Jefferson. And earlier this year, in June, the district attorney’s office also charged Williams with the triple shooting that killed the 24-year-old woman, Chaundrah Jones — part of a broader investigation targeting people purportedly associated with the Big Naddy Gang.

Williams has been in state custody awaiting trial in those cases, and attempts to reach his attorney on Tuesday were not immediately successful. Nor were attempts to reach attorneys for most of the other defendants: Rakiem Savage, 26; Kyair Garnett, 23; Haneef Roberson, 23; Rakiem King, 25; Ward Roberts, 25; and Harry Draper, 46.

Richard Fuschino, an attorney for Biheis Moore, 24, said the case was in its “very early” stages and that an indictment was “far, far away from a conviction.”

In the indictment, prosecutors said that Omerta existed to enrich its members, and that the gang would recruit people who were willing to commit crimes for them to obtain more money and accumulate more power and influence in the neighborhood.

Williams, prosecutors said, was a key figure, participating in murder, organizing contract killings, directing retaliation against perceived slights, and maintaining relationships with other gangs.

Savage, meanwhile, helped Williams in many of those acts, prosecutors said, and also was a a part of the Zoo Gang. Prosecutors said when Williams was arrested, it was Savage who served as Omerta’s operational leader. He is also accused of running an illegal gambling operation.

The other defendants are generally accused of being enforcers, assailants, or counterfeiters. Draper, for example, supplied Omerta with counterfeit money, prosecutors said, which members used at a broad array of stores, including Wawa, Uniqlo, CVS, and various grocery or hardware stores. The men are also accused of fraudulently applying for the pandemic-related unemployment benefits.

Still, prosecutors said, it was the violence that set the group apart.

In the first homicide included in the indictment, in September 2021, Williams, then 23, hired younger members of the crew to commit a murder. But the gunmen, according to authorities, targeted the wrong car, instead killing 24-year-old Chaundrah Jones and injuring two other women.

Two months after that crime, the indictment says, Williams fatally shot 14-year-old Samir Jefferson as the teen stood at the bus stop in Feltonville. Police said Williams, with the help of three others, chased down Jefferson, a ninth grader, and shot him 18 times. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the teen was targeted because Omerta members believed he “had either mocked their gang or was related to someone who killed one of their gang members.”

As Williams sat in jail, his crew members kept him apprised of the groups’ activities, according to the indictment. The hit men who killed Jones were acting “difficult,” Savage told Williams, who responded that he would be “getting the drop on them.”

Then, in April 2023, authorities say Williams — while in custody — attempted to orchestrate another murder for hire. Williams texted Savage asking for money so he could hire someone to target an enemy as revenge “for Debo,” or Jyquan Owens, an Omerta member who was shot and killed in 2021, according to the indictment.

But Savage told Williams, according to the records, that “it was already done.”

Williams has remained active on social media from jail. He posts regularly on Instagram, posting music and speaking about honor and not backing down on his case.

”Right now I’m currently in the FEDS for A New RICO Indictment,” he wrote earlier this month. “Tuff times don’t last real [men] do.”