"Ace Capone" Coles guilty in cocaine case

Rap music impresario Alton "Ace Capone" Coles was convicted yesterday of using his record company as a front for a multimillion dollar drug-distribution network that brought more than a ton of cocaine and a half-ton of crack onto the Philadelphia market between 1998 and August 2005.

Five other defendants, including Timothy "Tim Gotti" Baukman, Coles' business partner and cofounder of Take Down Records, were also found guilty by a U.S. District Court jury after nearly seven days of deliberations.

"This kind of crime is literally evil," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Lloret, who prosecuted the case. Coles' network, prosecutors allege, was responsible for putting 100,000 doses of crack per week on city streets.

In all, the jury of eight women and four men delivered guilty verdicts in 123 of the 137 criminal counts contained in the case. Coles, 34, was convicted of 37 of the 43 charges he faced, including conspiracy to distribute cocaine and heading a continuing criminal enterprise.

He faces a mandatory life sentence, according to federal prosecutors.

The verdicts capped a six-week trial that included testimony from drug dealers, investigators and Coles himself, who spent nearly six hours over two days on the witness stand denying the allegations.

Lloret, who prosecuted the case along with Michael Bresnick, called the verdicts "gratifying."

Lloret, a veteran prosecutor who has won convictions against several notorious drug kingpins, said the charges underscored the kind of impact drug dealing has on the city's neighborhoods.

"There are neighborhoods in Philadelphia that are just degraded by crack and cocaine," he said. "We're glad we did something positive."

Coles showed little emotion during the 50 minutes it took the jury forewoman to deliver the verdicts in the case. He sat quietly at the defense table, occasionally conferring with his attorney, Christopher Warren.

"He was kind of stoic," Warren said afterward. "We were prepared for it. But until the jury announces its verdict, there's always hope."

Warren said Coles had no second thoughts about testifying. The extensive use of wiretaps in the case - more than 1,000 conversations were recorded during the investigation and more than 300 were played for the jury - required Coles to speak, Warren said. Prosecutors alleged that the tapes showed Coles and his associates setting up and carrying out drug deals.

The only way to overcome the wiretap evidence, Warren said, was for Coles "to get up there and explain what he meant" in the conversations played for the jury.

The onetime barber from Darby was soft-spoken and articulate on the witness stand. But his explanations - he knew drug dealers, but was not a dealer himself; he generated income from both legitimate and illegitimate sources, but not from cocaine trafficking - apparently fell flat.

Yesterday's convictions capped a detailed investigation by a task force set up under the federally funded Philadelphia-Camden High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program. The probe was headed by agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and included IRS agents and narcotics detectives with the Philadelphia Police Department.

Before his arrest in August 2005, Coles was well known on Philadelphia's rap music scene, staging weekly parties at clubs, hosting after-concert parties for rap stars who performed in the city, and promoting CDs and DVDs featuring rappers who performed for Take Down Records.

He drove around the city in a blue Bentley that he obtained in a trade - for a Cadillac Escalade and a Mercedes-Benz - with local rap star Beanie Sigel.

And he "starred" in a 31-minute rap music video called New Jack City: The Next Generation that investigators said underlined Coles' audacious, in-your-face attitude. The video, which was played for the jury, told the story of a Southwest Philadelphia drug ring that used violence, intimidation and murder to take over crack distribution.

Coles and Baukman played the roles of drug kingpins in the video, which, authorities alleged, was an example of art imitating life. Prosecutors contended that at the time the video was produced in 2003, Coles and Baukman had, in fact, taken over crack distribution in the same Southwest Philadelphia neighborhoods where the video was made.

Evidence at trial included testimony from more than 40 witnesses, including two admitted drug dealers who said they routinely bought kilogram quantities of cocaine from the Coles network.

The jury was also shown drugs seized during the investigation and 30 weapons and more than $800,000 in cash confiscated during raids on Aug. 5, 2005.

A former girlfriend of Coles', Kristina Latney, also testified for the prosecution, admitting that Coles used her as a straw buyer for properties and luxury automobiles purchased with drug proceeds.

Latney was one of five women linked romantically to Coles during the trial.

Two other girlfriends, Asya Richardson, 27, and Monique Pullins, 24, were codefendants. They were convicted of related charges yesterday.

Pullins, whose bail was denied after the verdicts were announced, was convicted of the most serious crime: conspiracy to distribute cocaine. She faces a sentence of from 10 years to life. She was also convicted of maintaining a stash house where Coles kept drugs, and of using the telephone for drug trafficking.

Richardson was convicted of two counts of money laundering in connection with the purchase of a $488,000 house near Mullica Hill that she shared with Coles for just two weeks before his arrest in August 2005.

Authorities charged that Coles used drug proceeds as a down payment for the luxury house.

James Morris, 33, a reputed drug supplier, was convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Like Coles and Baukman, he faces a life sentence.

His girlfriend, Thais Thompson, 32, was convicted of two counts of perjury but acquitted of three other related charges.

When agents raided Thompson's home outside Salem, N.J., where Morris was staying on Aug. 5, 2005, they found $559,321 in cash stashed throughout the house.

Thompson was convicted of lying to a grand jury about the source of that money and about the source of a $25,000 cash payment made to a defense attorney.

She and Richardson remain free on bail.

As she left the courthouse yesterday afternoon, Thompson, who has three children with Morris, said, "Now I have to go home and explain to my kids their father won't be coming home."

Judge R. Barclay Surrick set sentencings in the case for the week of June 9.

In all, 22 defendants were indicted in the case. Six have have pleaded guilty. The others are awaiting trial.