Alleged gang member sentenced to 3 life sentences
NEW BOSTON, Texas — A Bowie County jury has sentenced a reported member of the Loyalty Cash Business gang to three life sentences after finding him guilty of engaging in criminal activity
Cedric Deshun Alexander’s crimes occurred July 15, 2021, in Texarkana and Nash.
The crimes include the shooting of Joseph Hawkins, who was paralyzed and later died; the aggravated robbery of Gerald Fields at his home; and the burglary of Hawkins’ girlfriend’s house in Nash.
Evidence was also presented in court connecting Alexander, 33, to the death of Jermaine “Bubba” Aldridge on Dec. 30, 2020, in the Chili’s parking lot in Texarkana.
“It’s judgement day,” First Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp told the jury. “He’s been putting hits on police officers from the jail. Y’all go back there and give him life. Let’s put an end to this, and let’s be done with Cedric Alexander.”
Jurors deliberated about 45 minutes Thursday afternoon before returning with the guilty verdict. They deliberated the sentence for about 40 minutes.
The sentences will run concurrently.
The jury also issued a $10,000 fine for each charge.
Prosecutors asked the jury to give Alexander three life sentences for the “havoc” he wreaked in Bowie County.
“The only way to stop his criminal behavior is to stop him,” Assistant District Attorney Katie Carter said in closing statements in the punishment portion of the trial.
Alexander’s co-counsel Tabitha Branch asked the jury for mercy in sentencing due to Alexander’s lack of previous convictions. She also told the jury to consider Alexander’s three young daughters, whom he had been raising.
Branch asked the jury for the minimum sentence on each charge.
Crisp told the jury Alexander’s previous lack of convictions was due to witness intimidation but that they had the power to change that.
Prosecutors think Alexander traveled with Cornell Brown from Memphis, Tennessee, to Texarkana to carry out the hit on Aldridge for LCB members.
“They were hired to shoot Bubba Aldridge, and that’s exactly what they did in the Chili’s parking lot,” Carter said during closing arguments.
Alexander then returned to Texarkana in July 2021 to help LCB members “create utter chaos” with the robbery, burglary and shooting of Hawkins, Carter said.
“The evidence is overwhelming that he collaborated with LCB members,” Carter said.
In her closing statements to the jury, Crisp spoke of the threats made on local law enforcement and witnesses by LCB members and the havoc caused by the gang.
“This has been horrible. They threatened our police officers and are killing people in the streets,” Crisp told the jurors. “They came back (in 2021), because they thought they got away with Bubba Aldridge’s shooting.”
Crisp quoted the book of Amos in the Bible to jurors and told them this was their chance to make things right by convicting Alexander.
“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream,” Crisp said.
Alexander’s co-counsel Jeff Harrelson told jurors to “listen to the evidence, follow the law and be fair” in his closing arguments.
“Now is the time for the third one. Be fair,” Harrelson said.
He encouraged jurors to find Alexander not guilty. Harrelson also discredited the testimony of witnesses Starlar Brown and Timothy Hardy, because they are both facing felony charges.
“They are two peas in a pod. They said whatever they needed to do to improve their situation.”
Crisp argued that the witnesses benefited from testifying due to recent threats made on their lives.
“Did they (the witnesses) look like they were having fun?” she asked the jury. “Starlar Brown would have been better off saying nothing.”
On Thursday morning, Alexander took the stand in his own defense and denied his involvement in the crimes.
“I wasn’t at no Chili’s. I was in some apartments. I was buying weed from a guy with braids,” Alexander testified under cross examination questioning from Crisp.
Alexander testified that he rode to Texarkana from Memphis with Cornell Brown but did not ride back with him.
“I rode back with the dude with the braids,” he testified.
“I didn’t shoot nobody. Nobody gave me anything to shoot anybody with. I don’t even know him … I don’t know Bubba Aldridge,” Alexander testified.
Alexander also denied knowledge of hits being put out on Texarkana Texas Police Department investigators after he was arrested.
After Alexander’s testimony was over, Crisp called Detective Tabitha Smith as a rebuttal witness. Smith testified that she and another detective had been told their lives had been threatened. Smith also testified about threats made on witnesses who testified against Alexander earlier in the week.
On Tuesday, Timothy Hardy, who had been affiliated with LCB, testified against Alexander.
Starlar Brown, who is married to Cornell Brown, also testified early in the week that she overheard Alexander and Cornell Brown discussing payment for Alexander’s murder when they returned to Memphis from Texarkana.
Earlier in his testimony, Alexander denied a Facebook account on his phone under the name “Michael Perry” was his.
“An expert testified for an hour that’s your account,” Crisp said.
“The expert ain’t right. That’s not my account,” Alexander replied.
Alexander also testified that his rights had been violated by officials in Bowie County.
“They are trying to take me away from my kids. You are trying to try me for some stuff I didn’t do. It’s crooked and dirty,” he said.
Crisp asked Alexander about calls he made from jail about being wronged by officials in Bowie County, including law enforcement and the district attorney’s office.
“You said some things about we don’t know any better, and that includes the jury, doesn’t it?” Crisp asked
Alexander replied several in the jury of seven women and five men appeared to be older people, and “they don’t know how Facebook works.”
“If there were younger people, they would understand,” he told Crisp. “Facebook don’t have anything to do with some people killed.”
In the punishment phase of the trial, Detective Cody Harris testified on the rarity of murder for hire cases in Texarkana. He also testified about the time and effort investigators have put into the case.
“Thousands of man hours, multiple detectives. Thousands and thousands of pages of data to make a case,” he said.
Detective Matthew Davidson of the Memphis Police Department testified on Alexander’s gang affiliations in Memphis and his social media posts regarding gang activity. He testified data on Alexander goes as far back as 2010 and alleged that Alexander had been involved in a carjacking in Memphis and had assaulted his cousin’s girlfriend, though Alexander was not convicted.