Witness tells of deadly dealings

Trafficker says gang even shipped drugs via Fedex

Corrupt law enforcement officers in Memphis, Texas and Mexico helped the city’s most notorious drug-trafficking organization flourish for more than a decade, a drug dealer told federal court jurors Tuesday.

Convicted trafficker Orlando Pride also testified that the organization he served routinely used Fedex to ship millions of dollars worth of cocaine from Mexico to the U.S.

Pride, who testified several hours Monday and all day Tuesday, said the criminal enterprise punished thefts or acts of disloyalty with death.

The organization’s leader, admitted drug kingpin Craig Petties, once ordered the death of an underling, then served as a pallbearer at his funeral, witnesses testified.

In recent years, more than 30 of Petties’ associates have pleaded guilty to working in the drug organization, which had ties to a lethal Mexican cartel.

Cousins Clinton “Goldie” Lewis, 36, and Martin Lewis, 34, are the only two who maintain their innocence among the nine listed in a 2008 federal indictment handed down in Memphis. The Lewises’ trial on murder, drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering charges continues today in federal court.

After Memphis police caught Petties and some of his aides with a large amount of marijuana in 2001, they

worked with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to investigate the Petties organization. But someone leaked information about the top -secret probe to a Petties associate, Pride told jurors.

As a result, someone got killed, he said.

Pride, who described himself as a member of Petties’ “immediate family,” or inner circle, testified that a woman who owned a bail-bond company tipped Petties about the identity of a criminal informant, a snitch in his organization who was working with police.

“She had some kind of a connection in government with the Shelby County Police Department, and they were giving her intel on the drug organization,” Pride told jurors.

It was unclear whether he was attributing the leak to the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office or the Memphis Police Department. Federal prosecutors would not answer questions about the testimony outside of court.

More details are expected when the trial continues today and the suspected killer, Orlando Pride’s cousin Tobias Pride, testifies.

Orlando Pride told jurors that the bond company owner met with Petties and others at Petties’ two -story East Memphis home and named the snitch as Antonio Allen.

Petties, who had already heard rumors of Allen’s disloyalty, decided Allen must die, Pride told jurors.

“He was going to bring in some hit men from Mexico,” until Pride suggested his cousin for the job, thinking: “Why not let him get paid?”

Federal prosecutors say Tobias Pride killed Allen on April 21, 2002.

Days later, Petties served as one of Allen’s pallbearers. Petties pleaded guilty during a secret hearing in 2009, admitting to conspiring in four of six alleged murders — but not Allen’s.

The Petties drug ring began “small time,” Pride testified, when he, Petties and friends from his South Memphis neighborhood began selling rocks of crack cocaine while in elementary school. They eventually graduated to frequent multimillion- dollar sales.

Pride, a high school dropout, said he remembered a time in Memphis when he counted one day’s worth of profits that totaled $1 million.

When the organization’s main drug supplier was jailed, Petties met with a new source who had direct ties to a Mexican cartel.

Pride said that man was “La Barbie,” identified by federal officials as Edgar Valdez Villarreal. The former Texas high school football player was nicknamed because of his light skin and green eyes. Authorities have described him as a key participant in Mexico’s Beltran Leyva drug trafficking organization.

In 2009, “La Barbie” reportedly wrestled for control of the cartel, a struggle that resulted in shootouts, decapitations and bodies hung from bridges, according to reports from The Associated Press.

“La Barbie,” blamed for numerous killings in Mexico, has been indicted on drug trafficking counts in Atlanta and other jurisdictions.

Pride testified that “La Barbie” arranged for a group from the Petties organization to make a business trip to Acapulco. The Memphians met four or five of La Barbie’s men in Monterey, Texas.

“The Mexicans stayed heavily armed,” Pride told jurors. “Everybody’s got a machine gun and M16s.”

From Texas, the combined group took a private plane to Acapulco. One of the Mexican men had bribed U.S. Customs officials, Pride said, and when they arrived in Acapulco, one of the Mexicans nodded at customs officials, and the group breezed through the line with no problems.

Pride also told jurors the organization loaded 200 kilograms of cocaine “in a crate as big as a casket” in Mexico and shipped it to the United States by way of Fedex for distribution in Memphis and throughout the South.

In all, there were 45 different Fedex shipments — each carrying an estimated street value of more than $4 million, he said.

— Beth Warren: (901) 529-2383