Alleged gang leader facing federal gun charges

Paris D. Moffett has only been free five years after 2009 drug charges

SAN FRANCISCO >> Nearly five years after he was released from federal prison in a crack trafficking case, the alleged leader of a San Francisco gang was back in federal custody facing new gun possession charges, court records show.

Paris D. Moffett, 43, is charged with being a felon in possession of ammunition. He was in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on a no-bail hold and scheduled to appear in court for the first time today. Federal prosecutors were also filing supervised release violation charges on a separate docket.

In 2009, Moffett pleaded guilty to federal charges of selling crack cocaine and ecstasy and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison — along with credit for time he spent in pretrial detention — and started a five-year supervised release term in 2016. He was facing up to 16 years in prison before agreeing to a plea deal.

The charges stem from an arrest on May 26 on Highway 101 in San Francisco, in an incident where Moffett allegedly abruptly sped off after a California Highway Patrol officer pulled him over in a gray Maserati. He crashed the Maserati on the freeway, then ran and attempted to carjack a driver before surrendering, according to police.

During the foot chase, an officer reportedly saw Moffett throw something from a brown backpack he was carrying into a wooded area. A loaded pistol with two magazines — one of which was a drum-style magazine with capacity for 50 bullets — were recovered from the wooded area and linked to Moffett by DNA, prosecutors allege. Three other people’s DNA was also found on the magazine.

Moffett is one of several gang members to face federal charges in recent months. The Eddy Rock gang is based in San Francisco’s Western Addition neighborhood, and was one of the gangs targeted by local injunctions in the late 2000s.