Trial scheduled for remaining defendants in Ghost Face Gangster RICO case
A trial is scheduled for September for the remaining defendants in a federal racketeering case filed in 2018 against over 20 members of a Georgia-based prison gang.
Only two defendants remain in the case against accused members of the Ghost Face Gangsters; the rest have pleaded guilty and are either sentenced or awaiting sentencing.
The case, originally filed in February 2018, accuses the defendants of forming a criminal drug trafficking enterprise, much of which was coordinated from inside Georgia prisons. Members of the group also are accused of committing several murders — including killing police and correctional officers.
The remaining defendants — Jeffrey Alan Bourassa, who has been fashioned as the lead defendant in the case, and his mother, Cheri Lee Rau — are scheduled for trial on Sept. 6, according to U.S. District Court filings.
However, Rau has filed a request for an emergency hearing with U.S. District Court Judge Michael Brown to discuss what she described as a lack of medical care for Bourassa.
In filing entered on March 21, Rau stated that Bourassa is not receiving proper medical attention for advanced kidney disease while being held in solitary confinement at the Robert A. Deyton Detention Facility in Clayton County.
There were a total of 26 defendants in the case. The other defendants — including leaders within the gang David Gene Powell, Victor Manuel DeJesus and Richard Brian Sosebee — have pleaded guilty to their part in the case. According to the indictment: The group was reportedly formed in 2000 at the Cobb County Jail. It later evolved into drug trafficking and violently punishing those who hadn’t upheld the rules of the gang or who had offered testimony against other members.
In one instance, Bourassa gave instructions from prison to punish a gang member only identified as JBB. In December 2016, they held JBB at gunpoint and, using a knife, cut off his gang tattoo.
While some of the reported leaders — such as Bourassa, Powell, Sosebee and Marc Avon Lefevre — were in prison, others in the gang were given leeway to enforce gang rules or smuggle drugs and cellphones into prisons around the state.
On Feb. 4, 2014, James Phillips shot a Cobb County police officer five times and told another person prior to the shooting, “this is what it means to be Ghost Face.” Phillips is dead.
While not directly linked to the federal case, there have been other high profile incidents in Georgia involving the same gang.
Police say Seth Brandon Spangler — a Ghost Face member — shot and killed Polk County police detective Kristen Hearne after fleeing from police on Sept. 29, 2017. Spangler pleaded guilty last week and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Another high profile incident took place in June 2017 when two men shot correctional officers Sgt. Christopher Monica and Sgt. Curtis Billue to death during an escape in Putnam County.
Donnie Rowe was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2021 for the killings. His co-defendant Ricky Dubose — identified as RD in the indictment — is a known member of the gang and is facing the death penalty in the case.
On Sept. 23, 2019, a man associated with the gang was killed after a previous shootout with police. A GBI initial report stated Jeffrey Tyler Aycock reached for a gun when approached by Rome and Floyd County SWAT off Chulio Road.
In February 2021, seven members of the gang were charged with stabbing, sexually assaulting and burning an inmate at the Floyd County Jail on Dec. 18, 2020. That case remains unresolved. One person, Michael Helterbrand, has pleaded guilty and was sentenced for his part.