BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family (19 page)

Take heart in one thing, Yogi reiterated: You are in Meech’s good graces.

“Dude just asked me how’s everybody,” she said. “I’m tellin’ him everybody cool, but motherfuckin’ everybody gettin’ an attitude. He’s like, ‘Shit, everybody just got to sit in then.’ I don’t want you to sit around your house mopin’ about everything bad that’s goin’ on with you. You gotta take all of that energy that you spendin’ mopin’ around and get on with your fuckin’ life, O. You still in a good position right now, a real good position.”

“I’m not mopin’,” Omari skulked. “I’m not doin’ shit, man. I’m rollin’ with everything that comin’ my way. But I’m not fixin’ to be sittin’ round here all happy-go-lucky, smiling at everybody.”

“Like I was sayin’, everybody ain’t against you, O.”

“I never did say anybody was against me. Ain’t nobody with me or against me.”

“I ain’t tellin’ you how to run your life,” Yogi said, laughing a little, trying to lighten the mood.

“Shit, well, maybe I just don’t feel like talkin’ sometimes. Maybe I’m just sittin’ here thinkin’. Maybe that’s what I’m doin’.”

“You just my friend,” Yogi explained. “I care about you, and I don’t like seein’ you like this, that’s all. If it’s wrong to be carin’ about you, then I’ll deal with that on my own but—”

Omari cut her off. “I appreciate all the care,” he said. “I appreciate everything, for real, from everybody and whatever. But when it’s all said and done, or when it all comes to an end, if they want O, they comin’ to get O. I’m still the one that got to deal with it at the end of the day. I do. Maybe I’m preparin’ myself for the worst.”

The following day, the worst seemed to be on its way. The security guard from the Atrium called again. He reminded Omari that he had been fired. As compensation, he said, he wanted a car. He told Omari, “I’ve done my part.”

An hour later, the security guard talked to Jeffery. “I need my little bit right now,” he said.

“Tomorrow,” Jeffery replied.

The guard had been partly responsible for Omari and Jeffrey becoming suspects, and now he was helping undo the damage. For that, he’d already been paid $2,500 up front, and he was guaranteed another $2,500 when the case was dismissed. Somewhere along the way, though, the guard decided he wanted more.

After hanging up with him, Jeffery called his twenty-two-year-old girlfriend, Courtney Williams, to vent. The guard had been fired, Jeffery complained to Courtney, because he said too much about what had happened—though not enough to get Jeffery and Omari arrested. Now, the guard wanted Omari and Jeff to compensate him
for his loss of income. Such demands were unwise, Jeffery hinted to Courtney. “People need to realize how much clout we got in this motherfuckin’ city,” he told her.

The Atrium situation was clearly stressing out Omari and Jeffery. Yogi wanted to ease their worrying. So she stayed on top of the situation, claiming to be in contact with the attorney, Vince Dimmock, who was handling the case. So far, neither of them had been charged—and they might not be, thanks to the security guard’s willingness to hold back on what he’d witnessed. That’s what Yogi wanted to discuss with Omari on November 2, 2004.

“Vince said they really don’t have all that they want,” she said. “So you just really gotta take what he said, and stay ahead of the game.”

With that bit of business out of the way, Yogi and Omari wound up talking for nearly an hour—or, to be more precise,
Yogi
talked for the better part of an hour. Omari, as usual, mostly listened. She chattered on about the progress over at the club Meech was opening. It was going to be called Babylon, the same name as Tony Montana’s club in
Scarface
. She complained about J-Bo, who, compared to Meech, didn’t seem to appreciate her. J-Bo didn’t hold a candle to Meech, not in her book.

Noticing that Omari was zoning out, she switched topics.

“What are you doin’?” she asked sweetly.

“Just thinkin’,” Omari said in a far-off voice.

“About what?”

“I don’t know, everything.”

“Tell me one thing you’re wonderin’ about.”

“Um, why I keep gettin’ calls from somebody sayin’ I’m fixin’ to go to jail and shit.”

“You don’t think that’s just the talk in the streets?”

“Yeah, it might be.”

“Who’s discussin’ you?”

“I don’t know. Just different people.”

“You talkin’ ’bout people from Boulevard, right?”

“Nah, no. Somebody called and was like, ‘So-and-so said this.’”

Yogi believed she had an explanation for all that talk: envy. “I can name thirty niggas on Boulevard that wanna see you go to jail right now and hope that they could take your place,” she said. “Nigga, don’t give them that.”

Then, she got deep.

“I see the character traits in you that are in Dude,” she said. “I see you bein’ a leader. I see a lot of you in him, and I see a lot of him in you. I know what Meech used to be like in his younger days. The conceit that you have, he had—but he’s a little more humble now, because he’s a little bit older. I just see you and him bein’ the same kind of people, and I think people in the Family see that also.”

These were treacherous times, she continued. People felt the heat, because the heat was real. Take St. Louis. Thirteen BMF guys had just been indicted there, including a high-level manager named Deron “Wonnie” Gatling—who’d gone on the run. “I’m talkin’ about St. Louis so hot right now, I’m sure everybody think the world is on fire,” Yogi said. “We all a little warm around this motherfucker. But I just don’t see why they keep singlin’ you out. I just think that it would have been done by now, you know what I’m sayin’? That’s just my opinion. I just feel like you sittin’ there stressin’ yourself out and it’s not time for you to stress yourself out, you know? Everybody got their time. I don’t think it’s yours, though.”

The most Omari could offer in response was a long “Hmmmm.”

To which Yogi responded, “Let it go, baby.”

Of course, Omari couldn’t.

November 4, 2004, was a day of bad omens—some of them obvious, others not. Two days had passed since Yogi’s extended pep talk, and Omari was as paranoid as ever.

His first order of business that afternoon was to help bond one of his associates out of jail. Decarlo Hoskins had been locked up
for nearly three weeks and had just that day been granted a $100,000 bond. Omari felt obligated to help. You had to look after those who could incriminate you, after all. Little did Omari know that it was too late.

A couple of hours later, Omari got an ominous phone call. The man on the line identified himself as Omari’s brother. Investigators knew that wasn’t the case, though they didn’t know who the caller was.

“I need to talk to you real urgent,” the man said. “Real, real important, my nigga.”

“It’s bad?” Omari asked.

“Hell yeah. I think it is.”

“About me?”

“Yeah, nigga, you heard me?”

“Man …”

“Your shit is all right? Your, um, your jack?”

Omari wasn’t all that sure anymore. Despite the fact that he and Yogi had been talking freely on his cell, he began to doubt it was safe.

“Um, I’m gonna call you from another,” Omari said.

“Hurry up, son.”

Omari’s paranoia was mounting. One of his next calls showed just how freaked out he’d become—and how close he was to figuring out what, exactly, was going on. Omari called to request a favor from a woman, who in turn called a friend of hers on another line. Her friend worked at the Atlanta Police Department.

Omari was worried that a black truck he kept noticing, a truck parked on the curb just up the street from his house, might be part of a surveillance team. Earlier, he’d jotted down the truck’s tag number. Now he was reading it to the woman, who repeated it to her police source. The agents listening in could tell that the person who betrayed them was inside the APD, because they were able to trace the number back to the department. The actual perpetrator, however, was never identified.

The woman told Omari that she’d get back to him soon with some info.

A half hour later, Jeffery called Omari with an idea that he thought might help ease some of their pressure. Jeffery’s girlfriend, Courtney, was out of town, so Jeffery offered to bring the “clothes” to her apartment on Highland Avenue. She just so happened to live in the same complex where, exactly two months before, Misty Carter and Ulysses Hackett were shot to death in Misty’s bed.

“Yeah,” Omari said. “That’s cool.”

The surveillance agents weren’t able to maintain a tail on Jeffery as he drove the “clothes” over to Courtney’s. Thus the agents were left thinking that they’d missed out on a golden opportunity, a convergence of events that surely wouldn’t happen again—until they realized, listening to the wire the next day, that all was not lost.

Just before 5:30
P.M
. on November 5, 2004, a taxi pulled up to Omari’s house, and the surveillance agents watched as Courtney stepped out. She’d just come from the airport, according to the wire, and was about to leave town again. Ten minutes later, agents saw her pull out of the garage in a white Cadillac SUV, followed moments later by Jeffery, driving the Porsche. The agents, who were joined by the DEA this time around, split into two teams. Three guys took off after Courtney, the other three after Jeff.

The Porsche was driving wildly. Jeffery gunned it through a red light at Spring Street and North Avenue, entering the thick of downtown Atlanta. The agents lost him.

It was at around that moment, while Jeffery and Courtney were both driving, that Jeffery decided to call Courtney to let her know the “clothes” were at her apartment. Courtney said she wanted the clothes out of there—and she wanted to be rid of Jeffery, too. So the clothes had to be moved, and quick.

Back at HIDTA headquarters, the agents were scrambling to let the surveillance team know what was going on. The team
had
to get to Courtney, and quick.

“I’m sick of this dirty business,” they heard Courtney say. “So I’m just tryin’ to figure out if you’re gonna be there within the next thirty minutes, because I’m about to go out of town.”

“You’re fixin’ to go outta town? Where you goin’?”

“Outta town,” she said dryly.

“Damn, well, can I keep your key while you’re outta town?” Jeffery pleaded.

“Can you keep my key while I’m outta town? You missed the point. I just changed my number—”

“Courtney, I need to keep those clothes over there for real, ’cause … you don’t even understand right now.”

“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t understand.”

“Can I just keep those clothes over there, please? Can I just keep the keys until you get back?”

“I’m sorry. You can’t keep my key.”

“Courtney, can I please keep the key. Please.”

“I already said no.”

“All right, if you’re going to be selfish like that—”

“I’m not being selfish.”

“All right, well, I’m on my way.”

Courtney, fortunately, was easier for the surveillance team to keep up with. The agents followed her all the way to her Highland Avenue apartment complex. A few minutes later, Jeffery pulled up in the Porsche. Both of them went inside her apartment. Shortly thereafter, the couple emerged with a duffel bag. They climbed into the Porsche and headed toward the highway.

The agents pursuing them called in Atlanta Police. It was time for another traffic stop.

The cops caught up with the Porsche on I-75 at Pine Street, near the heart of downtown. Jeffery pulled to the shoulder of the exit ramp. Investigators, who were met on the scene by Fulton prosecutor Csehy,
approached the SUV, guns drawn. They ordered Jeffery and Courtney out of the vehicle, then cuffed them and put them in separate cars. In the backseat of the Porsche, in plain view, the agents found an open duffel bag stuffed with ten kilos.

Csehy and the agents drove the couple to Courtney’s apartment, where she consented to a search. While some agents were digging through her stuff, others tried to pressure her to talk. They said she should’ve been well aware that Jeffery and Omari were up to no good. “These guys don’t work and they live in a half-a-million-dollar home and they drive an eighty-thousand-dollar truck,” one of them told her. “Where do you think they get their money from?”

But Courtney wouldn’t budge. She just sat there staring at them. In the course of the search, the agents didn’t turn up anything, though the ten kilos in the back of the Porsche were more than enough to arrest the couple and put them away for a while. Instead, Csehy decided to let them go. It was a ballsy move, but he figured Jeff and Courtney would keep talking on the phone, and that might yield even better information over the wire.

When Omari called Jeffery a few hours later, Omari knew something was up. Yet he pressed Jeffery to talk, despite Jeffery’s insistence that it was a bad idea.

“Don’t wanna talk right now,” Jeffery said as soon as he answered. “Bye.”

“What?” Omari asked.

“Bye.”

The line went dead. Thirty seconds later, Omari called again. Jeffery greeted him with a terse, “Don’t wanna talk.”

“Hey, what the fuck you talking ’bout?”