A U.S. District Judge has sentenced a Baltimore gang leader to 25 years in prison for leading the city’s violent Pedestal Gardens gang, a drug trafficking group that brought wholesale quantities of heroin, fentanyl and cocaine into the city.
Judge Catherine C. Blake sentenced 35-year-old Karron Wheeler to 25 years after a plea agreement. Wheeler admitted that between at least March 2015 and Aug. 26, 2016 he managed a drug organization that operated in several locations in West Baltimore, including Pennsylvania Avenue and Laurens Street. He allegedly employed or directed more than five individuals, police said.
Blake also sentenced 28-year-old Deandre Smith, who maintained a “stash” house in Catonsville and conspired with Wheeler. Smith received a 12-year sentence.
Smith and Wheeler admitted that during their participation in the conspiracy they and their co-conspirators distributed between 1 and 3 kilograms of heroin, police said.
“Our city is plagued by the deaths caused by drug-trafficking gangs: They kill their customers with heroin and fentanyl, and they kill each other (and innocent bystanders) with guns and bullets,” said U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur, who helped announce the sentences earlier this week.
“Police, federal agents, and prosecutors are working together to identify, disrupt, and hold accountable drug dealers who bring violence to Baltimore City and remove entire groups of them from our neighborhoods,” he said.
Joining Hur in the announcement were Special Agency in Charge Gordon B. Johnson of the FBI, Baltimore Field Office; Interim Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle of the Baltimore Police Department; and, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, an initiative to combine law enforcement efforts to reduce violent crime and protect Baltimore’s neighborhoods, officials said.
–Owen DiDonna