Gang Leader Sentenced to Life in Prison

CHICAGO, IL - The head of a violent West Side street gang was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Nathaniel Hoskins, leader of the Imperial Insane Vice Lords, ordered at least one murder and oversaw what authorities have described as “an open-air drug market” in the city’s Humboldt Park neighborhood.

Hoskins, 47, “assigned roles for each member of the gang to play in the drug market, and he personally handled the purchases of heroin and cocaine that fueled it,” the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a statement. He was convicted in a bench trial in 2015 of leading drug and murder conspiracies as well as a racketeering enterprise.

“Evidence at trial revealed that Hoskins made it clear to others that he was the king of the gang,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office statement read. “He ordered his subordinate gang members to commit violence to strengthen the group’s control over West Side neighborhoods. One such order from Hoskins resulted in the killing of a man whom Hoskins believed was a rival gang member.”

An investigation into the gang has led to the arrest of more than 30 people.