Vice Lords Gang Member Who Stole Patient Information Sentenced

DETROIT, MI — An associate of the Vice Lords street gang was sentenced in federal court in Detroit Wednesday to 48 months in prison for witness tampering and providing private health information of Vice Lords shooting victims and their families to another member of the notorious gang, the Justice Department said. Jamerio “Merio” Clark, 28, of Detroit, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge David M. Lawson of the Eastern District of Michigan.

The national gang, whose leaders live in Detroit and Chicago, often target members who try to leave the gang with physical violence, the Justice Department said in a news release. Clark admitted that while he was employed at a Detroit Medical Center facility, he accessed a database at least 15 times to get phone numbers, addresses and other identifying information about relatives of three shooting victims of the Traveling Vice Lords, a subset of the gang that is headquartered in Detroit, according to the release.

Clark then turned over the information, retrieved from May 8, 2015 to at least January 2016, to his brother, gang leader Antonio Clark, knowing that he wanted the information to prevent the relatives from cooperating in the investigation of a Traveling Vice Lords shooting, the Justice Department said. Antonio Clark, 27, was previously sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Antonio is among nine members of the Traveling Vice Lords who have pleaded guilty to charges related to the May 2015 shooting of four members of the family of two brothers who had tried to leave the gang. The two men, their 15-year-old sister and their mother were all injured, but survived.

Besides Antonio and Jamerio Clark, others who have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced include:

• Aramis Wilson, 26, of Detroit, sentenced to 150 months in prison;
• Dion Robinson, 38, of Detroit, sentenced to 121 months in prison;
• Jonathan Kinchen, 24, of Detroit, sentenced to 120 months in prison;
• Tyrone Price, 27, of Detroit, sentenced to 140 months in prison;
• Kojuan Lee, 20, of Detroit, sentenced to 97 months in prison; and
• Kirshean Nelson, 20, of Detroit, sentenced to 36 months in prison.

Burney “Tank” Everett, 27, of Detroit, pleaded guilty on Oct. 25, 2016, and is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 8. Kenneth Smith, 35, of Detroit, pleaded guilty on Jan. 28, 2016, and awaits sentencing, which has not yet been set.

The Justice Department said it has put dozens of Vice Lords street gang members in prison over the past few years as part of a larger federal investigation and efforts to crack down on gang violence in Detroit.

In two trials during March and May 2015, juries convicted eight leaders and members of the Phantom Outlaw Motorcycle Club, many of whom were also leaders and members of the Vice Lords, for various crimes, including a mass-murder plot against a rival organization and the shooting of a member of another rival organization, the Justice Department said.

Among those convicted was Antonio Johnson, aka MT and Mister Tony, the national president of the Phantoms and the “three-star genera”l over all of the Vice Lords in Michigan.

On Sept. 8, 2015, Johnson was sentenced to 35 years in prison for racketeering conspiracy, murder conspiracy in aid of racketeering, assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering, aiding and abetting the use and carry of firearms during and in relation to a crime of violence and felon in possession of a firearm.

The Justice Department credited the arrests and convictions of the Clark brothers and others to the Detroit One Initiative, a collaborative effort between law enforcement and the community to reduce homicide and other violent crime in Detroit.

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