Violent NJ Street Gang Leader Who Ordered Killings Faces Judge

MERCER COUNTY, NJ - The leader of a violent Trenton street gang was convicted Friday on 17 of 21 counts — including murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, racketeering, conspiracy, and leading both an organized crime operation and a narcotics trafficking network — following a four-month trial, Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and the Division of Criminal Justice said.

Charles M. Willis, 33, also known as "Charly Wingate" and "Gate," of Willingboro, was found guilty of leading the "Get Money Boys," or GMB, a gang that controlled heroin distribution around the Oakland Street Apartments in Trenton and was linked to multiple shootings across the city. Willis directed lower-ranking members to carry out acts of violence against rivals on the gang's behalf.

Because the jury found Willis paid someone to commit murder while also leading a narcotics trafficking network, he faces a mandatory sentence of life without parole, authorities said.

Beginning in fall 2019, Division of Criminal Justice detectives conducted a nine-month investigation into an open-air drug market operating in front of the Oakland Terrace Apartments — formerly known as the Roger Gardens Apartments — where GMB members conducted hand-to-hand drug exchanges with vehicles and pedestrians around the clock.

A wiretapped call proved pivotal. Detectives overheard Willis ordering an associate to move drugs from a storage facility in Hamilton, then raced to intercept the shipment. GMB member Tre Whetstone was stopped leaving the facility and found with 130 bricks of heroin and fentanyl. A subsequent search of the storage unit — which Willis had a female associate rent on his behalf — turned up an additional 254 bricks, bringing the total to more than 19,000 individual doses of heroin and fentanyl, authorities said.

Trenton police also conducted separate car stops of GMB members near the drug set. John Colvin was arrested after throwing 150 bags of heroin and fentanyl from a car window. Bobby Hood and Yahonatan Salter were arrested together while in possession of 118 baggies of heroin and fentanyl, Daveport said.

Investigators found that Willis arranged and paid $10,000 for the murder of Michael Barnes, a former police cooperator who had returned to Trenton after leaving witness protection. After being unable to locate and kill Barnes himself, Willis hired someone to carry out the killing. Barnes was shot six times and left to die in an alley on Dec. 27, 2019, according to authorities.

Months later, Willis offered the same individual $15,000 to kill a witness scheduled to testify in an upcoming trial against a GMB member. On June 3, 2020, the gunman opened fire on Wood Street after spotting the witness on a nearby stoop. The witness was only grazed, but three bystanders were struck — including a man shot in the chest and a 12-year-old girl shot in the abdomen while riding bikes with her sister. Both were critically injured, Davenport said.

Willis was also convicted in connection with a gang feud between GMB and the rival Sanhican Drive Boys, which escalated after SDB members gave a statement to police about GMB. On May 1, 2020, following months of taunting SDB members on Facebook, Willis and four GMB members fired at least 39 rounds into a crowd near a grocery store on Sanhican Drive, according to investigation. Two people were shot, and four homes and multiple vehicles were struck.

"The defendant in this case presided over a dangerous gang that visited a reign of terror on the streets of Trenton," Davenport said. "Achieving a guilty verdict in this case makes us all safer."

Willis and 19 others were charged for their roles in the GMB gang. Sentencing has not yet been scheduled.

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