Tommy Edelin, the convicted leader of a violent Southeast Washington drug gang, headed off to a life sentence in prison yesterday -- but not until he gave the court a wide-ranging lecture that accused public officials of breeding crime.
It was a last chance for the onetime rap artist, 36, to speak about his long-running case, and he took it by delivering a dramatic three-hour speech to the federal judge. It covered everything from his proclamation of innocence to his advocacy for housing and social programs, and even his opposition to the deal to bring baseball to Washington.
Wearing an orange-and-white striped jail jumpsuit and wire-rim glasses, Edelin maintained he was innocent of the government's claims that he orchestrated killings to further his drug business. He admitted only that he sold drugs in his neighborhood surrounding the Stanton Dwellings public housing complex in the 1980s and 1990s, then warned that many other young men growing up rudderless and hopeless in neglected pockets of Washington were following his path into crime.
Edelin was convicted in October 2001 of four murder charges, racketeering and other felony counts after a jury found he was the leader of a criminal enterprise called the 1-5 Mob. His sentencing was delayed while the judge considered various legal issues. Five others, including Edelin's father, were also found guilty in that trial.
Although Tommy Edelin was not accused of carrying out any of the slayings, prosecutors said he directed the violence and used drug proceeds to buy a Waldorf townhouse, fancy cars, a fur coat and diamonds. Prosecutors said the 1-5 Mob sold millions of dollars of crack cocaine and committed 11 killings between 1985 and 1998 to cement a hold on the drug trade.
Edelin's attorneys maintained that the defendant had turned his life around and was building a career as a rap artist and producer when he was arrested in 1998. Prosecutors disputed those assertions.
Tommy Edelin was the only defendant in the case to face the death penalty, but the jury rejected that sentence, concluding that his troubled childhood and abuse by his heroin-addicted mother were mitigating factors.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who presided over Edelin's trial, sentenced him yesterday to the life term with no chance of parole.
Edelin said he felt sorry for the families whose loved ones had been fatally shot by people he knew and who sometimes sold drugs with him, but he argued that prosecutors framed the evidence. Defense lawyers plan to appeal.
"I'm sympathetic. . . . I've lost people, too," Edelin said. "But I'm damn sure not remorseful, because I'm not guilty."
Prosecutors said Edelin was an intelligent man and born leader, which made his criminal acts all the more deserving of punishment.
"Mr. Edelin could have been anything he wanted to be in life," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Pfleger. "He chose to use those gifts to attack society . . . and lead young men on a path that led either to their incarceration or their death."
Edelin, reading from handwritten notes and sometimes speaking off the cuff, told the judge and courtroom audience that crime was caused by a mental disease that afflicts people who grow up in places and conditions similar to his childhood.
"When you suffer like this . . . you have no future. All that matters is right now, and 'right now' is pretty ugly where I come from" Edelin said. "You can lock up all the people you want to, you can get as tough on crime as you want, but that criminality will just continue."
The judge let Edelin talk as long as he wished -- even after Edelin began focusing on the proposed deal to use public money for a baseball stadium in the city.
"How generous of the mayor," Edelin said with a sigh. "How about putting that half-billion into affordable housing for this city?"
