A federal jury in Cleveland has convicted three members of the Fully Blooded Felons, a violent Cleveland street gang, of racketeering murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking and firearms offences after a three-week trial, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday, November 5.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs
Raven Mullins, 37, Malik Brooks, 28, and Jayon Florence, 23, all of Cleveland, Ohio, were convicted of crimes including murder, conspiracy and kidnapping under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — the federal law known as RICO — as well as drug trafficking and gun crimes, according to evidence presented at the trial.
“This extremely violent gang was a true blot on the city of Cleveland,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department's Criminal Division. “The Criminal Division's work put a stop to the violence that this gang rained down on Ohio communities to protect law-abiding citizens from harm. Stopping violent crime in Cleveland and around the country remains a top priority for the Trump Administration.”
U.S. Attorney David M. Toepfer for the Northern District of Ohio said: “These verdicts send a clear message: when gang members make it their business to hurt people and terrorize our communities, we make it our business to lock them in a cage far from home.” He credited FBI Cleveland and local law-enforcement partners and said he hoped the verdicts would bring the victims' families “a small sense of closure in knowing that justice has been served.”
What the jury heard
The Fully Blooded Felons have existed in Ohio since approximately 2012, operating primarily out of the east side of Cleveland, as well as Akron, Youngstown and elsewhere, and the gang is also entrenched in the Ohio prison system, the Justice Department said. “The Fully Blooded Felons criminal network has been identified as Cleveland's most significant gang threat,” said Joshua DelManzo, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Cleveland, adding that the work of the FBI Safe Streets Gang Task Force and its local, state and federal partners had ended the gang's “reign of terror.”
Prosecutors described a rigid internal hierarchy. Mullins oversaw the “Commission,” the gang's governing body, which maintained the enterprise's structure through physical discipline and decided which illicit means the organisation would use to make money. The Commission — a Head Commissioner and 10 subordinate Commissioners — could decide whether a member had committed a “violation” and set punishments ranging from a fine to death. Below the Commissioners, “Capos” led up to 25 members each. Members had to follow “omerta,” a code of silence, memorise and recite the “Fully Five” rules and abide by the “Fully Commandments,” rules circulated by text message and in face-to-face meetings; a member who did not know the Fully Five was punished.
The central murder in the case began on or about July 28, 2022. Evidence proved that the defendants, together with co-defendants who had earlier pleaded guilty, kidnapped a woman after the gang suspected that she was romantically involved with, and sharing information with, a rival gang member. As punishment for her suspected disloyalty, gang members held her in an apartment, where Mullins ordered members including Brooks and Florence to repeatedly punch and choke her, prosecutors said.
The group held her captive in the apartment while they debated what to do with her. After taking and reviewing the contents of her phone, including her text messages and contacts, the gang members believed she intended to give a rival gang Brooks' location so that Brooks could be assaulted or murdered. The next day, still holding her captive and with Mullins' approval, Brooks and Florence drove her with other gang members to an area on the west side of Cleveland, where they fatally shot her 19 times and left her body in the front seat of a stolen Kia Optima.
In a separate episode, from June 30 to July 5, 2022, Mullins and other Fully Blooded Felon members kidnapped and assaulted a 22-year-old woman who was eventually released. Prosecutors said she had previously given a statement to police implicating a Fully Blooded Felon member in a robbery.
Then, on September 12, 2023, Mullins and two other Fully Blooded Felon members robbed and murdered a second victim on the west side of Cleveland. Evidence at trial included a knife sheath carrying Mullins' DNA that was found at the scene.
The prosecution also presented evidence that Brooks shot two rival gang members on the west side of Cleveland on July 18 and 20, 2022, and that gang members used two different stash houses at a local apartment complex. When law enforcement executed two search warrants, officers recovered more than 300 grams of fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as seven firearms.
The three defendants face maximum penalties of life in prison. Their sentencing date has not yet been set by the court. As of Thursday, 25 Fully Blooded Felon members in total have been charged and convicted on federal charges in connection with this indictment, for crimes including RICO conspiracy, murder in aid of racketeering, kidnapping in aid of racketeering, and various firearms and drug-related offences.
The case grew out of a years-long investigation by the FBI, with assistance from the Cleveland Division of Police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Office, the Ohio Adult Parole Authority, the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the U.S. Marshals Service and numerous other agencies also contributed. Trial Attorneys Brian W. Lynch and former Trial Attorney Alyssa Levey-Weinstein of the Justice Department's Violent Crime and Racketeering Section prosecuted the case with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul E. Hanna, Rachael E. Wood, Robert F. Corts and Margaret A. Sweeney for the Northern District of Ohio.
The court has not yet set a sentencing date for Mullins, Brooks and Florence. Each faces a maximum of life in prison. These are jury convictions after a full trial, not allegations awaiting trial; sentencing will be imposed by the federal court in Cleveland.
Federal prosecutors use RICO in gang cases because the statute targets the criminal enterprise itself — its leadership structure, its rules and its pattern of crimes — rather than only individual acts. That is why this single Cleveland indictment has produced convictions against 25 members over time, including earlier guilty pleas by other members of the same gang. The Justice Department's release does not name the murder victims, and Awaaz Punjab is not naming them here.