By Gail Gibson
                           Sun Staff
                           Originally published January 8, 2003

                    Former state Sen. Michael B. Mitchell could play a key role in the
                    high-profile racketeering trial of five area men accused of using bars and
                    other businesses as fronts for a violent, well-organized drug ring, an
                    attorney for one of the defendants said yesterday.

                    Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed Mitchell to testify in the trial, which
                    opened yesterday with government lawyers dropping another prominent
                    Baltimore name -- former heavyweight boxing champion Hasim S.
                    Rahman, who prosecutors said was a partner with one of the alleged
                    ringleaders in a downtown nightclub.

                    Neither Mitchell nor Rahman is charged with any crime, and it was unclear
                    yesterday how they will figure in the unfolding federal trial.  Rahman denied
                   yesterday that he was an owner of the now-closed Emineo nightclub. Mitchell
                    could not be reached for comment.

                    Defense attorney Richard C. Bittner, who represents lead defendant
                    James E. Gross Sr., said jurors could hear about Mitchell's business
                    dealings with the defendants and other witnesses.

                    "I think you'll find that Michael Mitchell's name is going to weave
                    throughout this case," Bittner said.

                    That was true even before the trial's opening statements. During a morning
                    hearing, Bittner sought assurances that prosecutors would not disclose to
                    jurors a series of crimes possibly connected to the defendants, including
                    what Bittner described as "the murder of Michael Mitchell's former
                    partner in a bar in West Baltimore."

                    Martin "Chicken" Young, a potential government witness with business
                    ties to Mitchell, has told investigators that Gross and co-defendant Louis
                    William Colvin were involved in the 1998 killing of Stepney Jerome Jones.
                    Jones was killed near his Woodlawn home after leaving the Short Stop
                    Bar & Lounge, which Jones managed and records show that Mitchell
                    operated.

                    Bittner said Gross denies any involvement in Jones' death. Assistant U.S.
                    Attorney Christine Manuelian said the incident will not come up in the
                    current case: "That, we have said, we're not getting into," she said.

                    Federal authorities have linked a long list of other crimes to the group they
                    say was led by Gross and Colvin, two convicted heroin dealers who court
                    records show were supposed to be working as government informants
                    during 2000, when many of the crimes occurred.

                    Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert R. Harding told jurors in opening
                    statements that the group was responsible for arsons that destroyed two
                    nightclubs -- one as part of an insurance fraud scheme in 2001 at the
                    group's former base of operations, Strawberry's 5000 in Baltimore
                    County, and the other to thwart competition at Club Fahrenheit in
                    Southeast Baltimore in 2000.

                    Harding described a crime ring that did not hesitate to tamper with
                    witnesses or attempt murder and was built on a steady, lucrative cocaine
                    and heroin business in West Baltimore run chiefly by James E. Gross Jr.,
                    who is known on the street as "Man" and is charged in the case along with
                    his father.

                    One of the government's key witnesses is expected to be Colvin, who
                    pleaded guilty in September to a racketeering count and agreed to
                    cooperate.

                    Colvin, 43, has been closely linked to the elder Gross for years. But court
                    records show that the Abingdon men's ties gradually dissolved into a bitter
                    feud over profits from their last joint venture, the Emineo nightclub.

                    In opening statements, defense attorneys cast Colvin as the true criminal
                    who cut a deal to save himself.

                    "You cannot believe a word Colvin says, unless it's corroborated to the
                    utmost," said attorney Frank Policelli, who represents defendant James E.
                    Feaster. "You just can't trust this guy as far as you can throw a bull
                    elephant by the tail."

                    Colvin and the elder Gross had planned to open the Emineo under the
                    name of Intellects in early 2001, records show. But after the elder Gross
                    was jailed for raping a 12-year-old Baltimore girl, Colvin opened the club
                    as the Emineo under what Harding described yesterday as a partnership
                    with the boxer Rahman.

                    Rahman's managers last spring described the boxer as a part-owner of the
                    club and planned to use the bar as the site for a news conference in April
                    with promoter Don King.

                    But in June, after the Emineo's liquor license was suspended, Rahman said
                    he had no ownership interest in the club, but had been paid for the use of
                    his name to promote the bar. Rahman repeated that yesterday and
                    declined to comment further.

                    City records identified Colvin's father, Julius Elvis Brockington, as the
                    liquor licensee for Emineo. Brockington, a jazz and gospel musician who
                    has at times performed at Mitchell's Short Stop Bar & Lounge, said in an
                    interview last spring that he was the license holder in name only and had
                    no role in the Emineo's day-to-day operations.

                    Sun staff writer Lem Satterfield contributed to this article.

                    Copyright © 2003, The Baltimore Sun