Eleven individuals connected with a Cleveland-based drug trafficking organization have been sentenced after pleading guilty to a plethora of federal crime violations, including RICO conspiracy, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio. Such sentencings trace back to charges laid out in a superseding indictment on Feb. 22, 2024, an extension of an operation initially spotlighted in an indictment from Sept. 20, 2023.
Federal prosecutors laid out a narrative in which the defendants, over a period starting May 2021 through Nov. 29, 2022, combined to form an organization led by Jerry Baker, also known as Jerry Bogarty, 34, from Cleveland. Operating out of the city’s east side, members were engaged in drug trafficking, extortion, robbery, and other illegal activities with the goal of financial gain. Engaging in a wide array of roles, some associates were even implicated in using violence to collect debts, as per court documents.
The elaborate scheme involved moving over 600 pounds of marijuana from California to Ohio, with Walter Sornoza, 50, of Los Angeles, at the helm of a distribution network dubbed “Empire Genetics.” Drugs were transferred to Cleveland via suitcases checked as baggage on flights and subsequently distributed there. Baker took the enterprise a step further, investing in a business, “In & Out Tires,” doubling as a drug distribution center, where authorities seized firearms and other paraphernalia…