BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family

by Shalhoup, Mara

  His attempt to inject humor into the situation appeared not to be working. Soon after, the deputy dropped a loaded question: “Are you transporting any contraband?”

  Jabari tried to maintain his cool, but he couldn’t help himself. His reaction to the question was physical. Glancing in the rearview mirror, the deputy noticed that Jabari’s hands were trembling. Upon closer inspection, he saw a vein in Jabari’s neck, beating faster and faster.

  “No,” Jabari answered.

  Three weeks earlier, Jabari had been stopped on the very same highway, heading west from St. Louis. On that occasion, he was behind the wheel of a Lincoln limousine—a limo whose paperwork the DEA had discovered four months prior, in the office of the White House. The name Jabari Hayes also cropped up in paperwork pulled from the house (hence the need for the fake ID). On that occasion, Jabari had been pulled over not by a St. Louis County deputy or a Michigan State Patrol officer, but by the DEA. The agents brought in a dog to sniff the limo. The dog alerted them to the likelihood of something suspicious. And in a secret compartment behind the backseat, agents discovered stacks upon rubber-banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills—totaling more than half a million dollars.

  Yet that traffic stop appeared not to dissuade Jabari, who claimed he was delivering the limo to a friend and had no idea where the cash came from. Nor did it dampen the enthusiasm of other couriers who had similar missions to carry out. In the time that elapsed between that past I-44 stop and this one, Missouri cops busted two other men, Christopher “Pig” Triplett and Calvin “Playboy” Sparks, in yet another car, a Volvo C70, whose paperwork had been found in the White House office. What’s more, Pig and Playboy were among the thirty-four nicknames listed in the pages of a red spiral-bound notebook discovered in a White House guest bedroom.

  Unlike Jabari’s earlier bust, Pig and Playboy didn’t walk away from theirs. Inside the Volvo, authorities found nine kilos of cocaine. Pig and Playboy—regardless of whether they even knew the coke was in the car—were facing the risk of major drug felony charges.

  Now, however, as Jabari sat in the backseat of the deputy’s patrol car, hands trembling and heart pounding, his situation went from bad to worse. Another police vehicle arrived. A drug dog was trotted out. The dog circled the RV, promptly sat down, and started to bark. With probable cause established, the deputy climbed inside the hulking motorhome and, a few minutes later, emerged with three suitcases pulled from the master bedroom. Opening them, he discovered the source of Jabari’s dread. The suitcases held bundle after bundle of neatly packed, plastic-wrapped bricks of cocaine. In all, there were more than one hundred kilos—or 220 pounds. On the street, that’s about $10 million worth of coke.

  Once in custody, Jabari was prodded for information by the DEA. He didn’t budge, but agents were able to connect the RV to a Florida luxury car dealership, Orlando Exotic Car Rentals, whose owner, Marc “Swift” Whaley, was believed to have supplied BMF with at least ten vehicles—including Meech’s silver Lamborghini.

  Those three highway busts in the spring of 2004 were not the Black Mafia Family’s first. But for them to come in such close succession was alarming. And if BMF’s top brass was confident about Jabari’s ability to keep his mouth shut, there was less reason to think Christopher “Pig” Triplett would hold his tongue. Perhaps it was just paranoia, but the smaller shipment discovered in the car with Pig and Playboy shook BMF’s nerves all the way to the top, to Meech’s younger brother and the organization’s West Coast boss: Terry “Southwest T” Flenory.

  If Meech was BMF’s charismatic face, Terry was its quiet genius, a mastermind who maintained a low profile while overseeing the import of thousands of kilos of cocaine from Mexico to Southern California. Terry was cautious, and he was the antithesis of his brother. Overweight and bespectacled, with a lazy eye that drifted off to the periphery, he had a slightly off-putting, discomforting presence. In matters of business, he was direct to the point of being blunt. He also was understated where Meech was over the top, a shrewd and controlling businessman who kept his followers in check by instilling a sense of apprehension and indebtedness. His leadership style was nothing like the brotherly, egalitarian approach that Meech often took.

  In the foothills of L.A.’s San Fernando Valley, Terry owned several suburban properties, including a handsome home for him and his longtime girlfriend, Tonesa Welch, and a couple of stash houses for receiving shipments of cocaine. Like Meech, Terry claimed to hobnob with music producers and NFLers, rappers and entertainment moguls, including Baltimore Raven Corey Fuller and Bad Boy Records’ P. Diddy. But unlike his brother, Terry managed to live the high life while staying out of the spotlight. Terry’s desire for self-preservation stood in direct contrast to Meech’s ambition to be known. Meech wanted nothing more than to be a credible force in hip-hop, to see his name join the ranks of such luminaries as Death Row Records founder Suge Knight and Def Jam CEO Russell Simmons. Terry, on the other hand, was more concerned with survival. Above all else, he wanted to protect the world he built.

  And so when Pig and Playboy got nabbed on that Missouri highway, and when Playboy’s relatives began to suspect that Pig might in fact be a rat, Terry was quick to offer advice—and create the illusion that all was well with the Family. Speaking on the phone to Playboy’s brother, Melvin, Terry did some damage control. But first, he lent Melvin his ear. And Melvin apparently needed it. Because he thought for sure that Pig was going to turn on Playboy.

  “I just got through talking to Play about five minutes ago,” Melvin told Terry. “He said you might not know what’s going on. They went to court, and that nigga Pig can’t even look him in his face. He said he don’t know if the nigga is trying to turn state’s evidence or what, but it’s not looking right.”

  Terry was quick to defuse the situation, starting with a disclaimer about the lawyer he’d hired to defend Pig—a lawyer who, Terry claimed, was held to certain standards. “One thing about this attorney that we got,” Terry said, “is that if Pig was doing anything wrong, he would have dropped his case. He don’t defend government witnesses.” Then, as if to validate his claim that everything was in fact fine, Terry told Melvin he was handing the phone over to his brother, Big Meech. What followed, in true Meech fashion, was an honest attempt to assuage Melvin with a healthy dose of pep talk. Meech had a knack for smoothing wrinkles with his even smoother talk, and this occasion was no departure—except that the voice on the line wasn’t his. It was an imposter, a close associate of Terry’s named Eric “Slim” Bivens.

  Terry wanted to give the appearance that he and Meech were in control, jointly and unequivocally. And so Slim put on his best Meech, and he laid it on thick—starting with, “How you doing, sir?”

  “I’m doing okay,” Melvin said.

  “This is, um, Demetrius.”

  Melvin then reiterated his concern: “Okay, well, let me say just one thing. I talked to Playboy; he just called me. He said something is not right.”

  Slim knew just what Meech would say. Or at least he hoped he did. “Listen,” he said, reasoning with Melvin, “I know—I can guarantee this one hundred percent—that your brother is just going through a process. It’s called patience. He’s not going to do no more time. I promise you, your brother is going to be acquitted and be home. I know for sure that the guy that he was with is gonna hold up his responsibility.”

  “But why can’t he look him in his face?”

  “Let me tell you something, brother,” Slim said, slipping deeper into the voice of a seasoned hypnotist. “I’m gonna be real honest. Your brother is sitting up there, a victim of some wasted time. His mind is playing tricks on him. But I know for sure what Pig is going to do in court, because he already told his lawyer that he’s gonna hold up one hundred percent to all responsibility. This comin’ from the lawyer’s mouth.” Then he sugared the situation, as Meech surely would have done. “I just put a thousand dollars on your brother’s book,” he continued. “Probably in the next couple of d
ays, he gonna see a receipt with a thousand dollars. He don’t have to eat that jail food. He can call y’all as much as he want to call y’all.”

  Finally, Slim offered a Meech-worthy explanation of why things might not be going as well as they should: “It’s just been a slow process, ’cause of that town that he’s in. It’s a hick town. It’s a prejudiced town. And they fucking with your brother.”

  “Okay,” Melvin said.

  “It’s just a mind game. Just tell him, it’s a mind game.”

  Melvin’s next question was dangled like bait, and Slim bit. “Well, um, how much will it cost if I go fly down there and see him?”

  “Look, to get there wouldn’t be no more than two hundred dollars,” Slim replied. “But what I’ll do is, I’m gonna take that out of my own personal money to fly you there, get you a room. You and your mother can go down and see him.”

  “I don’t want Mom to see him.”

  “Okay, then, whoever wants to go,” Slim offered. “ ’Cause he needs moral support, and we can’t go in there ourselves.”

  Before ending the conversation, Slim threw in one last gracious note in his attempt to capture Meech’s congeniality: “You know what?” he said. “Tell your mom we sorry.”

  Slim knew what he was doing. The velvet-voiced Meech had such a strong reputation for preaching the gospel of family that anyone mimicking him would know to offer the requisite apology to Playboy’s mother. Family was important to the Flenorys. And despite Meech and Terry’s growing differences, there was no denying that the empire they’d built was a family affair—one that dated back to the years during which they came of age in southwest Detroit.

  Charles and Lucille Flenory were twenty-one years old in the spring of 1969, the year they left Cleveland for what they hoped would be a better life. They’d married two years earlier, not long after graduating high school, and the following summer their son Demetrius had been born. Before the arrival of their second son, however, the young couple set their sights on a new home: Detroit. There was bigger industry in the Motor City, with more jobs to offer and better opportunities for Charles. Plus, Detroit in the late ’60s was an exciting place, especially if you were young and black. Motown Records and its aptly named Hitsville USA were churning out top-ten records at breakneck speed, from Diana Ross & the Supremes to Stevie Wonder to Marvin Gaye. For Charles, whose love of music bordered on obsession, Detroit was a better fit than Cleveland.

  From the time he was thirteen, back in the early ’60s, Charles Flenory had prayed he’d one day become a professional musician. But there was no room in his parents’ minuscule budget for music lessons, and Charles would be called upon for other, more pressing tasks. His father, a World War II veteran and ware house worker, had fallen ill when Charles was a teenager. To help support his ailing father, Charles found work in a Cleveland steel factory, and he handed over each of his paychecks to his parents. In his spare time, though—what little he had—he taught himself guitar. He built up his skills until he was good enough to perform in his church’s gospel band. And his dream of making and recording music followed him throughout his adult life.

  By the time Charles, Lucille, and baby Demetrius had settled in Detroit, a second son, Terry, was on the way. He was followed several years later by a daughter, Nicole. To keep up with his growing family, Charles typically held down two jobs at a time. He forged metal in a foundry, worked maintenance jobs at several local hospitals, was hired on at three of Detroit’s auto factories, and took countless odd carpentry jobs, most of them at local churches. Of all the work he did, the carpentry was most rewarding. That’s because those jobs brought Charles closer to two of his most consuming passions: god and the sacred steel guitar.

  Usually, the strings of the sacred steel guitar are plied and plucked to mimic the wailing voices that belt out the Sunday hymns. It is a soulful, ethereal instrument. In Charles’s hands, though, it was slightly different. Charles had a bluesier, more rocking style than the genre typically permits. When Charles played the sacred steel, the sound was gospel meets Hendrix.

  While Lucille pressed upon her children the importance of going to church, Charles imparted to them his love of music. He was able to set up a little music studio in the basement of his family’s modest home, in a working-class suburb not far from where the majestic Detroit River swallows the puny River Rouge, and the studio fascinated Charles’s elder son. Meech wanted to be a part of the music, so Charles encouraged him to learn an instrument. Eventually, father and son began performing together in the church band, Charles on guitar and Meech on drums.

  Charles did his best to keep his family afloat, but try as he might, he couldn’t lift them out of poverty. Nor could he and Lucille shelter them from the streets. At one point, when Charles had been laid off from one of his jobs, holes slowly began to wear through the bottom of the children’s sneakers. There were days when the kids came home from school to find the gas and power turned off. In the worst of the Michigan winters, Meech recalls his father treading out to the power line, secretly restoring the electricity himself. Watching their parents struggle made the Flenory boys want more. And a job at McDonald’s, Meech told himself, wasn’t going to cut it. He and his brother had other ideas.

  To those who knew Meech and Terry, particularly the neighborhood kids who wanted in on what would soon be a bustling cocaine trade, Charles and Lucille seemed especially supportive of their children. Poverty was a way of life in their neighborhood, but devoted parents were more of an anomaly. Even after Charles and Lucille divorced in 1986, after nineteen years of marriage, they remained close to each other and their teenaged children. In fact, the only thing that appeared dubious about the Flenory clan was that the two sons, starting in the late ’80s, began running a neighborhood cocaine ring out of their parents’ home. The brothers quickly graduated from slinging fifty-dollars bags of crack on the corner to moving as much as two kilos per week.

  Benjamin “Blank” Johnson, who met Meech and Terry when he was eight years old and would go on to become a trusted manager in their organization, witnessed the brothers’ early years up close. As a teenager, Blank would walk the few blocks from his house on Patricia Street to the Flenorys’ home on Edsel several times a week to pick up an eightball—or about an eighth of an ounce—of cocaine. The coke was a front, lent out to him on consignment. He’d turn it around on the street—where it would break down into seven half-gram bags, worth about thirty dollars each—then would pay the Flenorys back, pocketing the profit.

  Throughout the years (in Blank’s eyes, at least) it was common to see cocaine lying around the Edsel Street house, a blockish two-story structure at the end of a dead-end street, bounded by an I-75 on-ramp and a pollution-cleanup plant. Blank also recalls that Charles Flenory often would be hanging out when Blank picked up his drug order from Terry, and the transactions did not occur behind closed doors. On occasion, Blank would be let in the house, would drop off as much as three thousand dollars for Terry, and would help himself to his biweekly cocaine supply. He knew just where to find it. The brothers’ stash was always in the same place: a hole in the wall above the linen closet door, the one between the living room and kitchen.

  The brothers were smart about their business, but they weren’t untouchable. The game caught up with Meech early, and from then on he managed to make a hobby of getting into—and, more important, out of—trouble. In 1988, at the age of nineteen and about three years after dropping out of tenth grade, Meech was arrested for possession of a bag of weed and carrying a concealed weapon. He was sentenced to high-intensity probation, but he didn’t do any time. In fact, over the next two decades, despite being arrested on a dozen occasions on charges ranging from felony firearm possession to murder, he avoided prison altogether. Part of his ability to stay ahead of the law was his veritable menu of aliases, complete with social security numbers and driver’s licenses: a Michigan license in the name of Rico Seville (Terry, in a show of brotherly solidarity, had a fake Michiga
n license in the name of Randy Seville), a Georgia one with the name Ronald Ivory, a California one with the name of Aundrez Carothers, and one from Tennessee identifying him as Ricardo Santos. Meech also went by Roland West—the name he gave when, five months after that marijuana charge at age nineteen, he was arrested again. Like so many times to come, he used the alias to elude detection and avoid violating his parole.

  That same year marked another milestone for Meech. In 1988, the first of his two daughters was born. She was called Demetria, after her father. A year later, Meech fathered a second daughter. He wasn’t exactly a regular presence in their lives. Before the girls were out of diapers, their father’s work would carry him away from Detroit—and into the big leagues.

  When Meech left Detroit in 1989 at age nineteen, he already was respected on the streets. Even then, his name meant something. But he needed a change, so he decided to scope out the scene in Atlanta. Geographically, Atlanta was a good choice. The city originally called “Terminus” was once the last stop for four converging railroad lines. A hundred years later, Atlanta had morphed from a railway hub to a highway town, a place where commuters would travel more miles on average than anywhere in the world. The three major highways extending from Atlanta easily led to the Carolinas and, by extension, the rest of the eastern seaboard; to all of Florida, including one of Meech’s favorite cities, Miami; and to Texas and, ultimately, California, the two locations where the majority of the country’s cocaine arrived from Mexico. Along the way were drug markets in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri—places where the cocaine trade wasn’t so saturated that the Flenorys couldn’t stake a claim.

  The brothers were born hustlers, and they each had a distinct style. Meech was restless. He wanted to leave Detroit as soon as he could, to strike out and find exciting new territory. Terry, on the other hand, sat back and plotted his course. He had a slight advantage over his brother: money. In his younger years, a bullet grazed his right eye, and it was common knowledge in the neighborhood that he received a settlement as a result of the shooting. Word on the street was that the doctors messed up his eye even worse while operating on it. As a result, his eye drifted slightly, so that it often was fixed, disconcertedly, on whoever approached him from the right side. Later, Terry used the settlement money to start a sedan service. He recruited friends from the neighborhood as drivers. And his experience in mapping out routes and directing the drivers came in handy for another, more profitable enterprise.