Obama Commutes Prison Term for 'New Jack City' Crack Dealer

President Obama on Thursday commuted the prison sentence of a man who was part of a crack-dealing gang that terrorized Chicago Heights, led by a kingpin who modeled himself after the Wesley Snipes character in the 1991 movie "New Jack City."

Known as "the Organization," the gang ran a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week crack distribution center throughout the 1990s in the Claude Court Housing Complex right across from Gavin Elementary School. The children were never allowed outside, according to federal authorities, to shield them from the armed dealers who lurked nearby.

Artrez Nyroby Seymour, 21 at the time of his arrest, was one of 29 associates snared and convicted in a joint crackdown by the DEA and Chicago Heights police in 2002.

Seymour began working in the gang at 18, according to federal prosecutors. "As a packman, Nyroby was at the sales location and had first-hand knowledge of the amount of crack being sold," according to the federal complaint. The packman would take the money in exchange for the drugs. Seymour later moved up to security for the ring.

The man at the center of the operation, Troy Lawrence, aka "Nino Brown" and "the Don," was sentenced to life in prison. He was raking in $10,000 to $20,000 a day slinging crack at $10 a bag in the Heights.

After the "Operation New Jack City" bust — the largest in Chicago Heights history — Police Chief Robert F. Pinnow Jr. said: "Today is a proud day."

Seymour, a Chicago Heights resident, pleaded guilty to narcotics conspiracy. In 2005, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison and 10 years of supervised release. In March, his sentence was reduced to 20 years. U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer was swayed by a letter of apology Seymour wrote from prison in 2015, acknowledging his "monumental mistakes and horrible choices."

“I don’t proclaim to all of a sudden be a saint. I won’t insult your intelligence," Seymour told the judge. "But I know that I am at least on the right path to put my life together in the right way.”

Lawrence's drug gang filled the void in Chicago Heights created after years of federal prosecutions destroyed the Chicago Outfit's stranglehold on the region. With powerful mobsters locked away, the drug dealers were allowed to play. And earn.

The DEA began investigating the "New Jack City" crew and its multimillion-dollar drug market in the summer of 2000, according to federal authorities, after Chicago Heights tactical officers conducted a street stop on a gang member and found $13,000 in cash and $56,000 in jewelry. The "New Jack City" crew ran a sophisticated operation, with crew members carrying night-vision goggles and two-way radios to help them elude police.

And for years, they did.

But a two-year investigation ensued after that traffic stop, with undercover buys, wiretaps on phones and pagers, hidden cameras, and surveillance on houses in Chicago Heights — the residences of Lawrence's crew — where the cocaine was cooked and bagged.

The feds describe one encounter with Artrez Nyroby Seymour:

On various occasions, both the Chicago Heights Police and federal law enforcement agents seized drugs, drug proceeds and firearms from members of the Organization. For example, on July 5, 2000, the Chicago Heights Police officers seized forty-four small plastic bags containing crack dumped by Nyroby Seymour as he ran from police; after the chase, Nyroby was arrested (for the second time) for selling crack.  

After conviction, Seymour and other co-defendants filed an appeal, arguing the court failed to have the jury make defendant-specific drug quantity findings. Another defendant received less time in prison though he was found in possession of a greater quantity of drugs than Seymour. That disparity factored into Pallmeyer's recent decision to reduce Seymour's sentence by five years.

Seymour was one of 58 drug offenders nationwide who had their sentences commuted by the president on Thursday. A Chicago man also was granted a commuted sentence on Thursday.

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Obama said people who make mistakes deserve a second chance to provide for their families free from unduly long prison sentences. Many were serving life sentences.

"It just doesn’t make sense to require a nonviolent drug offender to serve 20 years, or in some cases, life, in prison," the president wrote in a post on Medium. "An excessive punishment like that doesn’t fit the crime. It’s not serving taxpayers, and it’s not making us safer."

Seymour, who is married with two children, will be among those released on Sept. 2. He says he's now working with at-risk youth trying to dissuade them from a life of crime, according to a Chicago Sun-Times report.

Thursday's announcement brings Obama's commutation count up to 306, more than the last six presidents combined.

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