STAFF REPORTS
BUFFALO, N.Y. — U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy, Jr. announced today that Aaron Hicks, a/k/a Boog, a/k/a Boogy, 33, of Buffalo, NY, was convicted after a jury trial of racketeering conspiracy. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The defendant was convicted by a prior jury of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and faces a maximum aggregate of 30 years in prison when sentenced.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul Parisi and Wei Xiang, who handled the prosecution of the case, stated that Hicks was a member of the Schuele Boys Gang which operated in the Schuele Street area of the East Side of Buffalo. The gang is believed to be responsible for multiple acts of violence and the distribution of illegal narcotics including cocaine, crack cocaine and marijuana.
As a member, the defendant was the Buffalo-based main point of contact for the gang’s cocaine and marijuana supplier, Julio Contreras of McAllen, Texas. Hicks’s co-defendant, Roderick Arrington, was previously convicted following a jury trial in 2017 of the shooting murder of Quincy Balance, a/k/a Shooter, at the intersection of Northland and Stevens in Buffalo on August 30, 2012. Hicks, Arrington, and other Schuele Boys members believed that Balance was involved in the shooting murder of one of their associates on nearby Carl Street four days earlier. Arrington was sentenced to life in prison for murder in aid of racketeering.
“Working with our federal, state, and local partners, this office has gone on the offense against violent street gangs in Buffalo,” said U.S. Attorney Kennedy. “From the West side to the East side and from North Buffalo to South Buffalo, we are using the RICO statute systematically to dismantle these violent organizations and lock-up their members for lengthy prison sentences. We will continue to be relentless in our pursuit of these criminal enterprises, and we will not rest until those who are attracted to these gangs realize that in joining them, they are simply signing up for a spot on the losing team.”
Hicks is one of 28 Schuele Boys Gang members and associates to be charged in this case and the final defendant to be convicted.
The verdict is the result of an investigation by the FBI Safe Streets Task Force, under the direction of Acting Special Agent-in-Charge Kevin P. Lyons; the Buffalo Police Department, under the direction of Commissioner Byron Lockwood; the Drug Enforcement Administration, under the direction of Special Agent-in-Charge James J. Hunt, New York Field Division; and the New York State Police, under the direction of Major Edward Kennedy. Additional assistance was provided by the Erie County District Attorney’s Office, the Edinboro University Police Department in Pennsylvania, the West Tennessee Judicial Drug Task Force, the City of McAllen, Texas Police Department, HSI Harlingen, Texas, and the FBI offices in Houston, Texas and Jackson, Mississippi.
Sentencing is scheduled for August 6, 2018, at 12:30 p.m. before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara, who presided over the trial.
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