phr
Bluelighter
Drug kingpin lived lavishly till the music died
George Anastasia
Philadelphia Inquirer
8.15.10
The parties took place in a penthouse suite of a midtown Manhattan hotel.
There were $200 bottles of Cristal champagne to wash down the lobster, steak, and hors d'oeuvres, and an open bar if your taste in beverages went in another direction.
Sixty or 70 people would gather, friends and associates of Maurice Phillips, the drug kingpin sentenced Wednesday to life in prison after an eight-year run atop the cocaine underworld.
Channell Cunningham, his Philadelphia girlfriend and business partner, set up the parties. She figures they cost $10,000 to $20,000, barely a day's income for Phillips, whose distribution network stretched from Mexico to New York.
Cunningham, 37, made drug pickups, collected cash, and counted the money. For a stash house, she and Phillips used a home they had built in Sicklerville, Camden County, in a middle-class suburban neighborhood across the street from a middle school.
Authorities estimate that Phillips' business generated more than $30 million from 1998 to 2007. But testimony at his trial on charges of drug dealing, money laundering, and murder in U.S. District Court this year suggests he made much more.
"It's a conservative estimate," said Assistant U.S. Attorney L.C. Wright, who prosecuted the case with Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen McCartney.
Cunningham, who became a government witness, told the jury that Phillips had said he socked away $11 million.
In addition to the Sicklerville house, he owned properties in North Jersey, Darby, Delaware, Maryland (where he lived with his wife), and Atlanta. He had at least two girlfriends. A wardrobe more GQ than ghetto. Fancy cars. About a dozen bank accounts.
Most of that is gone now, seized by the government.
But "we don't know where all his money is," said Wright.
On Wednesday at his sentencing, Phillips showed little remorse, lashing out at a "flawed and tainted" justice system and denying involvement in any murders.
Handsome, charismatic, soft-spoken, and college-educated, Phillips did not fit the prototype of a kingpin. He was taste and style rather than flash and glitter.
"But he was the real deal," said Wright.
Phillips, 38, grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Roselle, N.J., near Newark. His father was a public school administrator, his mother a businesswoman.
He went to college, splitting time between the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Kean University in Union, N.J. He made the dean's list one semester at Kean, where he graduated in January 2000 with a business degree in accounting.
...
Link!
George Anastasia
Philadelphia Inquirer
8.15.10
The parties took place in a penthouse suite of a midtown Manhattan hotel.
There were $200 bottles of Cristal champagne to wash down the lobster, steak, and hors d'oeuvres, and an open bar if your taste in beverages went in another direction.
Sixty or 70 people would gather, friends and associates of Maurice Phillips, the drug kingpin sentenced Wednesday to life in prison after an eight-year run atop the cocaine underworld.
Channell Cunningham, his Philadelphia girlfriend and business partner, set up the parties. She figures they cost $10,000 to $20,000, barely a day's income for Phillips, whose distribution network stretched from Mexico to New York.
Cunningham, 37, made drug pickups, collected cash, and counted the money. For a stash house, she and Phillips used a home they had built in Sicklerville, Camden County, in a middle-class suburban neighborhood across the street from a middle school.
Authorities estimate that Phillips' business generated more than $30 million from 1998 to 2007. But testimony at his trial on charges of drug dealing, money laundering, and murder in U.S. District Court this year suggests he made much more.
"It's a conservative estimate," said Assistant U.S. Attorney L.C. Wright, who prosecuted the case with Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen McCartney.
Cunningham, who became a government witness, told the jury that Phillips had said he socked away $11 million.
In addition to the Sicklerville house, he owned properties in North Jersey, Darby, Delaware, Maryland (where he lived with his wife), and Atlanta. He had at least two girlfriends. A wardrobe more GQ than ghetto. Fancy cars. About a dozen bank accounts.
Most of that is gone now, seized by the government.
But "we don't know where all his money is," said Wright.
On Wednesday at his sentencing, Phillips showed little remorse, lashing out at a "flawed and tainted" justice system and denying involvement in any murders.
Handsome, charismatic, soft-spoken, and college-educated, Phillips did not fit the prototype of a kingpin. He was taste and style rather than flash and glitter.
"But he was the real deal," said Wright.
Phillips, 38, grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Roselle, N.J., near Newark. His father was a public school administrator, his mother a businesswoman.
He went to college, splitting time between the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Kean University in Union, N.J. He made the dean's list one semester at Kean, where he graduated in January 2000 with a business degree in accounting.
...
Link!
