Gang Leader/Rapper Sentenced For Racketeering, Trafficking In HV

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY — A rap star who admitted he was also a violent gang leader and drug trafficker will be going to prison.

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced Tuesday that Caswell Senior, aka “Casanova,” was sentenced to 188 months — or 15-2/3 years — in prison for conspiring to conduct and participate in the conduct of the affairs of a criminal enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity and conspiring to distribute over 100 kilograms of marijuana.

The charges rose from his leadership role in the Untouchable Gorilla Stone Nation Bloods Gang, prosecutors said. Senior pleaded guilty in May 2022.

As part of the racketeering conspiracy, Senior, 36, of Montville, New Jersey, participated in a shooting July 5, 2020, in Florida and a robbery in New York City on Aug. 5, 2018, and conspired to distribute more than 100 kilograms of marijuana.

Williams said Senior is not just a notorious recording artist, but also a high-profile leader of a vicious street gang and a magnet for gang violence.

“At a crowded Miami house party, Senior personally fired a gun that seriously injured and could have killed a victim, inciting a shootout,” he said. “Further, Senior’s stature in the community was central to Gorilla Stone’s successful recruitment and nationwide expansion.”

Williams said that his sentencing — along with the other significant sentences that have been imposed in this case — shows once again “that gang life is not worth it and will lead to many years in prison.”

According to prosecutors, since at least 2004, Gorilla Stone has been a brutally violent street gang with a national presence that was founded by Senior’s co-defendant Dwight Reid, aka “Dick Wolf.” The gang has many members across New York, including throughout New York City, Westchester, the state prison system and all over the country, including in Florida, where Senior engaged in substantial criminal conduct.

Senior’s Gorilla Stone co-defendants were charged with a host of crimes, including racketeering conspiracy, various frauds, a large-scale narcotics conspiracy in which Senior actively participated, myriad firearms offenses and numerous acts of violence, including a daytime murder of a juvenile in the middle of a Poughkeepsie street; multiple attempted murders and shootings, including two in Florida in which Senior was involved; a gunpoint drug-related robbery and a brutal slashing.

For more than a decade, Senior participated in and was associated with Gorilla Stone. He was a powerful, high-profile member of the gang. He admitted he was an organizer or leader of a criminal activity that involved five or more participants.

As part of the racketeering activity, on July 5, 2020, while in Florida for a gang member’s birthday, Senior shot a gun at a gang member with whom he was having a gambling dispute, hitting one gang member in the leg/calf area and a second, different gang member in the foot when the bullet ricocheted. A victim suffered serious bodily injury because of the shooting and was treated at a Miami-area hospital for a gunshot wound to the foot. Thereafter, other party attendees, including a member of Gorilla Stone, discharged multiple firearms.

Additionally, as part of an August 5, 2018, robbery at a Manhattan diner that Senior participated in, a victim was restrained and suffered serious bodily injury. The robbery started when Senior appeared to believe that a female victim took a photo of him from the booth where the victim was sitting. Senior then proceeded to forcefully take the victim’s cell phone. Senior’s gang member associate then came up behind the victim and put her in a headlock until she fell to the floor unconscious from lack of oxygen.

Senior further agreed to traffic at least 100 kilograms of marijuana. During a nine-month period, Senior was responsible for distributing between 100 kilograms and 400 kilograms of his personally branded “2x” marijuana.

In addition to the prison term, Senior was sentenced to four years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $50,000.

Senior is the 12th defendant in the Gorilla Stone case to have been sentenced. The 11 other defendants who have been sentenced are:

• Donavan Gillard, aka “Donnie Love,” who was sentenced to 248 months in prison;
• Naya Austin, aka “Baby,” who was sentenced to 234 months in prison;
• Jarrett Crisler Jr., aka “Jayecee,” who was sentenced to 207 months in prison;
• Brandon Nieves, aka “Untouchable Dot,” who was sentenced to 110 months in prison;
• Jamal Trent, aka “Trap Smoke,” who was sentenced to nine years in prison;
• Dezon Washington, aka “Blakk,” who was sentenced to 97 months in prison;
• Roberta Sligh, aka “Trouble,” who was sentenced to eight years in prison;
• Jordan Ingram, aka “Flow,” who was sentenced to eight years in prison;
• Stephen Hugh, aka “Chino,” who was sentenced to seven years in prison;
• Isaiah Santos, aka “Zay,” who was sentenced to seven years in prison; and
• Shanay Outlaw, aka “Easy,” who was sentenced to three years in prison.

Five additional defendants have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing: Deshawn Thomas, aka “Don,” Ahmed Walker, aka “Ammo,” Brandon Soto, aka “Stacks,” Robert Woods, aka “Blakk Rob” and Brinae Thornton, aka “Luxury.”