Springfield Woman Sentenced To 15 Months For Witness Tampering In Gang Trial

SPRINGFIELD, VA — A Springfield woman was sentenced Thursday to 15 months in prison for witness tampering in connection with a federal trial against four people accused of violent gang activity in Virginia, California and other states, according to federal prosecutors.

Keira Ta, 27, was a member of the Lady Tigers, a subset of a Northern Virginia street gang called the Reccless Tigers, according to court documents. Gang members have engaged in a pattern of intimidation and retaliation against anyone who were believed to have cooperated with law enforcement, according to prosecutors.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Heather Call and Ryan Bredemeier prosecuted the case against Ta. U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff sentenced Ta to the 15-month prison term at a hearing on Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a news release Friday.

According to court records, criminal racketeering and other charges against members of the Reckless Tigers gang led to a trial that began April 11, 2022. The members were accused of involvement in the murder of a former witness.

Gang members labeled those who cooperated with law enforcement as “snitches” and used social media to convey threats to witnesses and inform other gang-members of their identities. In retaliation, gang members committed assaults, attacked homes with Molotov cocktails, and even killed a person who testified against a member of the Reccless Tigers in a Virginia case, prosecutors said.

On the evening of April 11, 2022, after speaking through a jail call to a leader of the gang who was a defendant in the trial, Ta posted on Instagram the address for the federal courthouse in Alexandria, where the trial was about to begin, and listed the five witnesses, adding “snitch” next to each name, according to prosecutors. The post also indicated the five would be testifying between Tuesday and Thursday.

“Come watch the snitches snitching,” prosecutors said Ta wrote on Instagram.

Prosecutors said Ta posted to Instagram after a phone conversation with Tony Le, the leader of the gang who was among those on trial.

After the social media posts, the trial was delayed and certain witnesses in the trial later refused to identify the leader of the gang in open court because of the defendant’s threat, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

But on May 6, 2022, a jury convicted four defendants affiliated with the Reccless Tigers of numerous charges relating to a murder, a gang enterprise, and a drug trafficking conspiracy.

Ta was arrested in April 2022 and indicted on June 14, 2022.