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An alleged leader of the Black Guerrilla Family who was accused of directing two murders in Baltimore was acquitted of all charges by a city jury Friday morning.
Gerald "Geezy" Johnson, 34, took the stand in his own defense to refute prosecutors' accusation that he had directed the 2007 murder of Gregory Rochester and the 2013 killing of Moses Malone. Prosecutors had alleged Johnson believed they were cooperating with police.
State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby said her office was "disappointed" in the verdict against Johnson.
"This verdict does not discount the important work we do to combat violent gangs," Mosby said in a statement. "To date we have obtained guilty pleas for more than half of the defendants involved in this BGF takedown and have additional defendants awaiting trial."
Johnson was one of 48 alleged BGF members and associates charged in a takedown in late 2013, with prosecutors alleging a years-long campaign of drug dealing and violence that left 10 dead.
Twenty-seven defendants have been convicted since then, with sentences ranging from 17 days to eight years.
In recent months, however, prosecutors have been dropping cases. Since May, six cases have been dropped, and five other cases were placed on the "inactive" docket, which shelves the cases unless prosecutors revive them.
Johnson was one of the first to take his charges to a jury. Two others, Wesley Brown and Norman Handy, had their trials begin earlier this week. Another defendant who is awaiting trial, Joseph Bonds, had a first-degree murder charge dropped in advance of his case being heard, but still faces murder conspiracy, handgun and gang charges.
The State's Attorney's Office declined to address the dropped cases, but said "out office isn't afraid to try tough cases."
"This organization must be torn down, and we – as well as our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners – are doing everything we can to dismantle BGF in Baltimore," Mosby said.
Mark Van Bavel, Johnson's defense attorney, said the case was "not the strongest in the world for the state," relying on testimony from "compromised" witnesses. Van Bavel said Johnson wanted to take the stand to rebut the allegations.
"He wanted to explain the situation," Van Bavel said.
Johnson denied directing the murders, and said he was not a Black Guerrilla Family gang member. Shown a picture of him with other members of the gang and wearing T-shirts featuring images of gorillas, Johnson said they bought the shirts to mark the opening of a new "Planet of the Apes" movie.
Johnson said he was a party promoter and had worked with the gang once to promote a "welcome home" party for one of its leaders, but otherwise denied involvement in any part of their criminal enterprise.
One co-defendant in the case who has pleaded guilty testified against Johnson, as did another man who claimed to have taken the gang's oath with Johnson.
The indictments, announced in November 2013, outlined eight years of allegations including drug dealing and violence, mostly in the Barclay and Greenmount West areas of East Baltimore.
Johnson was on the lam for weeks after the indictment, until he was picked up on the Eastern Shore.
Gerald Collins, the head of the agency's Major Investigations Unit, personally tried Johnson's case along with another assistant state's attorney from the unit.