‘High-ranking’ Four Corner Hustler charged with trafficking heroin in Austin

A south suburban member of the Four Corner Hustlers gang and two of his associates were charged with selling “wholesale quantities” of heroin on Chicago’s West Side.

Raymond “Shaky Shawn” Betts, 52, is charged with conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Two other members, 48-year-old Angela “AB” Bell of Chicago and 50-year-old Maurice Williams of Riverdale, are also charged in the conspiracy, according to court records.

Betts, who lives in Riverdale, is accused of “selling or directing sales of heroin” eight separate times between December 2018 and March 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

A total of about 136 grams of heroin was sold between seven transactions in the 5300 block of West Washington Boulevard in Austin and one in the 13800 block of Edbrooke Avenue in Riverdale, prosecutors said. The buyer was working as an informant for law enforcement and paid a combined total of about $15,280 for the drugs.

Prosecutors called Betts a “high-level member” of the Four Corner Hustlers.

He is currently the only member of the gang in the country to hold the rank of “Prince” and was the founder of the gang’s “Body Snatchers” enforcement or security unit, according to court documents.

All three defendants were arrested Wednesday, federal officials said. Bell is expected to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sunil R. Harjani for a detention hearing on Friday, while hearings for Betts and Williams, who also goes by “Big Fella” or “Naz,” were set for Monday.

Each conspiracy count is punishable by up to 40 years in prison, prosecutors said.

Ladonah Hampton, an associate of purported Four Corner Hustlers leader Labar “Bro Man” Spann, was charged earlier this year after police said she was caught with handguns and a two-liter bottle containing liquid PCP. Last year, Hampton pleaded guilty to federal perjury and obstruction of justice charges stemming from bogus grand jury testimony she gave in 2015.

Eight other members of the Four Corner Hustlers are set to go on trial in September in a racketeering conspiracy case that involves six murders between 2000 and 2003. Three others were charged in the same case, who could face the death penalty if convicted, will go on trial in September 2020.

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