Tim "Gotti" Baukman (left) and Alton "Ace Capone" Coles in "New Jack City: The Next Generation." In 2005, ATF agents and police were building a case against Coles, a hip-hop promoter who they believed ran a huge drug operation. When they tapped his cell phone, they found he made or received an average of 280 calls a day.
Ace Capone: Second of two parts
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Tapped Out
With surveillance and arrests, authorities close in.
Also found in the apartment was a heavy-duty hydraulic press typically used to form cocaine powder into kilogram "bricks."
ATF at Coles' new home
A few minutes before sunrise on a muggy summer morning, a team of more than a dozen ATF agents moved in on Alton Coles' home.It sat on about a half-acre along Dillon's Lane in Harrison Township. Stands of trees lined either side of the property and stretched across the backyard. An all-window, high-ceilinged sun porch was attached to one side of the house, and a two-car garage was on the other. Cole's $220,000 Bentley was parked in one of the bays.
The agents, armed with shotguns, rifles and pistols, moved quickly toward the ornate, wooden front door. Others covered back and side entrances. All wore standard-issue blue uniforms with ATF Agent in large, yellow letters across the back of each shirt. Many had bulletproof vests.
A team trained in surreptitious entry breached the front door, and the agents poured into the house.
Coles and Richardson were asleep in the master bedroom when the raid began.
According to one ATF report, as he emerged from the bedroom in his underwear, Coles appeared more perplexed than surprised to see a group of armed agents swarming through the house.
"How did you guys find me?" he allegedly asked. "I've only been here, like, a week."
197-count indictment
Coles was arrested that morning on gun-possession charges. During the next several months, the case was expanded to include charges of drug dealing, money laundering and conspiracy. Denied bail, he has been in the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia since that summer morning."This is beyond a nightmare. It's torture," Coles said last week. "These charges are not who I am."
Coles, Baukman, Richardson, Pullins, Morris, and Morris' girlfriend Thais Thompson are scheduled to go to trial Jan. 7 in the first case to come out of the 197-count, 22-defendant federal indictment. Among other things, Pullins is charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and weapons offenses. Police recovered a Glock 9mm semiautomatic handgun in the trash bin when they raided her apartment on Aug. 10.
One defendant, Gary Creek, has pleaded guilty. Several others are believed to be cooperating. The rest are awaiting trial, including Terry "Taz" Walker, who was convicted in March and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Joe Smith.
If found guilty of the major drug-dealing, money-laundering and weapons charges, both Coles and Baukman could be sentenced to life in prison.
The evidence that is expected to be presented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Richard A. Lloret and Michael J. Bresnick will include hundreds of secretly recorded conversations; testimony from more than a dozen witnesses who allegedly had dealings with the drug network; testimony from the agents and investigators who conducted the probe; financial and real estate records, including deeds, mortgages, bank statements, loan documents, and lists of automobiles that were bought and sold; and the guns and drugs seized during the raids.
The jury is also expected to be shown New Jack City: The Next Generation.
'The Hustle Diaries'
Screenwriter Barry Michael Cooper says he still cannot reconcile the Alton Coles and Tim Baukman described in the indictment with the two street-smart record company executives he met in 2002 when he began filming Streets Inc., the reality TV pilot that was to tell the story of their rise in the music industry."I understand they had to present a certain kind of image," said Cooper. "But I think they were a lot more complex than people will give them credit for."
Coles, he said, "sounded like somebody from a Fortune 500 company."
Cooper now hopes to resurrect Streets Inc. as The Hustle Diaries. Coles' trial and related publicity could help promote the project that he now says focuses on "how Ace and Tim misinterpreted the American dream."
A snippet from the new version appeared briefly on YouTube earlier this year.
