The onetime head of Chicago’s Four Corner Hustlers street gang again faces a mandatory life sentence after a federal jury Monday convicted him of racketeering conspiracy and other crimes.
It’s the second such verdict in four years for Labar “Bro Man” Spann, who since 2017 has battled a sweeping indictment handed up against him and other members of the deadly West Side gang.
This time, jurors spent roughly a half day deliberating at the end of his six-week trial.
Spann’s 2021 conviction for racketeering was undone by revelations that a former prosecutor made an “unauthorized” promise to a key witness.
Now, Spann faces sentencing again, this time on April 20. The jury also found Spann guilty of murder in aid of racketeering and extortion.
Spann’s latest trial began in earnest Nov. 10. Prosecutors told the jury Spann and his gang “terrorized” the West Side for decades.
The former gang chief has been paralyzed for decades as a result of a 1999 shooting. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Vermylen warned jurors not to be fooled.
“Make no mistake,” she said during opening statements, “the defendant sitting in front of you is a killer.”
Spann’s attorney, Steven Hunter, argued that Spann lived “in a dangerous world” where “you’re either predator, or you’re prey.”
Hunter said Spann “tried to exude menace” and, along the way, “tried to claim credit for things that he did not do — so that he appears dangerous.”
Prosecutors tied Spann to four deaths in particular: the killings of Maximillion McDaniel in July 2000; of George King in April 2003; of Willie Woods also in April 2003; and of Latin Kings chief Rudy “Kato” Rangel in June 2003.
They said all four murders were committed at Spann’s direction. Jurors held him responsible for each of them.
Spann ordered McDaniel’s killing because McDaniel had cooperated with law enforcement against Spann’s father. King’s killing resulted from a dispute between Spann and a rival drug dealer. And Woods’ death was a murder for hire, with Spann delegating the job to two of his loyal foot soldiers.
Prosecutors have said Spann was paid $20,000 to kill Rangel. The high-profile slaying inspired the track “A ‘Yo Kato” by rapper DMX.
Spann also faces up to 70 years in prison in a separate case in which he has pleaded guilty to gun, drug and obstruction of justice charges. The charges involved a 2014 incident in which Spann fired a Glock handgun at a shooting range in Lyons despite being barred, because of a previous felony conviction, from possessing the handgun.
He also persuaded a companion, Ladonah Hampton, to lie to a grand jury.
But sentencing in that case has been delayed for years while attorneys waited to see how Spann’s separate racketeering case would play out. Spann has since moved to withdraw his guilty plea in the gun case, arguing the law as applied to him there is unconstitutional under a recent Second Amendment ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Click here to read The Watchdogs investigation “Killing ‘Kato.’”