McGriff rose to prominence in early 1981 when he formed his own
crack cocaine distribution and manufacturing organization which he called
The Supreme Team based in the
Baisley Park Houses in the
South Jamaica section of the
Queens borough of
New York City,
New York. Under McGriff's leadership, the gang's numbers swelled to over one hundred members with more than $200,000 daily sold worth of crack cocaine at the 1987 peak and came to control the crack cocaine trade in Baisley Park, the neighborhood where McGriff was raised. In 1987, McGriff was arrested following a joint state and federal investigation and in 1989 pleaded guilty to engaging in a
Continuing Criminal Enterprise. He was sentenced to 12 years incarceration and convicted for federal narcotics conspiracy charges. After being released from prison on parole in 1995, McGriff tried
cinematography, seeking help in 1995 from
Irv Gotti to film a movie based on the
Kenyatta series' novel
Crime Partners. He was sent back to prison on parole violations by year's end, and served another 2½ years before being released in 1997. From 1997 to 2003 McGriff's criminal organization expanded into wholesale heroin and cocaine into Maryland and North Carolina. They distributed over 30 kilograms of heroin, 150 kilograms of cocaine, and 1.5 kilograms of cocaine base. In July 2001 McGriff was arrested after police pulled over a white BMW near
145th Street in Harlem and found a loaded weapon and nearly $11,000 in cash in his vehicle. Months before the investigation on Irv Gotti was launched, McGriff pleaded guilty to the gun possession in September 2002. In 2003 McGriff was jailed in Baltimore for having violated a parole violation for shooting guns at a firing range, and faced a sentencing on a state charge for criminal possession of a weapon with intent to use. He served a 37-month sentence. Federal authorities also accused him in connection with the attempted murder of
50 Cent related to retaliation for the song
Ghetto Qur'an (Forgive Me). The trial ended in December 2005. On February 1, 2007, McGriff was convicted of
murder-for-hire at a federal court in the
Eastern District of New York on charges that he paid $50,000 to have two rivals (Eric "E-Moneybags" Smith and "Big Nose" Troy Singleton) killed in 2001. The jury deliberated for five days before finding McGriff guilty of murder conspiracy and drug trafficking. On February 9, 2007, McGriff was sentenced to life in prison. Throughout this case he was defended by a court-appointed attorney because nearly all of his assets had been seized. McGriff began serving a life sentence for his crimes at
ADX Florence, a federal
supermax prison in
Colorado. In 2011, he was transferred to
United States Penitentiary, Lee, a high-security federal prison in
Pennington Gap, Virginia. , he is housed at
USP Beaumont in
Jefferson County, Texas. ==See also==