Jurors will return next Tuesday to deliberate Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff’s sentence in the same Brooklyn courthouse where another jury imposed the death penalty this week on the killer of two undercover police detectives. It marked the first time a federal defendant had been sentenced to death in New York City since 1954. At best, McGriff would face a sentence of life in prison without parole.

"We’re pretty confident this jury will spare his life," McGriff’s lawyer, David Ruhnke, said after his client was found guilty Thursday of murder for hire and drug dealing.

As we previously covered, six years after the murder of rapper Eric "E Money Bags" Smith, the man believed to have orchestrated the crime was standing in front a Brooklyn, New York federal courtroom to answer for the crime.

"[Supreme] said a couple of guys had smacked up some friends of his and that they had to be dealt with," cooperating witness Emanuel Mosley told jurors. He said the "smacked" friend was Lorenzo, the head of the Murder Inc. record label, and the targets - worth $25,000 a head - were "Big Nose" Troy Singleton and Nathan "Green-Eyed Born" May.

McGriff told Mosley he also wanted another member of Big Nose’s crew killed - a rapper named Eric "E-Money Bags" Smith. The rapper had killed one of McGriff’s friends. In July 2001, Mosley’s crew hit Smith and three months later they shot Singleton. They never found May.

At the Supreme Team’s peak, McGriff and his nephew, Gerald "Prince" Miller, employed scores of crack dealers in and around a Queens housing project and took in $200,000 a day, authorities said.

The team used rooftop sentinels with two-way radios to thwart police. It inflicted violence against rivals and traitors, resulting in at least eight murders in 1987 alone, authorities said.

"Yo, when you hear talk of the south side, you hear talk of the team," 50 Cent said in one ode to the crew. "See (people) feared Prince and respected ’Preme."

Source : Newsday