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A jury in Minneapolis Tuesday convicted two members of the Highs street gang of racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to distribute fentanyl.
Robert Lesure, 23, and Cortez Blakemore, 35, are among 13 Highs members convicted in four back-to-back trials this spring and summer that also resulted in one full acquittal. More than two dozen other Highs defendants pleaded guilty to various gang-related crimes.
In an interview with MPR News following the verdict, Assistant U.S. Attorney Albania Concepcion said the racketeering charges were appropriate because the Highs gang is well-organized and disciplined.
“These guys know exactly what they’re doing and they mean what they say,” Concepcion said. “It’s not as chaotic as we want to think that it is.”
The prosecution of the Highs, who primarily operate north of West Broadway Avenue in north Minneapolis, is part of an anti-gang effort that started in 2023 under former U.S. Attorney Andy Luger. Authorities are also seeking to dismantle the rival Lows gang, which has territory south of West Broadway, as well as the Bloods, 10z and 20z. More than 100 people have been charged overall.
“We were side by side with the Minneapolis police department, with ATF, with IRS and all of our federal and state partners the whole way through, and I think it's a validation of what we can do when we all work together,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Calhoun-Lopez.
Prosecutors said Blakemore and Lesure were “prolific drug traffickers” for the Highs, and sold fentanyl at an open-air drug market at West Broadway Avenue and Lyndale Avenue North.
In June of 2022, police stopped Blakemore’s Dodge Charger in that area and found a plastic bag containing 908 fentanyl pills in a bag that he’d stuffed in his pants. As the investigation continued, officers recovered another 109 pills during a subsequent traffic stop.
Later that summer, police chased Lesure and two other men into Merwin Liquors on West Broadway and found that Lesure had discarded a bag containing a handgun and 97 fentanyl pills on a store shelf.
“It’s just a different landscape on Broadway Avenue,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Carla Baumel. “That’s such a significant gain for the community, and we’ve heard it directly from the businesses and the people who live there.”
U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel has yet to schedule sentencing hearings for the men. She ordered that both be detained pending sentencing. Like most federal defendants in Minnesota, Lesure is being held in the Sherburne County Jail. Blakemore, who uses a wheelchair, will be held at a jail in southern Illinois because the Sherburne County facility is unable to accommodate his medical needs.
Another alleged Highs member, William Johnson, is expected to face trial in January, said Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson.
None of the Highs members convicted at trial have been sentenced. But in May, U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson sentenced Bloods member Desean James Solomon to life in prison plus 20 years after jurors convicted him in October on RICO charges and in connection with the murder of two rivals. Two others convicted in that same 2024 trial received prison terms of 25 and 30 years.
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