Five reputed gang members charged in RICO conspiracy that includes brazen fatal shooting of Chicago rapper FBG Duck

Five alleged Chicago street gang members have been charged in a racketeering conspiracy accusing them of a pattern of violence that includes the downtown slaying of Chicago rapper FBG Duck last year.

Even during 2020′s elevated violence levels in the city, the slaying of the rapper whose real name was Carlton Weekly stood out, both because of Weekly’s status as an entertainer and the boldness of the fatal attack.

Weekly was standing in line in front of a high-end clothing store in the first block of East Oak Street in the late afternoon on a Tuesday when two cars pulled up in front of onlookers. Four gunmen jumped out and opened fire, authorities said.

Police at the time described Weekly, 26, as a member of a Gangster Disciples faction that was involved in a fierce feud with the Black Disciples on the South Side.

The 11-page indictment unsealed Wednesday alleged those charged are members of the O-Block gang, a violent faction of the Black Disciples that has publicly claimed responsibility for acts of violence and used social media and music to increase their criminal enterprise.

Most of those charged were arrested early Wednesday in the area controlled by the gang, authorities said.

The indictment marked the latest instance of gang violence linked to rap music in Chicago, a war waged largely online that has frustrated law enforcement as so-called dis tracks escalate quickly into a cycle of shootings and retaliation.

After Weekly was killed, police went on alert citing ongoing threats being made between the groups. Weekly, under his FBG Duck moniker, had made his own video prior to his death mocking rivals who had lost their lives, police had said.

Among those insulted in the video was Odee Perry, namesake of the O-Block faction. Weekly belonged to the Tookaville faction of the rival Gangster Disciples, named for a young man killed in the same conflict not long before Perry, according to police.

At a news conference at FBI headquarters on Wednesday, investigators did not offer a specific motive for the brazen attack on Weekly.

But Chicago’s U.S. Attorney John Lausch said such videos demonstrate what’s going on in Chicago, which has continued to struggle with violence in the year after Weekly died.

“This is a significant charge,” Lausch said, adding that if the charges cause someone to pause to before making a similar video then, “we’re doing something good.”

Chicago police Superintendent David Brown praised the collaboration between local and federal law enforcement in solving the case and said it’s just one example of holding violent offenders accountable.

“We are going after gangs in this city,” Brown said.

Brown doubled down on his message that the Police Department is targeting gang violence and is serious about bringing in federal help. Last month, Brown announced he was distributing many of its community safety team officers — originally a roving citywide unit tasked with responding to neighborhoods experiencing upticks in violence — to specific units throughout the department as part of his strategy to focus on gangs, guns and drugs.

“It’s the message that we’re serious about our collaboration,” Brown said. “More to come. We’re dedicated to this.”

Charged were Charles Liggins, also known as “C Murda,” Kenneth Roberson, Christopher Thomas, Tacarlos Offerd, and Marcus Smart, according to federal documents. They were accused of committing murder in aid of racketeering as well as various firearms offenses.

The charges carry a mandatory minimum of life in prison upon conviction and prosecutors could also seek the death penalty.

Liggins, 30, Offerd, 30, Thomas, 23, and Smart, 22, were arrested Wednesday morning and appeared via telephone at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, where they entered not guilty pleas through their attorneys.

Asked what they did for a living, Liggins told the judge he’s been working at Corner Bakery and Popeye’s Chicken. Smart said he’s a church janitor, and Offerd, a Fenger High School grad, said he’s a dishwasher.

Prosecutors asked that all four defendants be held without bond pending trial, saying they’re dangers to the community, a serious risk of flight, and are possibly facing the death penalty.

The judge set a detention hearing for Friday afternoon for Offerd, Liggins, Thomas and Smart waived a detention hearing for now and were ordered detained.

Roberson, 27, was already being held without bond at the Cook County Jail on charges he shot a man in Dolton earlier this year, court records show. He will appear on the federal charges at a later date, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Weekly was shot at about 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 4, 2020, after the gunmen emerged from a dark Ford Fusion and a gray Chrysler 300.

Weekly was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His girlfriend, who told police she was waiting in a parked car, was shot twice in the left wrist and a 36-year-old man was hit in the back and leg.

The indictment also charged the five defendants with shooting the other two victims, who both survived.

Lausch at the news conference declined to discuss where those charged allegedly might rank in the street gang, but said in general, the nature of that kind of attack would suggest members of some fearlessness and importance.

In the wake of Weekly’s slaying, the Police Department issued an advisory to officers in at least four police districts — Wentworth, Grand Crossing, Gresham and Englewood — to use “extreme caution” because of the “high probability of further violence.”

“We’re always concerned about retaliatory violence,” Brown said.

Weekly’s family, meanwhile, has described him as a talented musician with a “big heart” who struggled with violence and gang conflicts. His older brother Jermaine Robinson was shot and killed in a double homicide in Woodlawn on the South Side in 2017, according to police and Weekly’s Apple Music biography. Robinson was also a rapper who performed under the name FBG Brick.

“He would help anybody,” Weekly’s aunt, Sherrie Weekly, told the Tribune after the shooting. “He was just talented. He had so much to give. He touched so many people’s hearts.’’

Mayor Lori Lightfoot at the time described Weekly as someone who “fancies himself a rapper but is also a member of a gang.” She said he had been “livestreaming his travels through the city and he was found.”

“What we’re seeing is a manifestation of a larger problem, which is that way too many young men, and particularly young men of color, have access to guns and are willing to use those guns to settle petty grievances,” Lightfoot said. “There’s been an ongoing conflict between his gang and another.”

The issue of retaliatory violence among Chicago’s expansive street rap scene goes back at least a decade.

Among the other incidents documented by police: The 2012 slaying of Joseph Coleman, an 18-year-old rapper who went by the name “Lil JoJo” and a major rival of rap star Chief Keef,

Keef was accused of taunting Coleman in a tweet in the hours after his death. Chief Keef claimed, though, that his Twitter account had been hacked.

In 2015, rapper Young Pappy, whose real name was Shaquon Thomas, was gunned down in the Uptown neighborhood, a week after a video posted online showed him making fun of a rival gang while pretending to hold a gun in his hands.

And in 2017, a South Side rapper Shootashellz, whose real name was Cedron Doles, was gunned down after taunting gang rivals, some of them already dead, with his rap lyrics, according to police.

Doles’ death in the Auburn Gresham community ended up being part of an investigation by Chicago police and the FBI into an internal gang conflict within the Black P Stones.

In a video posted to YouTube Wednesday morning, a woman who identified herself as Weekly’s mother thanked law enforcement, which had just notified her of the arrests allegedly connected to the killing of her son.

“I’m just so glad,” she said. “I forgave these people already. ... My son was killed by some kids.”

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com