NEWS RELEASE / DEPT. OF JUSTICE
An associate of the Vice Lords street gang pleaded guilty today to witness tampering for obtaining and disclosing private health information of Vice Lords shooting victims and victims’ family members to a member of the gang.
Jamerio Clark, aka Merio, 27, of Detroit, pleaded guilty to tampering with a witness, victim or informant before U.S. District Judge David M. Lawson of the Eastern District of Michigan. Clark is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 18, 2017.
According to admissions made by others who have pleaded guilty in this case, the Vice Lords is a national gang engaged in a variety of crimes, and Vice Lords’ leaders are located in both Chicago and Detroit. The gang is broken down into various “sets,” “decks,” or “branches,” including the Detroit-based Traveling Vice Lords (TVL). The Vice Lords have often targeted members who sought to leave the gang for physical beatings or murder.
Jamerio Clark admitted that from May 8, 2015, through at least January 2016, he was employed at a medical facility where he had access to a private database that contained individually identifiable health information for anyone who had been treated at a Detroit Medical Center facility. At Antonio Clark’s request and while employed at the medical facility, Jamerio Clark accessed this database on at least 15 occasions to search for three TVL shooting victims, he admitted. According to the plea agreement, Jamerio Clark then provided information, including dates of birth, phone numbers, addresses and information pertaining to relatives of these individuals, to Antonio Clark. Jamerio Clark admitted that he knew his brother wanted this information to locate these individuals and prevent them from cooperating in the investigation and prosecution of the TVL shooting.
Eight members and leaders of the TVL have pleaded guilty to charges related to the shooting, six of whom have been sentenced: Antonio Clark, 26, of Detroit, was sentenced to 240 months in prison; Aramis Wilson, 25, of Detroit, was sentenced to 150 months in prison; Dion Robinson, 38, of Detroit, was sentenced to 121 months in prison; Jonathan Kinchen, 23, of Detroit, was sentenced to 120 months in prison; Tyrone Price, 27, of Detroit, was sentenced to 140 months in prison; and Kojuan Lee, 20, of Detroit, was sentenced to 97 months in prison.
