Playboy Bloods gang member convicted of murder

A Playboy Bloods gang member was convicted Monday of murder, racketeering and drug trafficking charges, federal authorities said.

Jacorey “Mo-B” Taylor, 30, was the ninth member of the gang to be found guilty following an indictment in October 2008.

In all, 10 members of the Playboy Bloods were indicted in October 2008 on charges of committing acts of violence and drug trafficking as part of their membership in the street gang.

Eight of the defendants previously pleaded guilty.

A tenth gang member, Markette Tillman, 31, is set to stand trial in September.

The Playboy Bloods primarily dealt crack cocaine in a housing complex known as the “Jets.” The complex formally called Sherman Garden Annex is at H and Doolittle streets, according to the indictment.

During the course of the FBI-led investigation, members were captured on video and audiotape selling crack cocaine to undercover informants.

They used violence, including murder, to protect their criminal enterprise and often faced off against rival gangs such as GPK, Rolling 60s, Piru Bloods and the Donna Street Crips.

Taylor and other gang members shot and killed Billy Ray Thomas in November 2004 while he was working on his car at the Pecos Terrace Apartments on East Lake Mead Boulevard. Thomas was shot in retaliation for a rival gang’s slaying of a Playboy Bloods member, according to court documents. Several of the Playboy Bloods, believing the Crips gang had killed their member, drove around Crips territory until they came across Thomas, the documents showed.

Thomas, it turned out, was not a member of any gang, authorities said.

Taylor faces a mandatory prison term of life without parole for the murder conviction.

The Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Gang Section in Washington D.C. is prosecuting the racketeering case with the Nevada U.S. attorney’s office.

Contact reporter Francis McCabe at fmccabe@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039.