More than fifteen years after the fact, recently-released court documents reveal that the FBI investigated the Wu-Tang Clan for a possible connection with two murders committed in 1999, according to SI Live. The revelation came about as a part of a federal trial of two Staten Island drug kingpins, brothers Anthony and Harvey Christian, both of whom were found guilty of heading up a decades-long drug dynasty last year. Anthony Christian was also found "guilty of orchestrating the June 19, 1999 murder of 17-year old Jerome (Boo Boo) Estella," SI Live reports. Christian's lawyer Michael Gold reportedly argues that an FBI file implicates members of Wu-Tang in the killing, suggesting that Estella was murdered "at the instruction of members of the [group]...as revenge for robberies."
Gold has requested access to police files related to the murder in order to suss out the true nature of the crime, though prosecutors in the case apparently claim that the none of the information contained within would "exonerate his client."
"These reports seem to suggest someone else was liable for those murders," Gold said recently. "I'm not suggesting that Wu-Tang committed these crimes. The FBI did. What I'm trying to ascertain is their stated belief in an official file that Wu-Tang ordered this homicide." Gold was apparently speaking in reference to Ol' Dirty Bastard's lengthy FBI file released in part in 2012.
The nature of the alleged Wu-Tang connection is revealed by portions of an interview with Brian Humphreys, a former gang-member turned informant who SI Live describes as the "trigger-man in Estella's killing." "A couple of weeks before the Boo Boo shooting, Uncles (the street name of drug supplier-turned-informant Paul Ford) told Humphreys about a Blood named Boo Boo who just came home from jail. He stated that Boo Boo had robbed RZA's little brother and had also gotten into something with the Christian brothers," the police filing states. "Uncles was talking about Boo Boo and said that he had just come home and robbed RZA's brother and that they would likely come after him for that. Humphreys believes Uncles was referring to members of Wu Tang."
The separate murder of Corey (Shank Bank) Brooker committed on June 22, 1999, three days after Estella's, is also listed as a possible hit potentially ordered by RZA in exchange for $30,000 as retaliation for the robbery of his brother and that of Raekwon's cousin. "Ford stated that he had previously heard that Shank Bank was killed by Phife (ph). Ford believes that Phife collected money from RZA for executing the hit."
Prosecutors in the Christian case refute the claims, instead holding that Estella and Brooker's murders was ordered by the drug-kingpin himself and that Brooker was a rival drug dealer. Brooker's murder has yet to be solved.
The original court filing and Ol' Dirty Bastard's FBI file are available here.
