A former Gary man may get seven years after pleading down to being the getaway driver in a 2010 murder-for-hire for a county witness, records show.
Jamell Brooks, 34, signed a plea deal Feb. 27 in federal court for accessory after the fact. He is scheduled to appear Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Philip Simon in Hammond for a plea change hearing.
Technically, the charge was past the statute of limitations. However, in exchange, federal prosecutors promised to drop a case with a far stiffer penalty – carrying a firearm during a murder – and not charge him in the future for any crimes he may have committed with the Gary motorcycle gang Sin City Deciples from 2010 to 2024.
Federal prosecutors say high-ranking Sin City Deciples member Ronnie Major paid his brother-in-law Antoine Gates, who is Brooks’ stepfather, to kill Jocelyn “Pie Face” Blair, 31, on Dec. 19, 2010. She was shot inside Coney Island Restaurant in Gary.
Blair was a witness against Major in a 2008 Gary shooting. Major was convicted at a Lake County trial of battery in 2011 and released in 2012, records show.
Court records state that after Major reportedly put out a hit on Blair, the three — Major, Gates and Michael Rivera — planned to get Blair at the Sin City Disciples Club at 8th Avenue and Virginia Street in Gary and take her to a hotel where Gates wanted another man to kill her.
But after leaving the Sin City Disciples Club, Rivera went in a car with Blair, while Gates and another man rode in another car, to Coney Island on Broadway, court records show. Gates went inside, and the man said he heard seven or eight shots, according to court documents.
Gates returned to the car and said he shot Blair in the head and had accidentally shot Rivera in the thigh, court records state.
According to court documents, Major reportedly gave Gates “10 stacks,” or $10,000, for Blair’s homicide.
Post-Tribune archives contributed.
mcolias@post-trib.com
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