A longtime Gary motorcycle gang operative pleaded guilty again in federal court Friday.
Bernard Smith, 63, a.k.a. “Flirt” or “Preacher,” of Gary, formally admitted to a RICO charge, court filings show.
Federal prosecutors indicted him in October 2021 in U.S. District Court in Hammond as part of a 15-man racketeering and drug conspiracy for the Sin City Deciples.
The 57-page superseding indictment read like a television drama, weaving a tale of influence, obedience, intimidation, an internal power struggle, drugs, guns and murder spanning multiple states and including local, regional and national chapters of the Sin City Deciples.
The terms of Smith’s latest guilty plea were not immediately known. His lawyer Russell Brown did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
His sentencing hearing is April 17 before U.S. District Judge Phillip Simon.
Smith pleaded guilty in 2023 to the RICO charge and a drug dealing count. Simon granted his request to withdraw from the plea – a rare move – in May 2024 and set it for trial.
In that deal, Smith admitted to a pair of decades-old killings, including the son of Gary’s first Black police chief.
Smith admitted he shot and killed Rodney Boone on Aug. 22, 2003.
Boone, 40, a resident of the Small Farms apartments near 25th Avenue and Grant Street, was killed after he argued with Smith, police said.
Boone was in front of his apartment when someone in a pickup drove near him and fired. Smith lived in the same complex.
Smith was arrested back in 2004 for Boone’s death, newspaper archives show.
Boone’s father was the first Black police chief of a major city, appointed to the city’s top spot in 1970 by then-Mayor Richard G. Hatcher.
Charles Boone, 91, died in 2022 in Norfolk, Virginia.
In the prior plea, Smith also admitted to Erik Walker’s Feb. 23, 1995, death.
Both were at a Broadway Avenue restaurant when they argued and pulled guns on each other. Walker’s gun cocked and he tried to fire an empty gun. Smith shot him dead.
In the bid to withdraw the prior plea, Smith’s former lawyer Sheldon Nagelberg made several arguments in court filings, including that both slayings happened years before the Sin City investigation started around 2009 and that federal jurisdiction shouldn’t apply to their deaths.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Toth refuted those arguments and said Smith’s culpability wasn’t questioned, saying he had “buyer’s remorse.”
Smith is a former Sin City Desciples motorcycle club president and board member.
Post-Tribune archives contributed.
mcolias@post-trib.com
