Last member of Schuele Boys Gang convicted of RICO Conspiracy sentenced to 30 years in prison
BUFFALO, N.Y. – DEA New York Division Special Agent in Charge Ray Donovan and U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy, Jr., announced that Aaron Hicks, aka Boog, aka Boogy, 34, of Buffalo, N.Y., who was convicted of racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to distribute marijuana, was sentenced to serve 30 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara. In addition, Judge Arcara ordered the defendant to forfeit $10,400,000 in proceeds from illegal drug trafficking activity.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul Parisi and Wei Xiang, who handled the prosecution of the case, stated that Hicks was a member of the Schuele Boys Gang which operated in the Schuele Street area of the East Side of Buffalo. The gang is believed to be responsible for multiple acts of violence and the distribution of illegal narcotics including cocaine, crack cocaine and marijuana.
As a member, the defendant was the Buffalo-based main point of contact for the gang’s cocaine and marijuana supplier, Julio Contreras of McAllen, Texas. Hicks’s co-defendant, Roderick Arrington, was previously convicted following a jury trial in 2017 of the shooting murder of Quincy Balance, aka Shooter, at the intersection of Northland and Stevens in Buffalo on Aug. 30, 2012. Hicks, Arrington and other Schuele Boys members believed that Balance was involved in the shooting murder of one of their associates on nearby Carl Street four days earlier. Arrington was sentenced to life in prison for murder in aid of racketeering.
“This defendant is the last, of more than two dozen individuals, to be sentenced in our prosecution of a violent street gang that terrorized the East Side of Buffalo and its citizens for a number of years,” said U.S. Attorney Kennedy. “Our office is determined to bring the leaders, members, and associates of these street gangs to justice. We realize that these gangs spread something much more ruinous to our communities than large amounts of drugs and countless acts of violence. These gangs spread despair. By taking them on, we hope to restore the community’s faith not only in the rule of law but in the possibility for a more productive and positive future.”
Hicks is one of 28 Schuele Boys Gang members and associates to be charged and convicted in this case and the final defendant to be sentenced.
Today’s sentencing is the result of an investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Buffalo Resident Office; the FBI Safe Streets Task Force; the Buffalo Police Department; and the New York State Police. Additional assistance was provided by the Erie County District Attorney’s Office, the Edinboro University Police Department in Pennsylvania, the West Tennessee Judicial Drug Task Force, the City of McAllen, Texas Police Department, HSI Harlingen, Texas, and the FBI offices in Houston, Texas and Jackson, Mississippi.
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