Anybody Here From Baltimore??? I got a question.

[WheresWallace]

Background on Melvin Williams:

• Melvin Williams was a Baltimore gambler/hustler.
• Profiled on "American Gangster"
• Inspiration behind HBO TV Series "The Wire"

Story:
Lately I've been reading different books. I watched Melvin Williams' interview about a book he put out. Its his autobiography but he said that he laced it with a lot of game about the legal system and in the interview he talks about part of the main reasons why brothers are in jail is because they don't know their rights and they get taken advantage of so that is why he put so much game on the legal system and teaches about different laws in his book.

So I'm in the area of the book store so I say "fukk it", I might as well go buy that book. Ol boy in the store was like, they sold out but they couldn't restock for a LONG time and they doubt they will be able to get the book again.

My first thought was, "shyt, I hope them boys didn't hem Melvin Williams up and get his book off the shelves cause of the jewels he's droppin' "

So I go on the internet and literally...LITERALLY, every website that held the book says "Out of Stock" and some even note that they aren't restocking.

Any B'more niiggas on here that know about Melvin Williams? What's his situation? He good?

This is the Interview I was talking about.


Bonus:

 

[SteelCitySoldier]

He was the preacher in The Wire but I didn't even know about this book, if I had I would have read it. Dude was on some other shyt back in his day but now he was on some "empowerment" shyt inside the community and a born again Christian. He was the man when he was in the game and when he got popped all they could get him on was a gun charge and was given 22 years as a career criminal. His lawyer fought the decision and after like three years they had to release him because a judge ruled hat the sentence was excessive.

 

[SteelCitySoldier]

To the dismay of prosecutors, a man considered to be one of the worst drug lords in Baltimore history was freed yesterday of what had been a 22-year sentence for a gun crime and vowed as he walked away from the city's federal courthouse to dedicate his life to serving God.

Melvin "Little Melvin" Williams, 61, served nearly four years on a handgun possession conviction before his attorney successfully argued that Williams did not meet the technical requirements of the federal career criminal laws that prosecutors had used to send him to prison for what could have been the rest of his life.

U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis resentenced Williams yesterday to time served, a ruling that allowed the man whom prosecutors have portrayed as revolutionizing Baltimore's heroin trade in the 1960s and 1970s to leave the courtroom a free man, carrying his few possessions from jail in a brown paper bag.

"I'm going to go back to being the kind of person that God wants me to be," Williams said, acknowledging in a brief interview his one-time unrivaled drug operation but insisting that he is returning to the community as a humbled and deeply religious man.

"Sometime in my 50s, I became aware there was a God in charge, and not a Melvin," he said.

In releasing Williams over the objection of prosecutors, Garbis said that the 22-year sentence he handed down in March 2000 was "grossly excessive." The judge also said he believed the testimony offered three years ago by community leaders who said Williams had been a positive force in helping steer young Baltimore men away from drugs and crime.

"Mr. Williams will never be mistaken for an angel, a saint or an unblemished person," the judge said in court. "I just think there's an occasion where what's right is right, and I don't think the community has the slightest bit of reason to be concerned here."

"I respectfully disagree," responded Assistant U.S. Attorney James G. Warwick, who argued that Williams' sentence still should reflect his long history of criminal activity and include several more years behind bars. Williams had been jailed since his arrest in the case in March 1999.

"Mr. Williams is a career criminal in every practical, common-sense application of the term," a visibly frustrated Warwick said in court. "Mr. Williams has been a notorious criminal in the city of Baltimore for most of his adult life. The times he was not committing crimes on the streets, he was incarcerated. And, unfortunately, he has not been incarcerated enough."

Career criminal law

Three years ago, prosecutors used the federal government's Armed Career Criminal statute to win the two-decade, no-parole prison term for Williams, then 58. The law provides stiff sentences for criminals with multiple convictions for drug trafficking or felony crimes of violence.

In Williams' case, authorities pointed to three prior convictions: a 1967 drug and gun case in state court in Baltimore; a 1975 conviction in U.S. District Court in Baltimore for conspiracy to distribute heroin; and a 1985 conviction in federal court in Virginia for cocaine distribution.

Federal prosecutors under then-U.S. Attorney Lynne A. Battaglia had held up the gun sentence for Williams - known for presiding over a sophisticated heroin ring that employed as many as 200 street-level dealers in the 1970s - as proof of the impact U.S. authorities could have on gun violence in Baltimore.

But Garbis agreed yesterday with defense attorney Michael E. Marr that neither the 1967 case nor the 1975 conviction and prison sentence were properly applied against Williams at his sentencing in the handgun possession case.

Marr described his client as an aging man who was operated on recently for prostate cancer.

"I don't think he's the beast that he's made out to be," Marr said.

A federal jury in Baltimore convicted Williams in October 1999 after hearing that he had used a 9 mm handgun and a small stun gun to beat a man on a West Baltimore street in March 1999 during a dispute over a $500 debt on a bail bond policy Williams had written. Police found the gun stashed in a Lincoln Navigator double-parked near where the beating occurred at Hollins and Calhoun Streets, testimony showed.

Williams' conviction came after a second trial for the same incident. A first trial, in September 1999, ended in a mistrial after one juror refused to find Williams guilty. During that trial, such well-known Baltimore figures as then-state Sen. Clarence M. Mitchell IV testified on Williams' behalf.

Testifying in his own defense, Williams denied that anything had happened. The victim, Tracy "Malik" Thomas, also said that nothing had happened, but two other witnesses testified that Thomas had told them that "Melvin" had paid him to lie to the grand jury by denyin

 

[SteelCitySoldier]

At the time of the beating, Williams had been on parole for less than three years from a 24-year prison sentence handed down after his 1985 conviction. Although the federal prison system has since abolished parole, Williams still could face a parole revocation hearing for his arrest in the beating case.

After leaving court yesterday, Williams said he was prepared to face whatever punishment the federal parole commission hands down, but said he is confident that he will not be returned to prison.

When he left court, he was headed to his family's Randallstown home. His wife, Mary Williams, and oldest daughter, Melvina, embraced him as he walked out of the courthouse into the cold January air.

Williams, who has typically refused news media interviews, said he was returning to the community as a changed man. He acknowledged that he had been entrenched in the lucrative drug business, but said that he changed his ways after a religious conversion.

"When you come, like I did, from a poor African-American community and then you find yourself with so much money that you have to weigh it, you get problems," Williams said. "It's the God complex."

Williams said he rearranged his life in September 1996, after God appeared to him in a vision and "spoke to me as clearly as I'm speaking to you."

In court, Williams told Garbis that he had made "8 million mistakes" in his life, but in each instance had been willing to face his punishment. In asking for leniency, Williams quoted the Bible to the judge, repeating Moses' admonishment from the first chapter of Deuteronomy: "Judge righteously every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him."

"Every day I get up, I try to do something to please God," Williams said outside the courtroom. "I respect the judge. I'm glad he saw fit to let a guy go who has served his time. As Yogi Berra said: `When it's over, it's over.'"

 

[WheresWallace]

He was the preacher in The Wire but I didn't even know about this book, if I had I would have read it. Dude was on some other shyt back in his day but now he was on some "empowerment" shyt inside the community and a born again Christian. He was the man when he was in the game and when he got popped all they could get him on was a gun charge and was given 22 years as a career criminal. His lawyer fought the decision and after like three years they had to release him because a judge ruled hat the sentence was excessive.

He's obviously knowledgeable of the law. I really wish I bought the book. Especially now that it seems they have taken them off the shelves. All that means is he put valuable information on there that they are trying to keep from black people.

 

[WheresWallace]

He dropped some more jewels in this.

 

[WheresWallace]

So I'm looking at the offcial website and its down. So I look at the domain registration info and the site was recently updated 6 months ago.

So basically someone intentionally took the site down.

http://whois.domaintools.com/theforbiddentree.com

 

[WheresWallace]

Anybody have the book or a link?

 

[The Devil's Advocate]

Background on Melvin Williams:

• Melvin Williams was a Baltimore gambler/hustler.
• Profiled on "American Gangster"
• Inspiration behind HBO TV Series "The Wire"

Story:
Lately I've been reading different books. I watched Melvin Williams' interview about a book he put out. Its his autobiography but he said that he laced it with a lot of game about the legal system and in the interview he talks about part of the main reasons why brothers are in jail is because they don't know their rights and they get taken advantage of so that is why he put so much game on the legal system and teaches about different laws in his book.

So I'm in the area of the book store so I say "fukk it", I might as well go buy that book. Ol boy in the store was like, they sold out but they couldn't restock for a LONG time and they doubt they will be able to get the book again.

My first thought was, "shyt, I hope them boys didn't hem Melvin Williams up and get his book off the shelves cause of the jewels he's droppin' "

So I go on the internet and literally...LITERALLY, every website that held the book says "Out of Stock" and some even note that they aren't restocking.

Any B'more niiggas on here that know about Melvin Williams? What's his situation? He good?

This is the Interview I was talking about.


Bonus:

the book game is a million times worse than any other "game"


they front you the money, tell you sell a certain amount of books and you'll start getting percentages... even howard stern says it... and that fool sells millions

"you will NEVER reach that number"

they will stop making your book before they ever let you reach that number. they'll come back around and front you to write another book before they ever reach that number

and that was him talking about major publishers... and he was on NY best sellers lists for every book he dropped

so just imagine what company this book came out with.. they could be under the water by now, or never printed up more than 1000 copies.. you never know

 

[WheresWallace]

the book game is a million times worse than any other "game"


they front you the money, tell you sell a certain amount of books and you'll start getting percentages... even howard stern says it... and that fool sells millions

"you will NEVER reach that number"

they will stop making your book before they ever let you reach that number. they'll come back around and front you to write another book before they ever reach that number

and that was him talking about major publishers... and he was on NY best sellers lists for every book he dropped

so just imagine what company this book came out with.. they could be under the water by now, or never printed up more than 1000 copies.. you never know

What you said makes a lot of sense. Obviously, based on Melvin's background, dudes a hustler. I would be surprised if he didn't go the independent publisher route and work with those companies that print on demand. With those companies, the caveat is that you have to promote the book yourself. This is the type of book that a major publisher would not be interested in distributing on a major scale anyway.

Anybody got a pdf link to the book or something? I need to read that book.