In a case brought against the Simon City Royals prison gang for their violent acts, drug trafficking, and money laundering, the 37th and last defendant was sentenced on Thursday in the Northern District of Mississippi.
Due to his involvement in the Simon City Royals, Joshua Miller, 33, of Jackson, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), and he was given a sentence of 16 years and eight months in jail.
Head of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department Nicole M. Argentieri stated, “The Simon City Royals gang engaged in murder and torture and smuggled drugs and other contraband into prisons.”
The Simon City Royals were a violent prison gang that operated mostly within the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC), but they also had members and affiliates that represented them outside of jail in Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and other states, according to court filings.
Prosecutors claimed that the Simon City Royals were involved in a wide range of illegal activities, including murder, attempted murder, assault, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, witness tampering, money laundering, interstate travel in support of racketeering, large-scale drug trafficking, and fraud, through their organizational structure and alliance with the violent Gangster Disciples gang.
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A “kill on sight” order was given by a Simon City Royals commander in 2018, according to investigators, ordering any gang member who came across the targeted prisoner to kill him. This resulted in the savage death of the convict in 2018.
Dillon Heffker and Robert Williams carried out the directive in January 2018, repeatedly stabbing the victim with homemade prison knives. The Simon City Royals leaders arranged for hundreds of dollars to be transferred to Heffker and Williams’ jail commissary accounts as payment for their murders.
Prosecutors claim that the Simon City Royals were also in charge of the brutal abduction and torture of a former gang member who was thought to have broken the group’s code of conduct. In 2015, the victim was forced into a hotel room by a member of the Simon City Royals who had abducted him at knifepoint.
There, the victim was questioned, tormented, and had his Simon City Royals tattoo burned off by members and associates of the group. He was also strapped to a chair.
Prosecutors further claimed that the Simon City Royals were involved in extensive drug trafficking, smuggling copious amounts of methamphetamine, synthetic and regular marijuana, heroin, and benzodiazepines into hundreds of Mississippi state prisons.
