Rayful Edmond

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Rayful Edmond III, (born 1965), was a notorious drug dealer who is largely credited with introducing crack cocaine into the Washington, D.C. area. At his peak, Edmond was alleged to have sold over 2,000 kilos of cocaine a week, worth tens of millions of dollars, in the Washington, D.C. area. Edmond controlled as much as 70% of the D.C. drug trade in the late 1980s. He was known to have spent some $457,619 in an exclusive Georgetown store (Linea Pitti, specializing in expensive Italian men's clothing) owned by Charles Wynn (later convicted on 34 counts of money laundering for the Edmond drug gang). Edmond was arrested in 1989 at the age of 24. His arrest and subsequent trial were widely covered by local and national media. Judicial officials, fearful of reprisals from members of Edmond's gang, imposed unprecedented security during the trial. Jurors identities were kept secret before, during, and after trial, and their seating area was enclosed in bulletproof glass. Edmond was jailed at the maximum security facility at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia and flown to the Federal Court House in Washington, D.C. by helicopter each day for his trial. Authorities took this unusual step due to fears that an armed escape attempt was almost inevitable due to the violent nature of Edmond's gang. This gang was believed to have committed over 40 murders including the attempted murder of a local pastor, the Reverend Mr. Bynum, who was shot 12 times during an anti-drug march in his Orleans place neighborhood. Edmond was eventually sentenced to life in prison. His mother (Constance "Bootsie" Perry) along with several of his sisters and cousins were sentenced to 14 years in prison for participating in his criminal enterprise. In 1996, Edmond was convicted after conducting drug business from a federal prison phone, receiving an additional 30-year sentence. Edmond's case is one of the most notorious abuses of such phone privileges^[1], and an embarrassment for the Bureau of Prisons. Following this conviction, Edmond became a government informant in order to secure his mother's release from prison. While he is still incarcerated, Edmond is now part of the United States Federal Witness Protection Program and his location is unknown. In 2005, Edmond was the subject of the documentary "The Life of Rayful Edmond: The Rise and Fall, Vol. 1".