{"id":9101,"date":"2011-08-15T15:46:35","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T19:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=9101"},"modified":"2011-08-15T15:10:37","modified_gmt":"2011-08-15T19:10:37","slug":"leader-of-s-florida-gang-gets-65-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=9101","title":{"rendered":"Leader Of South Florida Gang Gets 65 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>WEST PALM BEACH, FL<\/strong> &#8212; A man who authorities say led one of South Florida\u2019s most violent gangs was sentenced to 65 years in prison on racketeering charges Friday.<\/p>\n<p>A Palm Beach County judge sentenced <strong>Futo Charles<\/strong>, 30, shortly after a jury convicted him of racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering and two other drug charges. The conviction in the heavily guarded courthouse came days after a witness who planned to testify was gunned down in a parking lot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Charles\u2019<\/strong> \u2018Top 6\u2019 gang was linked to 14 homicides and more than 150 shootings in the past few years, including a fatal Christmas Eve shooting at a busy mall in 2006 \u2014 all part of a bloody gang war, authorities said. Estimates eventually put the gang\u2019s membership at more than 400.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Charles\u2019<\/strong> racketeering charge included multiple counts, including two shootings. His attorney, <strong>Marianne Rantala<\/strong>, pointed out that jurors found prosecutors had not linked <strong>Charles<\/strong> to the shootings, yet the judge still gave <strong>Charles<\/strong> the maximum sentence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Charles<\/strong> has never hid his affiliation with Top 6, but he has always maintained it is a rap group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WEST PALM BEACH, FL &#8212; A man who authorities say led one of South Florida\u2019s most violent gangs was sentenced to 65 years in prison on racketeering charges Friday. A Palm Beach County judge sentenced Futo Charles, 30, shortly after a jury convicted him of racketeering, conspiracy to commit racketeering and two other drug charges. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}