Telly Hankton
His prisoner number is #589293.
Mr. Hankton became public enemy number one when New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu held a press conference decrying the murder of bar manager Curtis Matthews at Jazz Daiquiri bar on South Claiborne Avenue in October of 2011.
The mayor staged the presser on the neutral ground of Claiborne Avenue, one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city.
Curtis Matthews had stepped into the breach created when his brother John who was the owner of the bar fled New Orleans after being shot 17 times at his home on Glengary Road in New Orleans East. Hankton associates had attempted to kill John Matthews following his testimony at Telly Hankton’s trial in the death of 23 year old Darnell ‘Durney’ Stewart.
Following a rolling gun battle, Stewart was chased down, and ran over by a high-performance Mustang in front of the daiquiri shop in May of 2008. After crashing his car, and taking off on foot he was launched into the air, and pistol-whipped after slamming back to the earth.
He was then shot 11 times with a 9mm pistol in a gangland hit that stunned even the most jaded New Orleanians.
At the press conference Mayor Mitch Landrieu stated:
“I’m sending a message loud and clear to Telly Hankton and his family and anyone else associated with this: We’re coming to get you.”
The mayor put his money where his mouth is, offering $10,000 from his campaign coffers to Crimestoppers to aid them in finding Curtis Matthews’ killer.
But Telly Hankton had not risen fully-formed from his connection to the violent crimes linked to him at Jazz Daiquiri Lounge.
Federal prosecutors would claim that Hankton had started building a $43 million dollar drug empire years earlier from a humble home on Josephine Street in the Central City neighborhood of New Orleans.
But empire building has its costs.
In April of 2006, Darvin Bessie attempted a drive-by shooting on Telly Hankton. It did not go well, and just a week later Bessie was shot dead on Martin Luther King Boulevard. Telly was the shooter on the payback. Word on the street spread: If you go after the king you best not miss.
The Hankton family’s reputation grew.
Two months later in June 2006, newspapers across the US splashed Central City Massacre headlines when five teenagers were shot dead inside an SUV at the corner of Josephine and Daneel Street. Telly Hankton’s name immediately came into play as this corner was known to be part of his family’s drug turf.
Hankton gang associate ‘Mike Mike’ Anderson would end up taking the rap although federal prosecutors to this day claim it was Telly who killed the teens. 21 bullets had been fired into the young men.
In April 2007, a chance meeting between rival drug gangs led to a one-sided shootout at the Red Rooster Snowball stand on Clara Street in Central City. Darnell Stewart, Jesse Reed, and Karim Peters had stopped in for snacks when they were spotted by Telly and his cousin Troy. The Hanktons ambushed the trio as they drove off, and fired multiple rounds into the fleeing vehicle. Karim Peters was the only man shot but blood must be answered by blood.
Eight months would pass.
In December of 2007, George ‘Cup’ Hankton, Telly’s cousin was washing his vehicle at a Gert Town neighborhood car wash when he was shot down by Stewart, Reed and Peters.
The trio had their revenge.
But a payback from the Hankton clan was imminent. And the series of events that followed at Jazz Daiquiri Lounge would upend the Hankton empire and result in multiple deaths.
In May of 2008, five months after Cup Hankton was murdered, Telly and his cousin Andre Hankton effected the Darnell Stewart killing at the daiquiri bar. An eyewitness immediately dialed 911
“It (the Mustang car) hit him and sent him very, very high in the air. It sent him over the telephone pole. His shoes came off. His pants almost came off and he went end over end over end.”
At this point Telly Hankton, filled with vengeance, exited the automobile that had just sent Stewart flying, walked over to the prone hit-and-run victim, and shot him 11 times in front of numerous witnesses. Four of the blasts were delivered to Stewart’s face.
Hankton would be arrested for the murder, and post $1 million bail. With a growing drug empire to run Mr Hankton would take a year off from the killing trade. But come June of 2009 he would swing back into motion.
Jesse ‘TuTu’ Reed was chilling on the front porch of an abandoned house on Terpsichore Street when Telly Hankton, and his brand-new contract assassin Walter “Urkel” Porter rolled up. As a hitter trying to make his way in the busy drug world, Porter was courting Hankton because he knew work would be steady as Telly had plenty enemies that would need killing. Urkel would be paid $10,000 for this hit. Kevin Jackson provided backup firepower for the pair.
“Telly was showing him a little spot TuTu be at. As he was showing him, Telly jumped out, he (Porter) jumped out,” “Telly hit him, and (Porter) stood over him, hit him 50 times.” “The cousin came up, hit him a few times, and they fled the scene.” Brian “Beano” Hayes would eventually testify.
Putting 50 bullets in Reed that night assured Walter Porter that he would get a gold star for his efforts. But there was one problem. They left a witness.
Now there would have to be more blood spilled on account of the Hankton gang.
Hasan ‘Hockie’ Williams was with Jesse Reed the night he was killed. As a witness to the murder he posed a formidable problem for Hankton’s criminal enterprise. On the night of Reed’s death two NOPD detectives interviewed Williams, and he affirmed that Telly Hankton was one of the shooters that had slain Reed.
The detectives had him sign a photo of Hankton, and four days later he appeared before a grand jury and acknowledged what he had told the two officers.
That would prove to be his death warrant.
On July 4th, 2009, Hasan Williams was leaving his home on Dwyer Road in New Orleans East when he was shot and killed by Walter “Urkel” Porter. When the forensics lab tested the slugs from his body they were ballistically identical to the ones they removed from Jesse ‘TuTu’ Reed.
Porter was paid $10,000 for this hit.
Now with many of his foes in the graveyard, Telly Hankton could concentrate on selling cocaine and making money; something he was very good at doing. It was estimated during this time that his gang was moving 10-15lbs of coke per week. The network wasn’t terribly sophisticated; they used mules traveling back and forth on I-10 between Houston and New Orleans to get the drugs into town before they were broken down into allotments and parceled out to mid-level, and then street dealers.
But Telly Hankton still had one major problem he had to deal with: Jazz Daiquiri Lounge owner John Matthews had seen him kill Durney Stewart, and he knew that Matthews, a Vietnam war veteran was willing to testify against him in court.
For this John Matthews had to die. And who better to kill him than Telly’s number one assassin, Walter ‘Urkel’ Porter?
At $10,000 a hit Porter would’ve killed anybody in New Orleans for the Hankton gang. On the evening of October 24th, 2010, the hired gun set out for Glengary Road in New Orleans East where Matthews lived. He brought Thomas ‘Squirt’ Hankton along for added firepower.
John Matthews had gotten off work at a bar he owned on Downman Road, and had just gotten settled into his recliner in front of the TV set when he decided he’d feel better if he had an extra weapon close at hand. He knew he was a marked man, and the two-shot pistol he had might leave him outgunned if the bad guys came calling.
“I made it almost to the foyer, and the door flew open and I was hit with a shotgun blast and an automatic, seemed like automatic weapon fire,” he would later testify.
The old war vet returned fire, and ran the two hit men off but not before catching 17 rounds. He would lie in a coma at the hospital for two weeks before returning to the land of the living. After he got out of the hospital he left the state of Louisiana, and hired his brother Curtis to run the Claiborne Avenue daiquiri business until it could be sold.
Nine months later John Matthews traveled back to Louisiana so that he could testify against Telly Hankton in the murder of Darnell Stewart. He did just that but the trial ended with a hung jury. Things went better for the state at a second trial that ended on September 23rd with a jury convicting Hankton for Stewart’s murder.
But that witness testimony would cost John Matthews’ little brother Curtis his life. On October 15th, 2011, just three days after Hankton was given a mandatory life sentence in prison, the younger Matthews was shot 14 times in front of his brother’s Jazz Daiquiri Lounge. The killer? Walter ‘Urkel’ Porter.
With Telly Hankton set to spend the rest of his natural life behind bars; the New Orleans Police Department, the U.S. attorney’s office, the FBI,the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Orleans Parish district attorneys, and the local Sheriff’s Office decided to collaborate to squash the remnants of the Hankton drug empire.
This would prove to be the defining moment in the lives and careers of the Hankton family, and their affiliates. The crew had long been on the Feds’ radar but when Matthews was shot dead the urgency of their investigations went straight to critical mass.
The full gaze, and power of the federal government was now being brought to bear on the Hankton’s criminal enterprise.
Following the killing of Curtis Matthews, New Orleans police Superintendent Ronal Serpas named Walter ‘Urkel’ Porter as the prime suspect. Porter turned himself in to authorities two days later.
The feds would spend the next year gathering evidence against the Hankton gang, and on October 19th, 2012, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s office released a 22 count indictment against 13 members of the Hankton’s operation.
Letten accused Telly Hankton; Thomas “Squirt” Hankton; Andre Hankton; Walter “Urkel” Porter; and Kevin Jackson of being the muscle behind four gangland murders: Curtis Matthews, Darnell Stewart, Jesse Reed, and Hasan Williams.
As lead assassin for the gang, Porter was listed in 14 of the 22 counts of the indictment. Telly and Thomas Hankton were each hammered with nine counts. Telly’s mom Shirley stood accused of lying to a federal grand jury, stashing large quantities of cocaine for her son, criminal conspiracy, and money laundering.
Even with the heavy hitters of the Hankton clique under indictment the killing did not stop. In August of 2014, Karim ‘K-Ice’ Peters was found dead in a shot-up Acura sitting in a New Orleans East apartment complex. Peters was the man who had been shot and wounded by Telly Hankton in 2007 after a chance encounter at the Red Rooster Snowball stand on Clara Street.
Later that same year Peters had gotten his revenge by murdering George ‘Cup’ Hankton. Telly’s first cousin. Seven years would pass before Peters was called home for the final time.
In December of 2014, Maurice Sparkman was shot dead on a Central City balcony after he’d made the mistake of robbing two Hanktons who were running an underground dice joint. Julius Hankton would plead guilty to manslaughter and receive a 40 year prison sentence. Quintin Hankton stands accused in the case as well, and is currently serving 25 years on a heroin distribution rap.
Finally, in June of 2016, Judge Martin Feldman presided over a three week federal trial that ended with Telly Hankton being convicted of three counts of murder in aid of racketeering for the deaths of Darvin Bessie, Darnell Stewart, and Jesse Reed.
His number one contract killer Walter ‘Urkel’ Porter also was convicted on three federal murder charges. Later that year the two would both be given life sentences. Some of the Hankton associate members took plea deals on the laundry list of charges they faced while Andre Hankton and Kevin Jackson were both given life sentences.
The fallout from the trials was immediate with Gerald ‘G-Rock’ Howard, a Hankton crew member who testified against his former boss being shot dead just off Freret Street in Uptown; and Bobby Basquine being dealt a similar fate for also bearing witness against his ex-employer.
Today a 43 year old Telly Hankton sits in a 6’x9′ cell imprisoned at Louisiana State Penitentiary, a repurposed slave plantation situated in West Feliciana Parish. The former “bloodiest prison in the South” is where Mr Hankton will spend the rest of his natural days.
sources
Toward a Criminology of Disaster: What We Know and What We Need to Find Out By Kelly Frailing, Dee Wood Harper
https://www.pressreleasepoint.com/telly-hankton-and-three-gang-associates-receive-life-sentences
Drug Abuse: Inside an American Epidemic by Nicole Horning
Numerous articles from the pen of John Simerman, crime reporter for the Times-Picayune
www.newspapers.com
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-5th-circuit/1955315.html