A Roxbury drug dealer known to federal investigators as “Troll’’ and to his family as “Meek’’ was sentenced last week to 12½ years in prison after he admitted his role in what was once a powerful street gang in Boston known as the Columbia Point Dawgs.
Demetrius Williams, 30, admitted in US District Court to obtaining and distributing 22 pounds of cocaine, 880 grams of cocaine base, and 700 grams of heroin and to engaging in a criminal enterprise with two brothers, Yancey Williams and Herbert Small, and his father, Yancey Calhoun, according to court records and the US attorney’s office.
In court papers, Williams’s mother, friends, relatives, and Williams himself wrote emotional letters urging US District Judge Richard G. Stearns to send him to 10 years in federal prison so he could return, as soon as possible, to caring for his daughter and proving to be a positive role model for family members and the community.
“I know what I did was wrong,’’ Williams said in a handwritten note to the judge. “I know that I have to pay my debt to society. However, I do not feel like sending me away to prison for a really long term is in the best interest of my family, myself or society.’’
Williams agreed to forgo $50,040 in cash seized by law enforcement during the investigation, according to court records.
Federal prosecutors, who agreed to a plea deal with Williams that reduced his potential sentence, recommended that Williams serve 12½ years behind bars, a recommendation that Stearns accepted. The judge also ordered Williams to be on probation for five years after his release.
Williams was one of 48 people charged by federal authorities in 2015 for their involvement with the Dawgs, a street gang that was first established in the former Columbia Point neighborhood in Dorchester in the 1980s.
Once a highly troubled Boston Housing Authority development, the neighborhood is now known as Harbor Point and features high-end apartment communities that overlook Boston Harbor and the Harborwalk.
According to federal prosecutors, Yancey Williams has also pleaded guilty and is to be sentenced Sept. 19. Small pleaded guilty to a drug conspiracy charge and was sentenced to 37 months in prison, while Calhoun is serving a five-year prison term after pleading guilty to a similar drug charge, records show.
The investigation into the Dawgs, who had created a citywide drug organization, was conducted by the Boston office of the FBI along with Boston police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and multiple law enforcement agencies.
John R. Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe. com. Follow him on Twitter @JREbosglobe.
