The accused head of a Jacksonville drug gang blamed for four killings is facing new witness-intimidation charges that started the day a racketeering indictment involving the gang went public.
Brian Gregory Brightman, 32, was already behind bars on drug charges when U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announced the racketeering case against the group called Slime on August 10.
But a new indictment that was unsealed August 21 accuses Brightman and Leo Denard Robinson, 39, of Jacksonville of obstructing justice “by intimidating, pressuring, and implicitly threatening an individual they perceive to be a witness.”
The indictment doesn’t identify the witness or what
the obstruction involved but says it was related to the racketeering case, which Kehoe had said could lead to sentences of 20 years to life in prison for some of the 13 racketeering defendants.
The obstruction charge could carry another prison term of up to 10 years behind bars. Brightman was already facing 10 years to life in prison after pleading guilty in 2025 to conspiring to distribute methamphetamine sold at six "trap houses."
The indictment claims that Brightman and Robinson began obstructing “on or about August 10,” the day Kehoe held a news conference to say Slime’s members “are going to be brought to justice.” That indictment says the men continued pressuring the witness “through the date of this indictment,” which was filed under seal August 19.
Robinson was not named in the racketeering indictment, which said Slime used assaults, shootings and killings “to establish the group’s dominance,” protect its territory and drug business and to infringe on other drug groups’ territory.
The indictment doesn't explain how or why he was supposed to be connected to the drug network.
Florida Department of Corrections records list a Leo Denard Robinson from Jacksonville who served time for charges involving cocaine and fleeting and eluding law enforcement, but said he had been completed his sentence in 2018.
Robinson pleaded not guilty August 24 and was ordered held until trial, with U.S. Magistrate Judge Samuel Horovitz checking boxes on a printed form including one that prosecutors had shown that "no condition or combination of conditions of release will reasonably assure the safety of any other person and the community" if Robinson were released.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Feds charge 2 with 'intimidating' witness in Jacksonville drug gang case
