Take Down Records’ CEO Alton “Ace Capone” Coles faces life in prison, after a jury found him guilty of using his label as a front to distribute millions of dollars worth of cocaine throughout Philadelphia, Southern New Jersey and Delaware.
A jury found Coles, 34 and co-defendant Timothy “Tim Gotti Baukman, 32, guilty of RICO charges, including running a $25 million dollar continuing criminal enterprise, as well as conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the pair were also found guilty of 123 charges ranging from drug trafficking, wire fraud and weapons violations.
Coles, who remained calm throughout the six-week trial, claimed that he earned hundreds of thousands of dollars selling his infamous New Jack City 2: The New Generation, which was used against him in court.
Coles maintained that he DVD, which portrayed a record label’s ruthless rise to the top of the Philadelphia drug trade, was a fictional portrayal of a drug gang and was only meant to sell copies of his record label’s music, which included a hit single titled “Scratching and Surviving,” which featured Bugsy, Snake and Freeway.
Coles also claimed that he earned money through his record label and numerous promotions throughout the city, including an event with Mayor John Street, various Live 8 after parties and a sold out concert at The Spectrum featuring Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel and rappers on the Take Down Records Roster.
“It launched me off…it let Philadelphia know we were legit, we were serious and it made a lot of money,” Coles testified.
Coles admitted to dealing kilos of “cut,” a legal chemical agent known on the streets as “fishscale.”
Drug dealers add the chemical to their pure cocaine in order to boost profits.
Coles admitted to dealing cut out of his Chester, Pennsylvania barbershop, but denied selling cocaine.
During one raid of his barbershop, police found the agent and believed it was cocaine.
The charges were later dropped, after test lab results confirmed that is was not cocaine.
Prosecutors denied Coles’ claims and presented the jury evidence based on 300 wiretapped conversations, as well as contraband seized during August 2005 raids of apartments and houses, which netted over $800,000 in cash and numerous assault weapons.
Prosecutors also produced two drug dealers who are facing federal prison time.
The pair testified that Coles was capable of moving multiple kilos at a time.
Additionally a language expert claimed that Coles coded talk was referencing cocaine, while Coles’ defense maintained his client was referring to the cutting agent.
Four other defendants were convicted on other, lesser drug charges.
