A multitude of people from Clarksville have been convicted of serious crimes over the past week.
The convictions began with members of a motorcycle gang in the city.
“After a three-and-a-half-month trial, the jury convicted James Wesley Frazier, 34, Aelix Santiago, 34, Michael Forrester, 34, Jamie Hern, 43, William Boylston, 32, and Jason Meyerholz, 48, all of Clarksville, Tennessee, for charges including racketeering conspiracy. Also convicted was Derek Leighton Stanley, 48, of Owensboro, Kentucky, for engaging in a drug trafficking conspiracy,” said the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Middle District of Tennessee.
The racketeering conspiracy comes with it allegations of other serious crimes committed by the biker gang.
“Members and associates of the Clarksville Mongols engaged in a host of violent criminal activities, including murder, attempted murder, assault, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, witness tampering, money laundering, interstate travel in aid of racketeering, and large-scale drug trafficking,” said the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Some gang members face mandatory life sentences, and all face the possibility of spending the rest of their lives in prison.
Multiple child sex offenders were convicted in Clarksville in the past week, too.
Kevin Figueroa, 33, was convicted of attempting to persuade a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity, attempting to transfer obscene material to an individual under the age of sixteen and destruction of evidence to prevent search or seizure, according to the same U.S. Attorney’s office.
He was indicted in April after making online contact with an Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent posing as a 15-year-old girl.
Figueroa sent photos of his genitalia to the undercover agent.
He faces a a mandatory minimum of 10 years, and up to life in prison.
Later in the week, another man from Clarksville was convicted of a sex crimes after pleading guilty in court.
Leon Hensley, 41, a former school nurse at North East High School (NEHS) in Clarksville, pleaded guilty to 25 counts of attempting to produce child pornography just before a bench trial was set to begin.
He had “several images depicting the sexual exploitation of children” on his phone, and after electronic devices were seized from his home, authorities found nude images of a minor student from NEHS.
His devices also contained photos of “unidentified females in hospital rooms, airports, and tanning beds, plus video files that appeared to be upskirt videos of adult and minor females.”
He faces a minimum of 15 years in prison.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Background Photo “Courtroom” by Sadmir Kanovicki.
