Drug Kingpin, Associate Sentenced to Life Terms

A man described by prosecutors as one of Los Angeles’ most powerful drug lords was sentenced Monday to two life terms in prison without parole for running a $2-million-a-month cocaine and heroin ring.

Elrader (Ray Ray) Browning Jr., 33, also was fined $2 million by U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson.

Browning’s Hollywood distributor, James (Doc) Holiday, a former leader of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang, also was sentenced Monday to life in prison without parole. Holiday, 46, who was tried with Browning, was convicted in June of two counts of possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute.

Browning was convicted of 43 narcotics and conspiracy counts representing the sale and distribution in 1986 and 1987 of at least 100 kilograms of cocaine and several pounds of “China White” heroin, drugs with an estimated street value of at least $20 million.

Acted as Own Lawyer

Browning, who represented himself at trial, told Wilson that his conviction showed that justice is not equally applied to all people.

“Equal justice implies equal justice for equals,” Browning said. “When I look around and read about vice presidents and diplomatics (sic) smuggling planeloads of drugs in and no one seeks life without (parole), it’s the same thing throughout. The bottom man is the little man. The same laws don’t apply to them.”

Holiday, who was sentenced with Browning, told the judge in a rambling speech that stiff prison sentences cannot curb a drug epidemic rooted in societal problems. He blamed his actions on “the condition of society that produces people like me.”

Jurors in the three-week trial found that Browning, who tried to escape from Terminal Island prison last month disguised as a lawyer with a wig and mustache, was the brain behind a $2-million-a-month operation that cornered the cocaine market in Pasadena, Hollywood, Inglewood and the San Gabriel Valley and also delivered to Oakland and Detroit. Prosecutors said Browning was one of the city’s most notorious drug lords.

Browning and Holiday were indicted by a federal grand jury late last year along with 21 others. Seventeen of the defendants pleaded guilty to drug charges stemming from their roles in the ring. Fourteen have received prison terms ranging from one year and one day to 20 years. Three still face sentencing and four others were never captured.

The star witness against Browning was his former girlfriend and second-in-command, Nei Wells, who helped outline the details of Browning’s organization and named his lieutenants, foot soldiers and suppliers.

Browning and Holiday were charged with murder in an August, 1979, double shooting at Lucky’s Cafe in Pacoima, an attack said to be in retaliation for a drug robbery. But the charges were dismissed after the state Supreme Court disallowed the testimony of a key witness.

Holiday was later convicted of the attempted murder of a woman in the Lucky’s Cafe case. He also served a prison sentence for a 1961 murder conviction.

Browning was convicted in 1983 of firebombing a Pasadena house in a drug-related incident, but that conviction was overturned on appeal and Browning was acquitted in a second trial.