Mother, 2 Sons Convicted in Tax-Evasion Conspiracy

In what an IRS agent called a “modern-day version of Al Capone,” three alleged members of the Bryant Family, a notorious organized crime ring police say has operated in Pacoima for a quarter of a century, were convicted Friday of conspiracy to violate income tax laws.

A federal jury returned the verdicts after a seven-week trial of Florence Bryant, 73, and two of her sons, Jeff Andrew Bryant Jr., 43, and Ely Bryant, 42.

Susan Bononcini, supervisory special agent with the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, said Jeff Bryant of Palmdale was convicted of tax evasion for failing to report more than $700,000 he earned from the sale of cocaine.

His mother and brother, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who has been on administrative leave without pay since March 1995, “assisted him in the conspiracy,” said Bononcini.

Another brother, Stanley Bryant, was convicted and sentenced to death last October, with two other gang members, for his role in the 1988 murders at a Lake View Terrace home of a pair of drug-dealing rivals and two other people, including a 2 1/2-year-old girl.

Authorities have linked members of the family to more than a dozen drug killings over the past two decades. The murder and drug conspiracy trial, with its 10 defendants and 34 defense attorneys, was among the longest and most expensive in Los Angeles history.

Bononcini compared Friday’s conviction to that of gangster Al Capone, America’s best-known symbol of prohibition-era lawlessness. Capone avoided conviction for his many crimes, but eventually went to prison for income tax evasion.

Sentencing for the Bryants is scheduled Oct. 11 by U.S. District Judge William D. Keller. Jeff Bryant, who was in prison at the time of the Lake View Terrace killings but who prosecutors say was a leader with his brother Stanley in the Bryant Family’s 200-member cocaine ring, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine. His mother and brother could each receive five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Officials said the tax case was the result of a joint investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, the IRS, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the San Fernando Police Department.