A Houston rapper accused of helping lead a gang during a bloody war for power over the Third Ward is once again standing trial, 7 months after a federal jury failed to come to a verdict in her previous organized crime trial.

Alexandra Nicks and Shaquile O’Neal Richards are accused of leading the 100% Third Ward Gang, also known as the 103 Gang, a group that the Justice Department said was on one side of a gang war in south-central Houston throughout the 2010s.

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Nicks and Richards in 2023 were indicted on charges that they ordered and organized an attack on a member of a rival group, Young Scott Block. The October 2017 shooting left Samuel Johnson, a 52-year-old innocent bystander, dead. They are both charged with murder in the aid of racketeering.

At the time of her arrest, Nicks was a fast-rising rapper, performing under the name OMB Bloodbath. In 2020, she had signed a major-label recording deal with a company was backed by Interscope Records.

Federal authorities accused Nicks of organizing the shooting by gathering gang members, weapons and a vehicle on behalf of Richards, who was in jail at the time of the shooting. The two were longtime friends who grew up in the Cuney Homes section of the Third War.

The pair have been in custody since their indictment.

Neither Nicks nor Richards was present on London Street, in the OST-South Union neighborhood, on the day of the shooting. But during a trial in January, prosecutors pointed to text messages and recorded jail phone calls that they said showed Nicks and Richards talking about their plans.

“This case is not about shooters,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Zenon-Matos during Monday’s opening statement. “This case is about power.” 

Zenon-Matos said Nicks and Richards commanded other people through “whispered orders, coded messages, and the use of loyal associates to carry out orders behind the scenes without hesitation.” 

It’s an argument that was made during the first failed attempt to prosecute the alleged gang leaders. A two-week trial in January ended in a mistrial after jurors declared they couldn’t reach a verdict following 20 hours of deliberation.

During that trial, Marquis Erskin, one of the men who was convicted of killing Johnson, testified that neither Nicks nor Richards directed him to conduct the shooting. Nicks and Richards’ lawyers argued that prosecutors hadn’t proven their case to show that the pair bore responsibility for the shooting. Prosecutors said Erskin was lying to protect his fellow gang members.

Little changed between first and second cases. Defense attorneys during opening arguments indicated they expected jurors to hear the same kinds of testimony and evidence that were given in the first trial and repeated their earlier defense.

“Membership in a group does not automatically make every member responsible for every act committed by another person,” said Celeste Blackburn, Richards’ attorney.

However, prior to the trial, prosecutors revealed that they had gained access to Nicks’ cell phone, which had been locked and beyond access to investigators during the first trial. Prosecutors wrote in a motion that it took four years for a computer program to break into the phone.

Defense attorneys unsuccessfully argued that prosecutors had submitted a mountain of new evidence without time to review it after the phone was opened up.

The jury in the latest trial was picked on July 9, but the start of the trial was delayed a week because of a medical emergency on the part of one of the prosecutors. 

U.S District Judge George Hanks has told the attorneys to try to finish their cases by the start of August. Hanks last week said he was worried some of the seated jurors would become unavailable if the trial was still going as the new school year begins.

Testimony from 2017 attack

During the first hours of testimony, jurors heard from Mertroy Harris, a 103 Gang associate who was among the gunmen in the 2017 attack. Harris testified that he joined the other members in gathering weapons and driving around a neighborhood looking for a target.

“I put a lot of bullets in there,” Harris said about the weapon he carried that day. “They basically said they were going to kill any YSB they see.”

Harris fled the shooting scene on foot after the car the men were driving in crashed into a ditch. He ended up at a local meat market, and called police on himself when he feared that enemy gang members were going to find him.

Before calling police, Harris testified that he called Nicks for help and directions.

“She knew the situation and she knew the area,” Harris said.

He testified that at the time of the shooting, gang members were under pressure from leaders to retaliate against YSB members after a series of shootings in the area. He described O’Neal as one of the top leaders of the gang, and said Nicks ranked just below him.

The trial is expected to take two weeks to complete. If convicted, Nicks and O’Neal face possible life sentences in federal prison.

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This article originally published at Houston rapper OMB Bloodbath faces retrial in Third Ward gang case as prosecutors flag new phone data.