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The book, Inside the Crips: Life Inside L.A.'s Most Notorious Gang, was publicised as a tale of the former Crip's redemption, one meant to divert youngsters from street crime. Instead, the book may help a Riverside County prosecutor send Simpson, 39, to prison for life, without possibility of parole, for the alleged theft of a $800 diamond earring. A Superior Court Judge is allowing Simpson's book to be used as evidence when jurors in his robbery trial, set to begin in May, consider whether he drove the getaway car in a Temecula jewel heist in 2003. Allowing a book to be used as evidence is rare in a criminal trial-so too is having a defendant accused of a felony similar to crimes he admits in a tell-all autobiography. "We're not digging into somebody’s private rap sheet or background," Deputy District Attorney Stephen Gallon argued in court. "This is something that he has caused to be published." Inside the Crips, published in August by St. Martin's Press with a first run of 12,000 copies, was publicised as a "true and accurate" account. It is among a handful of gang memoirs by veteran street warriors, including Life in Prison by the recently executed Stanley Tookie Williams, none of which appeared to have been used in court, legal experts said.
The judge agreed with Gallon’s argument that Simpson's accounts of jewel thefts could prove that he intended to rob a department store in a mall. And since Gallon is pursuing the robbery as a third of "three strikes", Simpson's fate may hinge, in part, on page 42: "I love doing jewellery licks. I love the power I wield over adults ... It gets so I go in alone, ask to see a Rolex, grab two, dash out the store, turn them around, and have eight thousand dollars stuffed in my pocket." The passages to be submitted to jurors portray the one-time Crip casing and robbing jewelry stores, whose wares are pawned for cars, booze and more jewellery. Rhodes and others said Simpson had shed the gang life described in the book and pieced together an honest living: the book deal and a job as personal assistant to rapper and actor Ice-T. Simpson, who has been jailed in Riverside for more than a year, said he had been carjacked and forced to drive to and from the robbery—the story he told Escondido police and co-author Ann Pearlman, according to court documents. He sent at least two letters to the court saying his cellphone had been confiscated and that it contained a phone number for a man who witnessed the carjacking. "I don't think for $800 that he would put his life on hold, that he would go back to prison for $800," said Van Cotright, Simpson’s uncle and a former Los Angeles police officer. At age 10, Simpson and his brothers were struggling to cope with a detached father, Dick Simpson, who had been an outfielder for the Los Angeles Angels and five other big-league teams in the 1960s, and a mother who Simpson and his father said neglected the boys. She could not be reached for comment. Simpson found refuge in the Rollin’ Thirties Harlem Crips; he was initiated after a Little League game. The neighbourhood gangbangers sprayed gunfire and thrashed him in an alley, rewarding his tenacity with a nickname, "Li'l Cee", and a .38 Special, he wrote. Later that night, he said he shot two Bloods with the ease of firing a toy gun. — LAT/WP |
RIVERSIDE, California USA:
Colton Simpson's autobiography impressed literary critics last fall with
its raw account of Los Angeles gang underworld and his life as a thief,
thug and triggerman in the bloody battle between the Crips and the
Bloods.
Jodie Rhodes, Simpson's
San Diego literary agent, said prosecutors were "using the book to
crucify" Simpson.