The below article appeared in the New York Daily News 20 years after Char “Shocker” Davis was sentenced to 405 months for his role in Lorenzo “Fat Cat” Nichols and Howard “Pappy” Mason’s drug distribution networks. On July 27, 1989 following a jury trial, Shocker was found guilty of count 12 of a 15 count superseding indictment. Count 12 charged that between February 1988 and August 11, 1988, Shocker, along with others, conspired to possess with intent to distribute in excess of fifty grams of cocaine base in violation of 21 USC, Section 846 and 841 (b)91)9A).
By association, Shocker was implicated by the feds, in murders he did not commit. Including those of Fat Cat’s parole officer Brian Rooney, police officer Edward Byrne and Charlene Baskerville, who is mentioned in the New York Daily News article above. Instead of being innocent until proven guilty Shocker has been found guilty by association by the feds. And now when relief from his draconian, unwarranted and disproportionate 405 month sentence is finally in sight due to changes in the federal sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine offenses, after 21 years in the belly of the beast, the feds are again bringing up unindicted, unproven, unconvicted and unsubstantiated allegations and using the media to great effect in their war against black males.
Since the New York Daily News is giving the Brooklyn U.S. Attorneys office a forum to air false and unproven allegations, Gorilla Convict has decided to give Shocker a chance to speak. After 21 years of silence Shocker has decided to set the record straight on his crack reduction motion, the article in the New York Daily News, his case, Fat Cat, Pappy Mason and the Bebos. Here it is the Gorilla Convict exclusive with the go hard soldier who earned his stripes under street legend Pappy Mason, Char “Shocker” Davis-
When the changes in the federal sentencing guidelines for crack offenses jumped off what you do?
Shocker-I submitted a motion to get a crack reduction in April 2008 when I was in Raybrook I didn’t hear nothing about it until I got to Loretto, a year later. The case manager called me in the office and told me to sign a progress report because my probation officer from the Eastern District of New York wanted to see it because I might be getting a time cut. The probation officer called my sister and asked my sister where does she work at, live and her salary and if I was released could I stay with her and my sister said yes.
Have you heard back from the courts about your motion yet?
Shocker- No, but seven, eight months later the article in the Daily News came out. My case reduction motion is still not decided. They came out with this article to make it seem like I’m not eligible but I am eligible
for it.
When you read the article how did you feel? What did you think?
Shocker- I was floored. I couldn’t understand it after all this time. I wasn’t discouraged though cause I know its just a propaganda machine. I know I’m supposed to get some justice. I call my sister on the Sunday before I even saw the article and she was crying, talking about they don’t want to let you come home. She told me about the article that was portraying me like a monster. A month after that I got in the mail the prosecutors response trying to shut me down.
How do you feel about the feds bringing up uncharged, unproven allegations in the article?
Shocker- I feel it’s not right. My thing is I never got arrested for this or convicted for this. I can’t fathom how they enhanced my sentence for something I was never charged with and now they are still trying to deny me for a crime I didn’t commit. What I really feel is that they got a hard on for us because of what happened to Byrne. They knew I was a Bebo so I am guilty by association. They know I was part of that crew.
Switching gears, how did you get down with Fat Cat and Pappy Mason?
Shocker- I was born and raised in Forty Projects. I met Pap first but Cat knew my family. He knew my aunts, my grandma worked at the diner on 150th Street. So I always saw him because he knew my family. Fat Cat was like a legend. But I met Pap first through Ruff, his brother who I got cool with.
How did that happen?
Shocker- I’m on 160th Street, I see this dude with dreadlocks on a pedal bike. The way he talked, his whole swag, he was like a gangster god. I already decided I wanted to be a gangster but after I saw Pap I wanted to be like him. This was like 1983.
How did you get down with the crew?
Shocker- I saw him again and he told me he was opening a spot on the 4th floor of my building. He knew that I was already hanging out with his brother Ruff. I go up there with Ruff and I’m down. I’m working security, I got a walkie-talkie. One time the police run up, I get arrested but I don’t say nothing, so I’m locked in for life. So basically I met Pap on the strength of Ruff.
What was up with the Bebos?
Shocker- I’m an original Bebo. Bebos came like 84/85. That’s when we started calling each other Bebo. Most of us had dreads. They thought we were a Jamaican gang but we weren’t. There wasn’t that many of us. We were around Cat, an extension of him.
What was Pappy Mason like?
Shocker- There won’t never be nobody like him. He was a gangster god. He did a lot of good for people. That’s just the type of person he was. He didn’t like seeing people get taken advantage of. Pap taught us to have honor. It was different then, not like today.
Deadly drug trafficker Char (Shocker) Davis asks to be released from jail early By John Marzulli
Daily News Staff Writer
Sunday, December 6th 2009, 4:00 AM
He was a feared lieutenant in druglord Howard (Pappy) Mason’s “Bebos” crack organization that ravaged South Queens in the 1980s and assassinated NYPD cop Edward Byrne.
Now, Char (Shocker) Davis, who bashed a woman to death with a cast-iron pan, says he should go free.
Davis has nine years left on a 33-year drug trafficking conviction in 1989, but he wants to be sprung early based on last year’s changes in federal sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine offenses. The change, which makes sentences more lenient, is retroactive.
The Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office filed papers last week arguing that Davis doesn’t qualify for a reduction in his sentence under the amended guidelines.
Brooklyn Federal Judge Edward Korman slammed Davis with the maximum term because he also found that Davis savagely murdered Charlene Baskerville with a frying pan in her Queens apartment.
Baskerville, whose head was stuffed into a garbage bag, was bludgeoned repeatedly for nearly 30 minutes. The blows were so hard the heavy pan shattered.
“Finally, Davis said to Baskerville, ‘I told you about running your mouth,'” court papers say. “Davis enthusiastically participated in the violence that was Bebos’ trademark.”
Then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Caldwell urged the judge to throw the book at the drug thug.
“There is no reason to think that anything other than keeping him in prison will deter him from committing violent, vicious crimes like the ones he’s already committed,” Caldwell said, according to a transcript.
“This is the only kind of sentence that will protect society from the defendant,” she said.
Davis, now 39, made the request for early release from his cell in Loretto, Pa.
Mason, his former drug boss, is serving a life term at the supermaximum prison in Florence, Colo., where the country’s most dangerous inmates are locked up.
Mason ordered the murder of rookie cop Byrne from his jail cell in 1988 in retaliation for the NYPD dissing him on the street and busting him on a gun charge. Byrne was guarding the home of a witness against the gang when he was killed.
Davis’ sister, Cherise Davis, wrote to Korman on her brother’s behalf. She lamented that her sibling has missed many family milestones while incarcerated and said he “deserves a second chance to live his life as a responsible and productive member of society.”