Clarence Heatley

1953-present

Clarence Heatley and his “Preacher Crew” sold drugs, extorted, kidnapped, and even killed to gain notoriety on the streets of the Bronx and Harlem sections of New York City. Heatley’s top lieutenant was a former housing cop named John Cuff. By the early 1990s, the New York Police Department and FBI formed a task force to take down the Preacher Crew. Both Heatley and Cuff admitted their crimes in plea deals to avoid the death penalty. Heatley is currently serving his time at Alabama’s Federal Correctional Institution Talladega.

Little is known of the early years of Heatley, who was born around 1953 and raised in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City.

Said to have dropped out of school by the fourth grade, Heatley learned to handle himself on the rough streets of his neighborhood. He became increasingly involved in criminal activity, leading to a string of convictions in the 1970s for possession of firearms and robberies.

Heatley, also known by such monikers as “The Preacher” and “The Black Hand of Death,” and his Preacher Crew sold cocaine, crack-cocaine, heroin, and PCP, among other drugs. They also extorted, kidnapped, and even killed to gain notoriety on the streets of the Bronx and Harlem area of New York City.

Heatley’s top lieutenant was a former housing cop named John Cuff. His team included “janitors,” whose job was to clean up the mess after the Preacher Crew’s victims were tortured and murdered. According to authorities, the drug ring operated from apartment buildings in the Bronx. It was rumored—and reported by several media outlets—that the Preacher Crew once kidnapped singer Bobby Brown, ex-husband of famed pop singer Whitney Houston, and held him for ransom over a drug debt.

By the early 1990s, the New York Police Department and FBI formed a task force to take down the Preacher Crew who, by this time, had reportedly been involved in nearly 45 homicides. Not long after, both Heatley and Cuff entered into plea deals in order to avoid the death penalty.

Under the terms of his plea bargain, made in February 1999, a 47-year-old Heatley pleaded guilty to racketeering and murder conspiracy in connection with 13 drug-related homicides. He was sentenced to life in prison. According to The New York Times in explanation of Heatley’s plea bargain, one of his attorneys named Joel S. Cohen said, “There didn’t seem to be any upside to going to trial if we could be certain that he would avoid execution by pleading guilty.” Cohen added that Heatley wanted to spare his family “from having to experience his execution, and he also wanted to try to be a positive presence in the lives of his children.”

According to authorities, Heatley acknowledged during his plea-bargaining that he had made a substantial income from his drug dealing, which primarily involved the sale of cocaine and crack-cocaine from 1990 to ’96. Heatley is currently serving his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution Talladega in Alabama.

Heatley’s criminal enterprise was also said to be known as “The Family,” in part because of the involvement of his son, daughter, and girlfriend. Shaka, his son who cooperated with authorities, provided his inside account of the organization’s methodology in a 1997 prison interview recorded for the documentary The Son of Preacher: The Black Hand That Ruled Harlem.

• I stand before the court, having committed such acts, knowing that water seeks its own level. If you do what you do, you get what you get.

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