Supporters Rally to Spare Drug Dealer Turned Good

PACOIMA —  About Bobbie Marshall’s bad side, the facts are not in dispute: He is a convicted drug dealer who dealt crack from his mother’s house in Pacoima, which is across the street from an elementary school.

It is his good side, though--community activist, counselor to children, and gang conciliator--that has stirred controversy and a fair share of consternation for a federal judge, the U.S. Attorney’s office, and the northeast San Fernando Valley community where Marshall grew up, where he got arrested, and where his supporters say he eventually rehabilitated himself.

On March 18, he is scheduled to be sentenced to nine years in a federal penitentiary, a long-delayed day in court that has touched off an almost unheard-of chorus for leniency from some of the most prominent leaders in the northeast Valley.

It is an unlikely crusade on behalf of a man some would call an unworthy citizen: a man who spent decades both ingesting and selling drugs in his Pacoima neighborhood. But since his conviction four years ago, Marshall’s supporters say he has repented on the very streets where he sinned.

And for this, Marshall has not only been forgiven, but has become a symbol of hope in a community that is struggling to overcome the scourges of drugs, gangs and street crime.

Pacoima, they say, needs Bobbie Marshall.

“Please don’t take away what I consider a community resource,” said Larry Gonzales, principal of Pacoima Elementary School.

Marshall, 43--a big man at more than than 6 feet and 220 pounds, with the muscled arms and chest of a weightlifter--admits to having spent a good portion of his life as a drug dealer and addict, wasted decades that he now regrets.

“When I got involved in drugs, I made the choice. A bad choice,” said Marshall, characteristically frank during a recent interview at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. “Even right now, I’m hurt thinking about it.”

In 1989, Marshall was arrested for selling crack cocaine, beginning what has become a nearly seven-year odyssey through the legal system.

Federal prosecutors agreed to drop four other related drug charges following the arrest, and U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. allowed Marshall to go free on bail in March 1990.

The next year Marshall was indicted by a federal grand jury, and he pleaded guilty to selling 53 grams of crack, which carries a 14-year prison term. While out on bail awaiting sentencing, he quickly became a force for good in Pacoima, impressing Hatter, who delayed sentencing several times. Hatter intended the delays to give both prosecutors and defense attorneys time to work out a new agreement that would permit a lighter sentence.

In 1993, Marshall’s attorney, Denise Meyer, and several community leaders sent a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno seeking a reduced term to reward Marshall for his community service. The next year, the U.S. Attorney’s office agreed to cut Marshall’s sentence to nine years by counting the nearly five years he was out on bail against the impending 14-year sentence.

In March 1994, Hatter reduced the nine-year term to 4 1/2 years, complaining even that was too harsh. He also ordered Marshall to return to prison to serve the remainder of his time. But the U.S Attorney’s office appealed the lower sentence and won, leaving Marshall with nine years to serve.

Since then, a sentencing date has been delayed several more times. Meyer is attempting to win a shorter prison term for Marshall in exchange for his continued cooperation with the U.S. Attorney’s office. She hopes the ongoing community support will bolster her case.

But prosecutors appear reluctant to bend. They point out that Marshall has been convicted on drug charges four times. Further, they maintain that they have no choice but to follow the law, which means pressing Judge Hatter to adhere to sentencing rules that mandate long prison terms for those convicted of crack possession.

“Who knows how many people are out there who would be happy to do good deeds if they got a reduced sentence?” said U.S. Atty. Nora Manella, who heads the federal prosecutor’s office in Los Angeles.

Although Marshall’s supporters agree that he must serve some time in prison, they say that nine years is too long.

His most prominent supporters are community stalwarts and despisers of drugs: Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City); Zedar Broadus, president of the San Fernando Valley Chapter of the NAACP; and Rose Castaneda, a longtime community activist who has led anti-drug campaigns in Pacoima’s housing projects. The list continues with two school principals, current and former gang members and other ministers and activists.

Berman, who represents the Pacoima area in Congress, said he believes in long sentences for drug dealers, but said Marshall is a special case.

“I think the community needs tough sentencing, and we should throw away people who are a plague on the community,” he said. But Marshall “has dedicated himself to a righteous path of living. . . .There ought to be a little room for judicial discretion.”

The allies have written letters to Hatter and held a meeting with prosecutors to press their point.

Both sides acknowledge that federal prison cells are full of men like Marshall, convicted after Congress approved tough sentencing guidelines in the 1980s. Most of those convicted go to jail without a peep of community protest.

But even Marshall’s most skeptical neighbors believe that he has turned an abrupt about-face after sobering up and finding God.

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In 1990, while emptying garbage cans at Pacoima Park, Marshall ran into Joseph Dixon, the park’s director and an old school acquaintance. Marshall said he wanted to teach kids weightlifting. Dixon said fine.

Soon, he was counseling Latino gang members about how to deal with problems with their parents, their girlfriends, the police.

Ruben Ledesma, a former leader of the Project Boys gang and now a community case manager at Pacoima Community Service Center, met Marshall during the weightlifting sessions. The 25-year-old credits Marshall for helping to change his life and the lives of as many as 40 other hard-core gang members.

“He understood that it was not easy living in an environment like this,” said Ledesma. “Even though he was an African American in a primarily Latino neighborhood, he was respected. . . . When he was out, he was saving lives, that’s no lie.”

Later, Marshall helped start the Wednesday Night Regulars, a group of local kids looking for a way out of gangs. Every week the kids would meet with job advisors, clergy or counselors who helped them grapple with their troubles.

Marshall asked local schools what they needed and ended up painting Pacoima Elementary. He persuaded about 60 teenagers and young adults to stand outside a liquor store to prevent its looting during the 1992 riots; he served as one of then-Mayor Tom Bradley’s community volunteers to keep the peace after verdicts were announced in the second Rodney King trial.

Rev. William T. Broadus, who heads Calvary Baptist Church of Pacoima, one of the largest congregations in the northeast Valley, said that Marshall didn’t miss a Sunday service while out on bail.

“If there was someone I’d pick who’d make the world a better place, he’d be the one I’d pick,” said Broadus. And this from a man respected for his frankness and longtime work with troubled youths.

Yvonne Chan, principal of Vaughn Next Century Learning Center in Pacoima, supports Marshall even though the house where he was arrested is directly across the street from her school.

It was Marshall who was the first to welcome her to the school’s sometimes-dangerous neighborhood when she took over, saying he would watch over her, Chan recalled, not knowing of his past. Marshall later did handiwork around campus. “I couldn’t believe that someone I knew would do that,” the outspoken educator said of Marshall’s past. “But I believe he’s changed. I believe he deserves a second chance.”

Even Marshall’s prosecutor had a few kind words.

“By all accounts, Bobbie Marshall has been a model citizen” since he was arrested, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Steve Madison. “It does appear he was a productive member of society.”

Despite not finishing high school, Marshall is an articulate man. One of eight children, Marshall has six kids of his own. While he was out on bail, he married Sandra Marshall, now the mother of his youngest child, 4-year-old Priscilla.

At times, he makes contradictory statements. One moment he says, “I think I’ve been getting railroaded from the beginning,” referring to his arrests. “They could catch 20 of me a day if they wanted.”

The next moment, he remorsefully volunteers, “I’m hurt not because of what they did to me, but what I did to myself.”

His path toward trouble began on the rough-and-tumble streets of Pacoima. In the 1970s, Pacoima was predominately African American, and the working-class community was dependent on relatively high-paying, union manufacturing jobs at such places as Lockheed and General Motors.

But as a high school dropout, Marshall had trouble competing for the best jobs.

Never a dedicated student, and a drug user since his early teens, Marshall left San Fernando High School 15 credits short of graduating and took a job as a trash hauler working alongside his father.

The job was a good one, he said, and his salary was enough to buy a car, pay his rent and support a habit of alcohol, marijuana and barbiturates.

Marshall never explains why he turned to drugs. But Broadus, who has known Marshall since high school, said the area’s poverty and the accompanying poverty of the spirit was part of the problem.

“When you go out along Van Nuys Boulevard and look at the kinds of businesses that are there, are those really inspiring opportunities a kid would aspire to?” Broadus asked. “When you are in the northeast Valley, what opportunities do you see?”

During the gas shortage of the early 1970s, Marshall was laid off because the refuse company could no longer afford to operate as many trucks. He said he then moved through a series of short-term jobs before settling on drug dealing--which also gave him access to support his growing habit.

In the 1980s, the northeast Valley was hit with a double whammy: As manufacturing jobs started to leave, crack arrived. The community went into a tailspin, and Bobbie Marshall sank further too. His life from age 16 to 37, he said, was largely wasted.

When he began to deal more heavily, arrests and convictions piled up. Between 1977 and 1987, he was convicted of selling marijuana, possessing PCP, and selling crack.

But it was his crack arrest in May 1989--his seventh arrest and what would become his fourth conviction--that he said changed his life.

At the time, Marshall, his brother and a third man were selling crack from the Marshall’s home, which police captured on videotape and witnessed through undercover buys.

Marshall, who said he was high at the time of the arrest, didn’t understand what was happening.

“One minute, I was sitting in the backyard getting high,” he said. “A few days later, my lawyer tells me I was facing a life sentence. I asked her how much time you do for a life sentence. She said, ‘For a drug offense, probably for your whole life.’

*

“There were days I cried till boogers came out of my nose, because I didn’t believe I’d ever see home.”

Although Marshall pleaded guilty to selling the 53 grams of crack, prosecutors allege that the three men possessed about 181 grams. Prosecutors also believe that Marshall sold to at least one high school student, who in turn sold to his classmates.

“What people forget is that this is a four-time loser, dealing to kids, near a school,” said prosecutor Madison. “You can make the argument that he’s exactly who Congress had in mind when they passed sentencing guidelines.”

As his sentencing date approaches, Marshall is thankful for the community support, but is dreading his final day in court.

“I’m scared to death, man,” he said.

And he harbors plenty of regrets--one, that it took so long to make peace with his community. At least now, he said, “I feel loved.”

“What else can you say about everything that’s happened?”