Former Detroit drug lord Quasand (Q-Dawg) Lewis was released from federal prison last week and placed into a halfway house in Orlando, Florida. The 48-year old Lewis was Michigan’s biggest wholesale marijuana dealer of the early 2000s. His cousin, deceased NBA player Robert (Tractor) Traylor, got nailed for helping him hide money. Lewis was convicted in 2005’s Operation Falling Star and sentenced to 18 years behind bars. He’s scheduled to be released from the halfway house in six months. Whether or not he’ll return to Michigan is unclear. Traylor was embroiled in Operation Falling Star, found guilty of falsifying tax documents on behalf of Lewis — he died of a heart condition in 2011 at age 34. A star at the University of Michigan, the notoriously gregarious and rotund Traylor was an NBA Lottery Pick in 1998 and played eight years in the NBA. Lewis did two separate prison terms in the 1990s for cocaine trafficking busts. By the dawning of the New Millennium though the Flenory brothers’ Black Mafia Family controlled the cocaine trade in Motown (and well beyond for that matter) so Lewis decided to concentrate on dominating the Motor City’s weed market. It didn’t take long before he did. By late 2002, Lewis’ drug empire was at war with a crew led by rival marijuana kingpin Thomas (Shotgun Tommie) Hodges, a conflict that left more than a dozen dead or wounded. Both Lewis and Hodges, one-time business partners for a brief stint, survived assassination attempts. In 2003, Hodges got into a shootout with the Lewis gang’s top enforcer Lamont (L-Boogie) Paris in the parking lot of a nightclub located across the street from what was then Detroit Police Headquarters. Paris opened fire on Hodges in his Mercedes-Benz and Hodges grabbed a weapon and returned fire in the middle of a crowded street. The shootout was responsible for a valet at the club (Tiffany’s) getting shot in the eye by a stray bullet. Paris, the leader of an enforcement wing of the Lewis organization known as the “Connecticut Boys” is doing 50 years in prison. Hodges went down in another case from 2005 and was released from federal custody in March 2015. Lewis’ girlfriend Sissy Walker, who helped him run his drug business, and his bodyguard and driver Lavert (Vicious Vito) Dafney each came home in 2015 too. Edward (Lemon) Walker, Sissy’s brother and Lewis’ No. 2 in charge, did six years and got out in 2011. The gang’s wholesale-liaison lieutenant Giovanni (Big G) Ruanova was never apprehended in Operation Falling Star and is still a fugitive from the law. Ruanvoa coordinated all of Lewis’ drug shipments from Mexico to Detroit using Arizona as a way station. His stripper girlfriend, Annette Sanchez, was finally caught in 2017 after 12 years on the run. Quasand Lewis
