July 20, 2021 – As a last-ditch effort to find freedom, Gangster Disciples boss Larry (The Chief) Hoover tried his hand at the First Step Act and failed. U.S. District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber in Chicago recently denied Hoover’s motion for a sentence reduction on his 1996 federal drug conviction.

Authorities believe the 70-year old Hoover is the most powerful African-American crime lord in America. He is housed in the Supermax prison facility in Florence, Colorado, where he is locked up 23 hours a day. Per federal court filings from earlier this year in a case involving other Gangster Disciples, Hoover still has final say in gang affairs on the street. <

The First Step Act was signed into legislation by President Donald Trump in 2018 aimed at giving non-violent drug offenders early releases from lengthy prison sentences. Many of Hoover’s lieutenants have received sentence reductions as a result of the First Step Act in the past two years.

Hoover has been incarcerated since 1973 on a state murder case out of Illinois. The Gangster Disciples, a massive street gang empire he helped build, is based in Chicago and boast a national roster of more than 25,000 members. He was moved to a federal prison in the 1990s after he was busted overseeing a drug and racketeering enterprise from his prison cell in Vienna, Illinois.

Attorneys for Hoover hoped a federal sentence reduction from Judge Leinenweber, which would have returned him to state custody to serve the remainder of his time on the William (Pookie) Young slaying, would lead to a parole from the state of Illinois on his 200-year term. Young was kidnapped and murdered on Hoover’s orders in February 1973 for stealing drugs and money from Gangster Disciples coffers.