January 6, 2021 – Former Detroit drug chief and pro boxer Darrell Chambers walks free this week after 25 years in federal prison for narcotics distribution in the Kronk Boxing cocaine case. Chambers, 60, benefited from a sentence reduction for being a non-violent offender. His original sentence amounted to life in prison without parole for a 1994 coke bust. He will check into a halfway house in Detroit Friday.
Controversial “professional informant,” Andrew Chambers testified to his dealings with Darrell Chambers (no relation) and DEA agents testified to surveilling a meeting between the pair in the Bahamas to negotiate a $500,000 purchase of cocaine at Chambers’ trial in January 1995. Andrew Chambers was caught perjuring himself in 16 different cases federal prosecutors used him as a witness in. According to court records, he cleared $4,000,000 in payment from Uncle Sam for his service in dozens of cases across the country.
Darrell Chambers boxed out of the historic Kronk Gym, home to more than 40 world champions. The gym was run by Hall of Fame boxing trainer Manny Steward and produced five-time world champ Tommy (Hit Man) Hearns, a close friend of Chambers and his family. Kronk Gym fighters Donald Curry and Stanley Longstreet were indicted alongside Chambers. Curry, who hailed from Texas and was known in the ring as the “Lonestar Cobra,” was a time-time world champion as a middleweight and beat the case in front of a jury. Longstreet turned informant and joined the DEA pro snitch Andrew Chambers as the star witnesses at Darrell Chambers and Donald Curry’s trial.
Many believe Chambers was scapegoated by the feds for him not “giving up” Steward and Hearns for money laundering offenses. Sources claim Chambers refused a deal from the U.S. Attorney in Detroit which would have required him to lie about Steward and Hearns’ knowledge of and complicity in underworld activity. The feds investigated whether Steward and Hearns were helping drug lords Demetrius Holloway and Richard (Maserati Rick) Carter wash their drug proceeds.
The dapper and business savvy Holloway and the flashy and fearsome Carter both ran with Hearns’ entourage and died violent deaths in highly publicized fashion, Carter murdered in his hospital bed in 1988 and Holloway shot in the back of the head at a downtown Detroit men’s clothier two year later in 1990. Carter was famously buried in a $30,000 Mercedes-Benz casket.
Neither Steward nor Hearns were ever charged in the feds Holloway-Carter probe and were never implicated publicly in any wrongdoing. Maserati Rick Carter appeared in a Detroit Free Press photo with Hearns and Mayor of Detroit, Coleman Young, early in Hearn’s career. Carter promoted local prize fights and developed friendships with mega promoter Don King and Hearns’ rival, Sugar Ray Leonard, as well.
Turning pro in 1981, Chambers (22-2), a born-and-bred eastside Detroiter, burst out of the gate to a 12-0 start and got a shot against highly-regarded Bobby Joe Young in a 1983 nationally-televised bout in Las Vegas. He lost via TKO in the ninth round. His final fight was against Luis Santana (TKO defeat) in April 1985 at Caesar’s Palace.
By the early 1990s, Chambers was one of the biggest dope boys in the Motor City, his quiet operation replacing his higher-profile fallen friends, “Meech” Holloway and Maserati Rick and recently jailed louder-acting crews like the Best Friends and the Iraqi mob family, also known as “The 7 Mile Boys.” Chambers absorbed a sizeable amount of territory from the 7 Mile Boys when Iraqi mob prince Harry (The Blonde) Kalasho was gunned down in the winter of 1989.