A founder of Macon's MOE gang pleads guilty to violating the state's gang act
One of the founders of Macon's Money Over Everything gang pleaded guilty Thursday to felony violation of the state's Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act and misdemeanor assault.
Sidney Raymond Sapp, 26, who said becoming a Christian changed him, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and five years of probation.
Sapp was indicted in June 2014, along with his mother, Jerryetta Sapp, and several other alleged gang members, in a scheme involving the alleged prostitution of a then-15-year-old girl against her will.
The indictment charged Sidney Sapp's sisters, Justeene Sapp and Asialeena Sapp; his child's mother, Jacquelyn Charmain Jackson; his mother; and Navon Christine Johnson with charges of pandering, violating the gang act, prostitution and keeping a place of prostitution for someone under 18.
The indictment alleges the teen was prostituted against her will during the last three months of 2012.
The pimping case came out of an investigation into the MOE gang and spun off another indictment in which several other gang members were charged with offenses ranging from armed robbery to drug distribution, prosecutor John Regan said.
"(Sidney Sapp) is not charged in the other indictment," Regan said during Thursday's hearing in Bibb County Superior Court. "He was in custody at the time ... but he created this group that turned out to wreak a lot of havoc on Macon and Bibb County and Monroe County."
Sapp admitted to authorities that he was one of three founding members of the gang in 2009, Regan said.
"I apologize for all the things I have done, and I know I gotta own up to my mistakes and all that I've done," Sapp told the judge. "Regardless of me changing my life to God, I still gotta pay for what I've done."
Judge Howard Simms admonished Sapp for his role in establishing the gang, which has since disbanded.
"Do you have any sense, Mr. Sapp, of the gravity of the damage this organization has done?" Simms asked. "A whole lot of lives got wasted. Some got taken. ... The damage that's been left in the wake of MOE is staggering."
Simms told Sapp he could allow the burden of having been behind the formation of a gang to crush him or he could accept responsibility for his actions.
Simms encouraged Sapp to reach out to others to turn from gangs and violence.
"When you get out, you need to own it, and you need to be the man that you told me you wanted to be and go back out there and talk to these folks," Simms told him. "They may listen to you."
He wished Sapp good luck.
Gary Wilson, a small business owner and member of Awakening Fires Ministry based in the Fort Hill neighborhood, spoke on Sapp's behalf earlier during the hearing. He met Sapp in March 2013.
"Sidney had left the lifestyle that he is being tried for now. ... He'd introduced us to people that he used to run with, and in that time, we would go down to his old neighborhood on the southside and we would minister to the guys that he was not longer running with. ... He so desperately wanted them to change their lives," Wilson said.
Donna Gray, who also served in the same ministry, described Sapp as "honest, truthful, humble, steadfast, full of purpose, loving, generous, kind."
She said Sapp has ministered to others while in jail and directed them to the ministry upon their release from jail. She asked for leniency.
The pimping case is still pending against Johnson and Jackson, while the other women previously entered pleas in the case earlier this year.
To contact writer Becky Purser, call 256-9559, or find her on Twitter@becpurser.
This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 7:48 PM with the headline "A founder of Macon's MOE gang pleads guilty to violating the state's gang act ."