An ex-con described by prosecutors as the “most violent member” of Brooklyn’s bloodthirsty Bully Gang was sentenced to 52 years behind bars Wednesday, after he and three other gang leaders were convicted in a sweeping racketeering trial.
Franklin Gillespie, 35, was convicted of racketeering alongside gang leader Moeleek Harrell, who beat two state murder raps in 2017 and 2023, and his loyal lieutenants, Derrick Ayers and Anthony Kennedy, after a two-month trial that covered three killings, several shootings, and a cruel interstate drug-trafficking organization.
The June 2024 verdict, along with four dozen guilty pleas from lower-level members, effectively turned Bedford-Stuyvesant into a Bully-free zone.
Harrell got 60 years in April, while Ayers was sentenced to 59 years last month. Kennedy, meanwhile, was hit with a 41-year sentence in May.
Prosecutors alleged at trial that Gillespie committed two of those three killings in just a four-day span in April 2020 — the point-blank execution of rival Stukes Crew member Paul Hoilett, then the getaway driver in Hoilett’s killing, Mike Hawley, who Gillespie heard was being sought by the feds, and feared might talk if he was arrested.
“I’m dealing with a very violent man who shoots early, and tells others to shoot early,” Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Brian Cogan said, pointing out Gillespie’s history of gun arrests and violent acts despite his past prison sentences and his supervised release status. “What am I going to do to stop Mr. Gillespie from carrying guns? I don’t think there’s anything I can do. I don’t think he’s gonna stop.”
The jury deadlocked on Hoilett’s murder, but found Gillespie guilty of murder conspiracy as a racketeering act in Hawley’s slaying.
Cogan said that a preponderance of evidence showed he committed both murders, and that he’d factor them into his sentence.
Gillespie also involved himself in the Bully Gang’s drug operation in Maine, and committed armed robberies for the gang, the feds said.
Gillespie threatened the U.S. marshals keeping watch on him during the trial, telling them, “You don’t know me and what I can do,” and “I would F you guys up and you don’t know what I am capable of doing,” according to prosecutors.
He also committed robberies and other non-fatal shootings, and stabbed three inmates at the MDC Brooklyn jail in two separate fights in December 2024 and February 2025, prosecutors said.
“He acts impulsively, and if he doesn’t like something, well, if you don’t get shot then maybe you’ll get threatened,” Cogan said.
Prosecutors were asking for life in prison — a higher sentence than Harrell, the Bully leader, got — with Assistant U.S. Attorney Joy Lurinsky calling Gillespie the gang’s “violent enforcer” who used his gun as a first resort.
She pointed out that a rumor the feds were looking for Hawley turned out to be false, but rather than ask around and find out for himself, Gillespie’s first reaction was to preemptively silence Hawley with a bullet.
“He was dead the next day,” Lurinsky said, adding, “An unnecessary murder, even from the defendant’s perspective.”
Gillespie’s lawyer, Kannan Sundaram of the Federal Defenders, described him as devoted to his daughters, and said he should get consideration for the six years he’s already served in the notoriously harsh MDC Brooklyn.
“Franklin Gillespie was one of the most violent members of an extraordinarily violent street gang and our Brooklyn community is rid of him thanks to today’s sentence,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said Wednesday.
Gillespie submitted an unexpected character reference — Karl Jordan Jr., the accused killer of Run-DMC icon Jam Master Jay, whose jury conviction was overturned in December.
Jordan was stabbed in a massive Feb. 22, 2025, melee inside MDC Brooklyn, in which prosecutors say Gillespie stabbed two people, and Jordan credits the “heroic” Gillespie with saving his life.
“He risked his own life to help me while I was fighting multiple people with knives,” Jordan wrote to the judge. “Franklin stepped in without hesitation, instinctively trying to help me. His actions were not motivated by violence or malice, instead he acted out of deep desire to stop further harm. If not for his intervention things would’ve been worse.”