The State - News from May 14, 1986

The reputed leader of the violent “Funktown, USA” drug gang was sentenced in Oakland to 17 years in federal prison after declining a judge’s offer to plead for leniency. “My mouth got me here,” Harvey Whisenton told U.S. District Judge Thomas Henderson. “I ain’t saying nothing.” Whisenton was convicted of selling about $80,000 worth of cocaine and heroin to undercover federal agents last year at an East Oakland auto-body shop. Before sentencing, Henderson said, “I find it ironic that the same black community that you and your counselors say spawned you (to a life of violence) is also the black community that you and your colleagues terrorized and victimized.”