MOBB TIES: Marcus 'SRT OG' Cobb Jr

Ajouté : 2026-05-09

[00:00:09]Across America, marijuana has two faces.

[00:00:12]Now, in one state, it sits behind glass counters with price tags, labels, security sales, and tax stamps. It has investors, storefronts, delivery menus, and people walking into dispensaries the same way they walk into liquor stores.

[00:00:28]What used to bring police to the door now brings customers depending on the map.

[00:00:34]>> So let's take an infocus look now at the state of marijuana legality across the country. All but two states legalize at least some form of cannabis or low THC.

[00:00:46]According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, this map shows in green the states that have legalized both recreational use and medical use.

[00:00:57]Yellow states have legalized medical cannabis. Orange states have legalized certain CBD or low THC products. But drive far enough in the wrong direction.

[00:01:11]And that same plant lives under a completely different set of rules. The number in this specific case wasn't 20 lb or 200, not a truckload moving across the country. Local reporting would say it was as low as 2 lb. Under ordinary circumstances, that kind of amount would never sound like the kind of case that belongs anywhere near a murder level sentence. But if prosecutors say the marijuana benefited a criminal enterprise, it could change the entire meaning of the case.

[00:01:43]>> And number one, a Mobile County man is the first in the state to be convicted under a new Alabama law. Marcus Cobbs Jr. found guilty of trafficking marijuana to benefit a criminal enterprise. This new law targets top level drug dealers. Cobbs will be sentenced in April and could face up to 25 years to life in prison.

[00:02:04]>> And that's where this case becomes a warning about how different the same country can be depending on the state line. In one place, marijuana can be counted as inventory taxed as revenue and sold under a business license. But in Mobile, Alabama, a little bit over two pounds became the center of a sentence people usually connect to murder. And before this story is over, the question is not how Marcus Cobb Jr.

[00:02:31]ended up facing that kind of time. It's how a weed case that started with a mount that low became the first major test of a law powerful enough to turn marijuana into organized crime. If he had just been charged with trafficking, uh the range of punishment would have been uh 10 to life. Uh he would have been eligible for parole um in that situation at some point. Uh this 25ear sentence is a day for day uh that he must serve uh will not get parrolled.

[00:03:05]>> Lord, forgive me for this trap [ __ ] Sergeant smack make it backflip. Telly Hank with the action with the vital speaking Spanish. Frank Matthews, how I vanish. Poof.

[00:03:16]Came back like I'm King T. Gold. BBS is on a beamer when fat cat with 10 queens up. Fall off the flyer.

[00:03:29]>> History is about to be made in a Mobile courtroom as this man, Marcus Cobbs, becomes the first to face trial under Alabama's new gang enhancement law.

[00:03:39]Cobbs goes to trial today in a case that could set a precedent for how the 2023 law is applied across the state. In fact, jury selection is wrapping up right now. The gang statute allows prosecutors to add a mandatory 25 years to a prison sentence for crimes committed to further gang activity.

[00:04:02]Police arrested Cobbs back in November of 2024. He faces charges of marijuana trafficking and criminal enterprise.

[00:04:10]Before opening arguments, prosecutors and Cobb's defense attorney are expected to work out a key question. Whether the gang charge is a sentencing enhancement or a separate charge altogether.

[00:04:25]>> Just a few years ago, Alabama was dealing with violence that kept showing up in city after city. Birmingham kept making headlines for homicides with police investigating 134 criminal homicides in 2022, 126 in 2023, and 138 and 24. In the city of Mobile, the talks wasn't about how many murders they had, but who police believed was driving parts of it. And by 2022, Mobile Police were publicly blaming a rise in violent crime on gangs and had announced 44 known gang members had been arrested in just a few months. Montgomery was pretty much the same, dealing with his own numbers, too. By late 2024, city leaders would report 1,470 violent crime cases and 296 non-fatal shootings, taking more than 1,500 guns and almost 40 switches off the streets.

[00:05:30]So the state wasn't only watching the bodies, it was watching guns get modified, teenagers get pulled in the shootings, and police describing certain cases as organized instead of random. So Birmingham would give lawmakers the headline numbers while Mobile would give them the gang argument and Montgomery would add the guns, switches, and youth violent concerns. So by the time Alabama would start looking for a stronger answer, the public safety argument was already sitting right there. Too many cities, too many shootings, and a growing belief from officials that regular charges were not enough.

[00:06:19]>> The video is pretty jarring to see.

[00:06:27]That's a a 100 round drum that was on the one you just saw. And it's a AR platform pistol. The one you just saw with the wooden stock is an AK SKS or AK-47 type pistol. That one right there.

[00:06:42]And then the one flashing the laser with the cup in his hand uh is a pistol with a with a laser on it. on a holiday to celebrate peace and progress uh was tainted by violence in Atmore on Monday.

[00:06:58]A shooting on Martin Luther King Jr. Day left two people seriously injured on Monday night. At more police say gang violence may be to blame. Last week our IT team looked into if gang activity was driving the violence in Birmingham as the city was grappling with record-breaking homicides. We want to know what you think. Is violence in Birmingham driven by street gangs? Scan the QR code on your screen right now to vote in our poll. Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch expresses his frustration with another senseless shooting hurting innocent people.

[00:07:35]>> They're just gutless punks who fired from outside the residence into a bedroom window. So, you know, there was no forced entry attempt to enter the apartment. Investigators say a 2-year-old boy was in bed with his parents at St. Stevens Woods apartment in Whistler. At 1:00 Wednesday morning, bullets were fired into the apartment, hitting the little boy in the face.

[00:08:00]Burch says it was gang related. We believe they're all teenagers and you know, but to be fair, you know, the target was her teenage son who's involved in gang activity and he was, you know, I'm sure the intended target of the shooting. Frankly, I wish we could put them all in an arena and let them kill the hell out of each other cuz that would solve the problem.

[00:08:24]>> Now, Alabama had the third highest homicide mortality rate in the country in 2020. And now into 2022, it doesn't look like that's slowing down for some major cities. Birmingham recently ranked third among large cities for its murder rate just halfway through this year.

[00:08:40]Last night, police there responded to four shootings.

[00:08:44]>> So, Alabama would reach for a law that did not require the picture most people have in their heads when they hear the word gang. It didn't have to be a massive organization with hundreds of members. [ __ ] it don't even have to be 10 people. Under the law, it could be three or more people tied together by what the state believes is a pattern of crime.

[00:09:09]That made the law broad enough to reach smaller groups, neighborhood circles, and people connected in ways that may not look organized on paper. And what makes the law even more treacherous is how the state could try to identify who belongs to a certain group. Prosecutors could point to things like clothing, tattoos, hand signs, communication, association, being seen around known members, or even a reliable informant saying a person was connected. Those are not always dramatic things in real life.

[00:09:46]Sometimes that's just who a person grew up with, how they dress, what they post, or who they're standing beside when the police start building a case. And once that enters a courtroom, Alabama can take ordinary details from somebody's life and argue that they are not just details, they're proof of a connection.

[00:10:08]During the 2023 regular legislative session, it was a priority for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall to support a bill that gave tools to law enforcement to attack what he says is a gang violence problem.

[00:10:21]>> We've seen violent crime rise in in many of our larger cities as well as some of our rural communities. We're able to tie that activity directly into uh what's going on with our gang. Defined in the law, a criminal enterprise is a group of three or more people. A person who meets three of 10 indicators can be identified as a member. Those include a specific style of dress, the use of a hand sign, or known gang association. Marshall says the crimes they commit are also escalated. Those are the ones that ultimately uh show up in the stories where we see the sad tales of completely innocent victims that are harmed as a result of the choice that many of those make that are involved in these criminal enterprises.

[00:11:06]>> If you're found guilty of a crime that benefits a gang, you'll receive much stricter consequences.

[00:11:12]>> By the summer of 2023, Alabama would turn that public safety argument into law. Governor K. Ivy would sign the state's new criminal enterprise law on June 9th, 2023, and it would go into effect that September. To the state, it was supposed to give prosecutors a stronger answer for crimes they believe were connected to groups, guns, and organized violence.

[00:11:38]But a specific law like that doesn't really show its power when it's first signed. It shows its power when the police and the prosecutors find somebody to use it against. And Alabama didn't stop dealing with violence after the law were going to the books. The same concerns that help sell the law kept showing up in the headlines. The shootings, the homicides, weapons, younger suspects, and officials talking about groups that they believe were connected to the chaos. that would keep the pressure on law enforcement and prosecutors to prove that the new law could do exactly what they said it could do. The state had the statute and the courts had the language. Now, the only thing that was missing was a case that would show how far the law could reach.

[00:12:30]Then, in November of 2024, investigators in Mobile County got the case that would eventually test it. It didn't start with a murder or even a mass shooting. It began with a search, an arrest, and a marijuana amount that sounded low compared to the punishment people would later hear attached to it. With the unlucky name at the center of the case being Marcus Cobb Jr.

[00:12:58]>> First tonight, information about two Mobile County men indicted under a new law meant to crack down on gang violence. Now, if prosecutors convince a jury the two men were selling drugs as part of a gang, they'll face tougher penalties. Fox 10 News investigative reporter Brennan Kirby joining us now in studio.

[00:13:16]>> All right, Brendan, this is the first time this law has been used in the county since the legislature passed it in 2023.

[00:13:25]>> It is Linus and Cameron. In fact, prosecutors say they believe it's the first indictment under this statute anywhere in the state. and they say they expect more defendants will be charged in the coming months.

[00:13:39]Under ordinary circumstances, marijuana trafficking charges brought against Cameron Montreal Hall and Marcus Cobbs Jr. would carry a possible sentence of 10 years to life in prison. But if convicted under Alabama's criminal enterprise law, they face mandatory minimum prison terms of 25 years. Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood says the gang law is a powerful tool in combating violence in the city and beyond. Priority is to completely dismantle every criminal gang in our community. Uh this happened to be the first case where we were able to use uh this statute and so you know we're working very hard to uh get rid of all gang activity in Mobile. Investigators with the Mobile County Sheriff's Office say Hall and Cobbs are members of a gang. Sergeant Adam Austin, supervisor of the Sheriff's Office Intelligence Unit, says members have committed crimes and wrapped about them in music videos.

[00:14:44]Sergeant Austin says Cobbs and Hall are among 25 suspected gang members who have been arrested and that prosecutors are reviewing them to determine whether the gang enhancement may apply.

[00:14:57]as we stay in front of them and actually go after the gangs themselves, we're hoping to reduce the recruitment and overall people involved in these activities. Without the gang, there's no recruitment.

[00:15:08]>> To convict under the statute, prosecutors must prove not only the underlying crime, but the defendant meets at least three of 10 criteria indicating gang status. This can include things like gang tattoos, using gang hand signals, or identification by a reliable informant. Sergeant Austin says a significant amount of law enforcement resources have gone toward making those gang connections. He says the relatively small number of people who belong to these gangs pose an extreme danger to the public.

[00:15:45]>> A high amount is surprisingly attributed to it. I could not begin to put a percentage behind that, but it is a large amount.

[00:15:55]>> Both defendants are due in court on May 27th. Neither of them yet have attorneys listed in court records. Earlier this year, the legislature passed the law strengthening the gang law even further.

[00:16:07]It requires the Alabama law enforcement agency to create a criminal enterprise database.

[00:16:12]The case that would give the state of Alabama its first shot at the new criminal enterprise charge will begin on November 4th, 2024 on Linux Avenue near Mobile Somerville community. Marcus Cobb Jr., 23 years old at the time, was arrested during a raid.

[00:16:31]Also tied to the case was Cameron Montreal Hall, only 19 at the time, known as 4K, who would flee on foot before being arrested 3 days later. From the beginning, investigators were not looking at what they said they found at the scene. They were looking at who they believed the case was connected to.

[00:16:52]Investigators would describe Cobb and Hall as key members of SRT, which local reporting said stood for scamming, rapping, and trapping. News outlet Fox 10 will report that the trial would focus on marijuana found inside of a Dodge Durango prosecutors said belong to Cobb, along with a gun found underneath a grill in the front yard.

[00:17:18]Prosecutors would allege that Cobb was not just a member of the local street gang, but he was also the founder. They would also alleged to prove multiple gang membership markers, including admissions and music videos, a reliable informant, dress and style, tattoos, association, and being observed with other members. The case will process in the system for more than a year before it will reach a jury. Uh, if people that choose to belong to these criminal organizations don't stop what they're doing, then we will stop them when they go to prison.

[00:17:55]>> District Attorney Keith Blackwood, moments after a 25-year jail sentence, was handed down to local rapper Marcus Cobb.

[00:18:06]>> Cobb was found guilty in February of trafficking marijuana. It's a conviction that for many still offers the hope of parole at a later date, but not this time because Cobb was prosecuted and sentenced under a new Alabama law being applied for the first time in the state.

[00:18:24]The first conviction under the state's new criminal enterprise statute aimed particularly at criminal gangs.

[00:18:31]>> If he had just been charged with trafficking, uh the range of punishment would have been uh 10 to life. uh he would have been eligible for parole um in that situation at some point. Uh this 25-year sentence is a day for day uh that he must serve uh will will not get parrolled for 25 years.

[00:18:51]>> Blackwood says the criminal enterprise law targets gangs and other criminal organizations by holding their leaders, those who work closely with them accountable. The the reality is in a lot of situations, marijuana is the currency of some of these criminal enterprises or gangs. Um the this is how they fund their operations. Uh in part, uh I think that was well established at the trial.

[00:19:17]>> These new cases are tougher and the bar of proof set higher. In this case, Cobb's own rap videos were key pieces of evidence that fit this statute. It's a kind of investigation that requires extra effort, but both the DA and the sheriff believe that effort is worth it.

[00:19:34]And now that it's been applied successfully, they hope other prosecutors in Alabama will follow.

[00:19:39]>> Well, it's a huge uh tool and as the step in the right direction to get violent gang members off the street. Um, as the DA said, there's a very high bar that has to be made to apply this enhancement is not just one marker.

[00:19:56]a number of them and they're lengthy investigations sometimes. I think we've got another one coming up soon and the sheriff's office was the first agency in the state to make to apply this and the DA's office is the first one to get a conviction on it. So, >> and likely to be the first tested.

[00:20:18]Cobb's attorney has already indicated he will appeal and that is something says Blackwood that comes with the territory.

[00:20:25]This being the first case in the state of Alabama, we know this is going to be litigated. Uh we wanted to make sure that uh this was as smooth as possible for the parole board and other entities uh moving forward as this statute is litigated. Uh we want this statute to remain in place. Uh we think it's good for the safety of the community. Uh and so this being the first case, uh we wanted that process to be as smooth as possible.

[00:20:55]So, I didn't cover this case because Marcus Cobb Jr. was on a kingpin level or had a million dollars or a lot of bodies attached to his case. It wasn't even truckloads of weed where when you hear the sentence, it even sounds like it makes sense. What made it different was what y'all probably see now, the lower amount, how young the people were, and how serious the punishment became once Alabama put the criminal enterprise law on top of it. Cobb was only 23 at the time of the raid and 24 when he went to trial. And if his appeals fall through and that sentence holds, he's going to be about 50 years old before he sees or smells the streets again.

[00:21:44]And that's the main part that anybody from Alabama who's watching needs to pay attention to the most. You don't even need any prior felony convictions for prosecutors to use this law against you.

[00:21:58]They don't have to prove you were a kingpin, a boss, or the head of any major drug organization.

[00:22:06]They could build a case on you with only three people. Who you hang around, what kind of clothes you wear, the tattoos you get, what you say in your music videos, the signs you throw up, and what a person police deem as a reliable informant tells them.

[00:22:26]In certain ways, if you really look at it, it's even worse than the federal CCE 448 kingpin charge because usually a CCE is aimed at a major drug operation.

[00:22:42]While Alabama's law can take things that look normal in somebody's everyday life and turn them into proof of a criminal enterprise.

[00:22:53]That's why this specific case is way bigger than Marcus Cobb Jr. Once the state says that your charge helped a criminal enterprise, the little bit of weed won't control how the courtroom or the jurors see you anymore.

[00:23:11]Cobb became the first example, but Cameron Hall, who was only 19 when he was caught, could face the same kind of time. He could be around 45 years old before he would come home. Compared to every other state I looked at across the rest of the country, Alabama kind of stands by itself with this new criminal enterprise law. Now, other states do have gang laws and drug enhancements, but almost nowhere else will you see this kind of time tied to this low of an amount under this kind of enterprise theory. Y'all be careful out there. Now, if we got anybody from across the state in Alabama tuned in, y'all get in the comment box to let us know how y'all feel about this new law and if y'all was aware of it. And for everybody else locked in, y'all tap in downstairs. Let me know what state y'all are in. And if there are any crazy laws like this where y'all from, y'all make sure y'all hit the red bell and subscribe button right under this video so y'all know when this real trail spill [ __ ] is dropping. Y'all get in the comment box below. Y'all let me know what cities we need to go to, what stories we need to tell, what we missed, what we got wrong, all of that.

[00:24:32]Y'all make sure y'all tap in with me directly on Instagram, Twitter, P O P_A Lot T. And until the next J, y'all know how we rocking. Shades pop a lot. Salute the almighty mob.