Ninth Defendant Pleads Guilty: Boston H-Block Gang Member Robert Heckstall Admits Drug Conspiracy, Sentencing Set for January 26, 2027
Robert Heckstall, 43, of Roxbury in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, also known as Ribbs, Buck and Buck Corleone, has pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston. A longtime member of the violent Boston-based H-Block gang, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute PCP and the synthetic cannabinoids MDMB-4en-PINACA and ADB-4en-PINACA, being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani scheduled sentencing for January 26, 2027. Heckstall is the ninth defendant to plead guilty in the case. He was one of 10 H-Block members and associates charged in August 2024 following a multi-year investigation begun in 2021 into gang-related drug trafficking, shootings and violence, during which investigators seized over 500 grams of cocaine, cocaine base and fentanyl, and over 20,000 doses of drug-laced paper.
According to the charging documents, H-Block is one of the most feared and influential city-wide gangs in Boston. Originally formed in the 1980s as the Humboldt Raiders in the Roxbury section of Boston, it re-emerged in the 2000s as H-Block, and its members have a history of violent confrontation with law enforcement, including a 2015 incident in which a member shot a Boston police officer at point blank range without warning.
Heckstall was one of three members and associates charged with conspiring to smuggle illegal drugs into a Massachusetts prison. Prosecutors say sheets of paper saturated with liquid narcotics are dried, printed with fake legal correspondence and mailed to inmates in envelopes marked as legal mail; a single sheet can be worth as much as $80,000 inside the prison. Intercepted jail calls showed Heckstall conspiring to introduce synthetic drugs into the facilities, and when he was arrested investigators found three firearms and over 60 grams of cocaine in his apartment.
The drug conspiracy and cocaine charges carry up to 20 years in prison, at least three years and up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of up to $1 million. The felon-in-possession charge carries up to 15 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and governing statutes.
The case was announced by United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Jarod A. Forget of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New England Field Division; Mark Comorosky of the U.S. Secret Service Boston Field Office; Ted E. Docks of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; Kelly M. Lawson of the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General; and Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox. Assistant U.S. Attorney John T. Dawley is prosecuting the case. The details in the charging documents are allegations, and the remaining defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
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