Prison scheme to murder witness, prosecutors and rival gang members foiled by FBI

PROVIDENCE – A prisoner in a federal holding facility in Central Falls conspired with another man to kill five people, including two federal prosecutors, according to an indictment handed up by a grand jury last week in U.S. Dis t rict Court .

Elijah Melton faced fentanyl trafficking charges and was held at the Donald F. Wyatt Detention Facility . While there, he set a plan in motion to target two assistant U.S. Attorneys, two rival gang members and a hostile witness on whose head he put a $150,000 bounty, according to an FBI agent's affidavit.

To set the scheme in motion, Melton sought assistance from another prisoner at the Wyatt Detention Facility earlier this year who eventually told the FBI about the plot, says the affidavit, which was filed in U.S. District Court, Boston, in May.

The account is full of details about how agents targeted Melton with help from the informant as Melton allegedly tried to target the two prosecutors.

Melton and the informant agreed to refer to one of the prosecutors as "Hannah Montana" and chose "Miley Cyrus" as the code name for the other prosecutor, according to the affidavit's author, FBI Special Agent Zach Brune.

Miley Cyrus is an actress and singer who played the character Hannah Montana in a TV teen sitcom popular about 15 years ago.

If the informant referred to songs like "Wrecking Ball," a Miley Cyrus hit, Melton would know what he was talking about, the FBI says.

If he said something such as, "I like that song," it would mean he would carry out the killings.

"'I'm done listening to that song' would mean that the slaying was complete," the FBI said.

An initial appearance Monday in U.S. District Court, Providence

Melton and Kareem "Reem" Pires were arrested in May.

Pires made his first appearance in U.S. District Court, Providence, on Monday, pleading not guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lincoln Almond.

Melton's arraignment is scheduled for July 10. Both men remain in federal custody.

Both men face charges of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, conspiracy to tamper with a witness by attempting to kill, and three counts of solicitation to commit a crime of violence.

Alleged conspiracy has ties to fentanyl

Melton was arrested in Massachusetts in December after he was accused of participating in a conspiracy to distribute more than 400 grams of fentanyl.

He was jailed at Wyatt in late February.

Soon after that, a cellmate told federal agents that Melton had tried to recruit him to kill the witness in the case, the FBI says.

Melton believed the cellmate's release from Wyatt was pending and he offered to coordinate the delivery of $75,000 to the other prisoner's family.

The informant told agents that Melton had apprised him of the city the witness lived in, the car the witness drove and even details about the witness's watch, the FBI says.

Later, he says, during a jailhouse exchange that was recorded, Melton directed the informant to borrow someone else's phone and use it to find information about the two prosecutors on LinkedIn.

Mention of a 'silencer' in jailhouse chat

Melton and the informant talked about the support that Pires would provide.

Brune's account of the recorded conversation quotes Melton extensively:

"When you get to Reem, tell him to show you a picture, a video," Melton says in one section that's focused on finding the rival gang members.

It includes discussion of a silencer.

A meeting in Quincy – and a shooting

When the cooperative informant was released from Wyatt on April 22, he carried a letter that Melton had drafted for Pires, says Brune.

The informant and Pires met on April 24 in Quincy, the FBI said.

The former prisoner recorded Pires saying he would provide packages that would provide "as much info as possible" on the two rival gang members and the witness, the FBI says.

Pires arrived in a Ford Explorer, registered to Hertz, with a rear window blown out and a bullet hole in the side door, says Brune.

A footnote in the affidavit mentions that Massachusetts State Police had been investigating a highway shooting just before the meeting.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Prison scheme to murder witness, prosecutors and rival gang members foiled by FBI