A longtime member of Portland's Hoover Criminal Gang walked out of federal custody this week after a judge sentenced him to time served for racketeering conspiracy, capping four years behind bars and closing out one of the final chapters in a sprawling federal case against the gang. Erick Devon Butler, 35, of Vancouver, Washington, also saw a separate felon-in-possession gun charge tied to an alleged 2022 nightclub shooting dismissed as part of a global plea agreement.
U.S. District Judge Amy M. Baggio accepted the jointly recommended sentence, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive, whose reporter Maxine Bernstein covered the hearing. Butler pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy in April 2024, and per the same report, Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Mygrant said Butler admitted to his conduct and racketeering activity as part of that plea. Mygrant told the court the time-served sentence was appropriate given the circumstances of the case.
Butler will now serve three years of federal supervision, a term governed by federal law that allows judges to impose up to five years of court-enforced monitoring after imprisonment for felonies of this severity. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3583, violating those conditions can trigger mandatory revocation and a return to prison — a risk made concrete by Butler's own record. He was granted a temporary furlough in January 2025 to attend his grandmother's funeral, and he violated the conditions of that release, according to the report.
A Judge's Warning Amid a Difficult Past
Baggio told Butler he had hurt many people and brought chaos into the community, but she also recognized that he had a difficult childhood and had been involved in the criminal justice system since age 12. She said Butler had made choices that led to his current situation, and she expressed concern that he might not fully understand the seriousness of it. The judge told him he had an opportunity to become a different person, urging him to demonstrate compliance rather than merely promise it.
Butler's defense lawyer, Tyl Bakker, said the negotiated joint recommendation was appropriate under the circumstances and noted the federal cases had taken a long time to negotiate. Bakker said the recommendation accounted for both the strengths and weaknesses of the government's case as well as mitigation tied to Butler's childhood. He added that Butler assured him he would follow the conditions of his federal supervision going forward.
Butler's criminal history spans Multnomah and Clark counties and includes prior convictions for possession of a firearm, robbery, attempted robbery, theft, assault, possession of a controlled substance, and interfering with police. The dismissed felon-in-possession case stemmed from an alleged shooting at a Portland nightclub on Northeast Columbia Boulevard in May 2022. Had that gun charge gone forward, federal law under 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g) and 924(a)(8) carries a statutory maximum of 15 years in prison — a ceiling Congress raised from 10 years under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022.
Part of a Years-Long Federal Crackdown
Prosecutors have described the Hoover gang as one of the most violent in Portland, and the 2022 racketeering trial — Oregon's first federal racketeering trial of a street-level gang — offered a rare window into the group's operations, tying it to shootings, beat downs, home invasion robberies, drug dealing, and pimping. The Hoover Criminal Gang traces its roots to Los Angeles in the late 1960s and set up shop in Portland in the early 1980s, eventually splintering into subsets like the 107 Hoovers and 74 Hoovers with an estimated 200 members and associates in the metro area, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The broader investigation, known as Operation Bust a Groove, produced roughly 38 federal indictments covering RICO conspiracy, murder in aid of racketeering, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and firearm offenses, per the Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program. Senior Hoover leaders Lorenzo Laron Jones and Ronald Clayton Rhodes were sentenced to life in federal prison plus an additional 10 years in October 2023 after being convicted in that landmark trial, a stark contrast to the outcome Butler received. Hoodline previously reported on four Hoover members federally indicted for murder in aid of racketeering in connection with the December 2020 ambush killing of Portland Uber driver Dhulfiqar Mseer, an Iraqi refugee shot while trying to pick up a passenger.
The federal push against the gang has also reached beyond its own members. Statements from cooperators in the racketeering investigation prompted an Oregon State Police probe in April 2022 into three Multnomah County jail deputies accused of opening cell doors to let inmates fight in ways that favored Hoover members, though local prosecutors ultimately declined to file criminal charges due to witness credibility issues, according to KGW.
Why exactly Butler's court records have been sealed since sentencing remains unclear, and it is not known how closely federal probation officials will monitor his three years of supervised release given his prior furlough violation. Those questions linger even as this piece of Portland's long-running Hoover prosecution reaches its conclusion.
