WHITNEY HOUSTON PAYS OFF DRUG GANGSTERS

Source:UK Express

Sunday April 5,2009
By Mke Parker

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TROUBLED diva Whitney Houston secretly paid a $400,000 ransom demand to kidnappers who threatened to kill her ex-husband Bobby Brown, a bombshell new book claims.

Brown was snatched and held “naked and hog tied” at gunpoint by members of a notorious New York street gang known as the Preacher Crew, according to author David Collins.

He was later allowed to make one phone call to Whitney, in which he pleaded with her to personally deliver the ransom to an abandoned building in the Bronx.

Disguised in a wig and dark glasses, the terrified singer obeyed, and handed over a duffle bag containing the cash 24 hours later to 6ft 7in gang boss Clarence “Preacher” Heatley, says Collins.

He claims the kidnapping, which was never reported to police, happened in April 1993 when Whitney was at the peak of her fame with her film The Bodyguard and its soundtrack album, both huge hits. Unlike the movie, however, in which Kevin Costner co-starred as her heroic minder, Whitney was forced to face her then husband’s kidnappers alone to hand over the ransom before they were both allowed to walk away free.

Former gang member Collins claims in his autobiography, Preacher of the Streets, that Brown was snatched over a $25,000 debt to a New Jersey drug dealer. Heatley, currently serving life without parole after admitting being involved in 13 gang-related killings, allegedly paid the dealer and “took over the debt”.

Heatley – described by Collins as an eighteen-and-a-half stone “mountain of evil” – then told gang members he had a plan “to make a whole lot more than $25,000”. His henchmen were sent to a Manhattan nightclub, where they allegedly plied Brown with high-grade cocaine, later luring him to a Bronx apartment with the promise of more.

Collins claims Brown was taken to a sleazy, abandoned apartment that had been taken over by Preacher Crew members. There, he was “knocked out with one punch” by one of Heatley’s henchmen. “When he awoke, Bobby was naked and hog-tied, his mouth stuffed with a rag,” says Collins.

The Pre-acher then showed up and took the rag out of Bobby’s mouth. ‘It’s a shame we have to kill you,’ Preacher told Bobby. Bobby begged for his life and said Whitney could pay the debt.

“The Preacher left the room and his men then terrorised Bobby for two hours. They kicked him. They told him they would kill Whitney. One of them put a gun to his head. Bobby was weeping when the Preacher came back in the room, begging the Preacher to let him call Whitney.”

This, according to Collins, was the fear tactic Heatley believed would help him score a big financial hit. Brown was allowed to phone Whitney, telling her he would be killed unless she paid the gang. Heatley, according to Collins, then took the phone from Brown.

As Whitney pleaded with him to spare her husband, “they came to an agreement. She was personally going to bring $400,000 to get her man back. The next day, she did just that. She was wearing a wig. She paid the money. Bobby was free to go.”

Collins writes: “Once they were gone, Preacher sat there with the duffle bag of money and split it with his men. Preacher kept over $200,000 of it.” Collins believes both Brown and Whitney were lucky to escape shaken but virtually unscathed.

In his book he recounts his own years as a member of the Preacher Crew, whose income was derived mainly from drug dealing in Harlem and the Bronx and whose trademark was torturing victims who couldn’t or wouldn’t settle their drug debts.

Writes Collins: “Members would slice off body parts of rival dealers or defaulters before killing them.” The gang was eventually busted by police in a series of raids that landed its key figures in prison.

Spokespeople for both Whitney and Brown yesterday refused to discuss the kidnap allegations. But relatives are bound to be horrified by yet another account of the couple’s descent into what Whitney’s 73-year-old mother Cissy described as “a living hell”.

Brown, 40, and Whitney 45, were divorced in April 2007 after a torrid 15-year marriage, during which she went into rehab three times, police were called to their mansion numerous times and child welfare workers threatened to take their daughter Bobbi, now 15, into custody.

At the time of the alleged kidnapping, Whitney was one of the world’s leading singers and a fast-rising Hollywood A-list star.

She still holds the record for the greatest number of consecutive number one hits – seven – and, at the time of the alleged kidnapping, topped the US charts for 14 weeks running with her spin-off single from The Bodyguard movie I Will Always Love You – still the third-highest- selling song in the history of music.

As her career soared, singer and actor Brown’s nosedived dramatically. Within the space of a few years, hers did too. Whitney’s drug problems finally became public in 2000 when pot was found in her tote bag on a flight to Hawaii.

She admitted the extent of her abuse in a 2002 television interview in which she poured her heart out about snorting coke, smoking pot and popping pills.

After a court battle, Whitney eventually agreed a shared custody deal over daughter Bobbi with Brown, who failed recently in an attempt to launch a tele­vision reality show in the US.

Whitney, meanwhile, has teamed up professionally again with music mogul Clive Davis, her former mentor, and has been in the recording studio laying down tracks for a comeback album she and Davis hope to release this year.