Banished from his kingdom, and now in lockdown at the state prison in Camp Hill, is Robert "Nudie" Mims, 53, a convicted killer serving life without parole.
As the Iman, or religious head of Graterford's large Muslim population, Mims (now known as Ameen Jabbar) had his own battalion of loyal followers.
But more importantly, says a law enforcement source close to the investigation, Mims's true power base was his own office, with a phone link to the streets - and to drugs, and women.
Mims reputedly arranged for prostitutes, and others with contraband, to be smuggled into the prison without being searched, said the law enforcement source. These people often entered the prison posing as Muslim faithful. As the religious services were going on in one room, a brothel was being run in another, he said.
The clout of Mims, an imposing 6-foot-4, 225 pounds, is no secret to law enforcement. He is a founder of the Philadelphia Black Mafia of the 1970s and was a mentor to the younger generation, the Junior Black Mafia, a decade later.
Mims is serving life sentences for two homicides, including one during the notorious terror-attack in 1971 of the Dubrow's Furniture Store. During that holdup - called "the most vicious . . . I have ever come across" by the late Frank Rizzo, then police commissioner - Mims and his gang shot two people, tied up and pistol whipped 20 others, doused a man with gasoline and set him afire, then tried to burn down the store.
Despite his imprisonment at Graterford, Mims has not relinquished his ties with the street. During the 1980s, according to the FBI at the time, Mims ran a heroin ring in Northwest Philadelphia. Since then, he has allegedly been a major conduit for drugs smuggled into the prisons.
