And the saga of Afrika Owes continues. Yesterday, the 17-year-old accused of ferrying drugs for her boyfriend's Harlem gang was released from Rikers after the Abyssinian Baptist Church used their funds to post her $25,000 bail and give her a second chance. Just like Patty Hearst! Church deacon Gerald Barbour said, "Whatever the facts are, she’s one of ours."
Owes, who spent her time in Rikers studying for her SATs, was charged with gang conspiracy with the 137th Street Crew. She was allegedly taking instructions from her boyfriend Jaquan Layne, who is doing time at Rikers, and he was recorded telling her things like, "If [expletive] gets crazy, make sure, head shots only; head shots only." But former youth minister Rev. Eboni Marshall Turman told the Times the church felt like the got caught up with the wrong people: “This was not supposed to be Afrika’s story. She was supposed to be headed to Barnard. She is a voracious reader, a girl who wanted to be a writer, a poet. She is a girl who just stands out. And after this happened, some of us felt, ‘If we can’t help someone like Afrika, who can we help?'"
Owes has been charged with conspiracy and weapons possession, and will go on trial in September. She had been a straight-A student at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, but was expelled, and before her arrest her grades had been slipping at downtown's Millenium High School. Church Deacon Bobby Anderson reportedly told her when she was in Rikers, "Young lady, you owe me. You owe a lot of us."
