NYC Chinatown Gangster Uses ‘White Devil John’ and Exon Exec Kidnapper to Vouch for Him in Bid for Compassionate Release

A notorious gang boss who led a murderous crew in New York City's Chinatown is trying to convince a judge to let him out of jail on compassionate grounds.

In his corner: A pair of notorious fellow convicts who are happy to vouch for his character.

David Thai, the leader of the "Born to Kill" gang, filed for release from a federal medical facility in Devens, Massachusetts, on Wednesday under the First Step Act, a law passed in 2018 that allows federal prisoners to seek early release.

In his bid for freedom, Thai, 67, sent Brooklyn federal court Judge Carol Bagley Amon voluminous records about his medical issues, which include fainting spells, a heart attack and Shy-Drager syndrome—a neurological condition that affects the brain and the spinal cord.

But perhaps most eyebrow-raising is the list of fellow inmates who are lobbying Judge Amon on Thai's behalf.

One of his chief cheerleaders: John Willis, known as “White Devil John,” a white man from Dorchester, Massachusetts, who rose to be a kingpin in Boston’s Chinatown underworld. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2013 after his conviction for drug trafficking and money laundering.

“I have worked as a barber for almost three years providing haircuts to those housed in the hospital units. I have come to know David Thai very well,” Willis told the judge.

“When working the hospital unit, I always look for David who always is well-mannered, humble, helpful and pleasant,” Willis added.

Fellow inmate Arthur Seale, 76, described Thai as a cheerful presence at the medical facility in his letter to the judge.

“He is without a doubt a changed man from the individual who was sentenced many years ago and has developed a reputation as a person who is cheerfully willing to help other patient inmates with their daily living needs in the hospital environment,” Seale wrote.

Seale, a former New Jersey police officer, touched off one of the nation’s largest kidnapping investigations when he and his wife abducted Exxon executive Sidney J. Reso in his driveway in 1992.

The couple had planned to hold Reso for a $18.5 million ransom, but Seale ended up shooting him in the forearm as they struggled to force him into a wooden box in the back of a van.

After he was shot, the couple shackled him, put duct tape over his mouth and eyes and put him in the wooden box that they placed in a New Jersey storage facility, where he died four days later.

Seale was sentenced to 95 years in prison in 1992.

Seale sought release from prison in 2020, which was shot down by a federal judge. In their response to the request, federal prosecutors called Seale a “self-aggrandizing sociopath.”

As for Thai — he was sentenced to life in prison in 1992 after his conviction in a RICO case in Brooklyn federal court that dismantled his violent street gang.

The Vietnamese-American kingpin emigrated to New York from Saigon in the 1970s and worked as an enforcer for the Flying Dragons before starting Born to Kill in 1988.

During Thai’s reign, the gang reportedly ruthlessly seized rackets on Canal Street and Mott Street in Manhattan’s Chinatown, extorting business owners, killing rival gangsters — even bombing an NYPD cop car in retaliation for police enforcement.

In a particularly violent outburst, members of a rival gang shot five people at a cemetery in New Jersey in 1990 while Born to Kill gangsters were burying a member who had been slain on Canal Street.

The gunmen posed as mourners, dropped bouquets of flowers and opened fire with machine guns and a shotgun at the crowd of about 100 people.

In his letter to Judge Amon, Thai said he is remorseful every day about the harm he caused by starting the gang.

"I wish to tell Your Honor now that these are the things I live with every day and must take to my final days on this earth and am truly sorry for the harm that I caused others and my community," he wrote.

It's unclear when Judge Amon will rule on his request.