6/6/19
Federal officials in Sacramento indicted more than a dozen members and affiliates of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang on Thursday, alleging that top officials within the organization used smuggled phones to order murders and orchestrate a multi-state drug trafficking operation from their cells. Sixteen defendants, including nine inmates, were named in a criminal complaint alleging federal racketeering, murder, drug trafficking and other charges stemming from a five-year investigation into extensive, organized criminal activity inside California’s most secure prisons, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Authorities say that two of the inmates, Ronald Yandell, 56, and Daniel “Danny” Troxell, 66, are well-known members of the Aryan Brotherhood Commission, a three-man council that runs the white supremacist organization. “What we report today is a very significant setback for one of California’s most notorious prison gangs,” U.S. Atty. McGregor W. Scott said at a news conference in Sacramento.
In a 143-page criminal complaint, the U.S. attorney’s office said a 2015 legal settlement allowed inmates like Yandell to be moved from solitary confinement at Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit and into “less-stringent California prison environments” and led to an increase in the gang’s power, revenues and membership. Troxell was among the plaintiffs in the class-action suit filed by a group of Pelican Bay inmates against the state.
The complaint also charges inmates William Sylvester, 51; Travis Burhop, 46; Brant Daniel, 44; Donald Mazza, 48, Pat Brady, 48; Michael Torres, 55; and Jason Corbett, 47. When the investigation began, Yandell, Troxell, Sylvester, Burhop, Torres and Corbett were all serving life sentences for murder. Authorities say Yandell and Sylvester, cellmates at Folsom prison since 2015, oversaw a large heroin and methamphetamine trafficking operation. Though the Aryan Brotherhood differs from a white nationalist movement that has enjoyed growth across the U.S. in recent years, members of violent racist street gangs in California still see membership in the infamous prison organization as a badge of honor.
