Prison gang stopped at nothing: prosecutor

By Tori Richards

SANTA ANA, Calif (Reuters) – The Aryan Brotherhood prison
gang used intimidation and murder to control a vast criminal
enterprise from inside America’s toughest prisons, a federal
prosecutor said in closing arguments on Tuesday.

As the four-month-old racketeering and conspiracy trial of
four alleged leaders of the gang drew toward a conclusion,
assistant U.S. Attorney Terri Flynn told jurors the gang’s
members risked death if they strayed from its rules.

“The Aryan Brotherhood will stop at nothing to maintain its
power and control, and operating the criminal enterprise as it
should. Even its own members weren’t safe,” Flynn said.

Pointing at the four middle-aged defendants, dressed in
civilian clothes but shackled to the floor with chains, Flynn
said: “These men ran the Aryan Brotherhood. They imposed murder
when necessary to keep the goals of the Aryan Brotherhood
operating as they should. How did they do that? By taking out
anyone in their path.”

Convicted killer and suspected Aryan Brotherhood chief
Barry “The Baron” Mills, his alleged top lieutenant Tyler “the
Hulk” Bingham, Christopher Gibson and Edgar “the Snail” Hevle
went on trial in March in the government’s first salvo in a
legal war that prosecutors hope will break the gang.

Prosecutors in one of the largest death penalty cases in
U.S. history have alleged that the Brotherhood orchestrated 32
murders or attempted murders over a 30-year period from behind
the bars of some of America’s maximum-security prisons.

The trial has focused heavily on testimony from former gang
members, convicted killers and informants who have told
chilling tales of death orders written in urine and weapons
secreted in the genitals of prison visitors.

The prosecution case revolves around a 1997 race riot at a
Pennsylvania prison that led to the deaths of two members of a
rival prison gang — the DC blacks.

Prosecutors say the murders were ordered by Mills and
Bingham while they were behind bars at another prison. Flynn
said the two rival gang members were stabbed 35 times.

The defense has argued that the government’s case is built
on evidence from convicts who testified in exchange for favors
in the form of cash, Internet access and pornography.

Flynn showed the jury materials seized from prison cells,
including a membership list and the Brotherhood code of conduct
under which members were expected to generate income through
drug trafficking and gambling both inside and outside prison.

Defense lawyers have argued that Brotherhood members were
acting in self defense. Some black members of rival gangs have
testified that the Aryan Brotherhood was too small and weak to
have ordered the 1997 Pennsylvania prison murders.

The Aryan Brotherhood began as a mostly white group of
inmates who banded together at California’s San Quentin state
prison in the 1960s to protect themselves against the larger
populations of black and Hispanic prisoners.

Forty individuals were originally charged in the case in
2002. Up to 16 could face the death penalty if convicted.
Nineteen have struck plea bargains, one defendant has died and
trials are pending for the rest.