SANTA ANA, Calif. – A jury convicted four leaders of a white-supremacist prison gang Friday on charges they used murder and intimidation to protect their drug-dealing operations behind bars.
The trial is part of what is believed to be one of the largest federal capital cases, with more than a dozen people potentially facing the death penalty.
Barry “The Baron” Mills, Tyler “The Hulk” Bingham, Edgar “The Snail” Hevle and Christopher Overton Gibson were the first defendants to stand trial in the federal racketeering case aimed at dismantling the feared Aryan Brotherhood.
They all were convicted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, of offenses known as “violent crime in aid of racketeering.” Mills and Bingham are eligible for the death penalty.
Mills, Bingham and Hevle also were convicted of a murder count for the killing of Arva Lee Ray, a prisoner slain at the Lompoc, Calif., penitentiary in 1989.
The death penalty phase against Mills and Bingham was scheduled to begin Aug. 15 with the same jury.
The defendants were charged in an indictment detailing 32 murders and attempted murders involving members of the Aryan Brotherhood over three decades.
During the four-month trial, the jury heard testimony from convicted killers, former gang members and jailhouse informants. Some testified they had been involved in murder plots hatched by the gang to kill those who violated its rules.
Since its founding in 1964 at San Quentin in California, the Aryan Brotherhood has infiltrated nearly every federal and state prison and devised a number of means for members to stay in touch.
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