In the iconic mob movie Goodfellas, the wiseguys were at the apex of the prison pecking order in the 1960s and ’70s.
They ate steaks, drank and were generally merry. Paying off guards and terrifying inmates made life behind bars for the top dogs in gangland relatively painless.
That was then.
The top dog honour now belongs to the infamous prison gang, the Aryan Brotherhood. They control drugs, gambling, extortion prostitution, contraband and myriad other crimes in the joint — and out on the streets.
Festooned with Swastika tattoos and other Nazi symbolism, their motto is “Blood in. Blood out.” Meaning, you have to kill to get into the 20,000-strong gang. And the only way out is in a pine box.
Most traditional mobsters will do almost anything to stay out of the crowbar hotel. For the racist Brotherhood, American prisons are their natural surroundings — like a duck in a pond.
This week two of the gang’s pooh-bahs — Ronald “Renegade” Yandell, 62, and William Sylvester, 56 — were sentenced to spend their last breathing second in this realm of tears in the slammer.
The pair ordered up murders by the handful and were done in by the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The mobster’s enemy RICO comes into play when there is a criminal conspiracy to commit a crime.
Yandell remained defiant, telling the court: “I’m still standing, and my life hasn’t changed. I ain’t easy to kill, and I’ll be back before this court on appeal.”
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Before the 1960s, most American prisons were segregated, but as they began integrating, jailhouse gangs were dividing along racial lines.
The Aryan Brotherhood was first formed at San Quentin in the 1960s as a way for white convicts to protect themselves against Black and Latin gangs. Members of the Manson Family tried to join but were rebuffed because the Brotherhood took umbrage at the hippie freaks’ slaying of pregnant movie star Sharon Tate.
Spreading like wildfire through the Golden State’s prison system, the Brotherhood soon dominated prison yards from Soledad to Angola. Even Corrections officers weren’t safe.
In 1983, two guards were stabbed to death at Marion USP in Illinois. But by the 1990s, racially motivated murders had become passe with the gang more interested in making money than purifying the prison blood.
One of the new leaders was a thug from California named Barry “The Baron” Mills, who was initiated at San Quentin. In 1979, Mills nearly beheaded another convict over a gambling debt at USP Atlanta.
But the Baron was a far-sighted crime boss, and the gang became more wealthy and powerful, absorbing smaller gangs like the Dirty White Boys and striking strategic alliances with the Gambino crime family, Hells Angels, and the Mexican Mafia.
The Angels — the world’s largest outlaw motorcycle club — and the Aryan Brotherhood are natural allies. Both groups draw membership from white working-class communities.
In the late 1980s, the AB was involved in an internal Hells Angels power struggle in Oakland. That particular battle ended with the high-profile June 6, 1989 murder of Hells Angels vice-president Michael O’Farrell.
But murder has remained a constant on the menu. Mills and gang second banana Tyler Bingham were convicted of murder, conspiracy, drug trafficking and racketeering. Federal prosecutors wanted to put the pair on the night train to Nowhere.
They got the next closest thing: Supermax. Arch-criminal Mills pegged out on July 8, 2018, the day after his 70th birthday.
The Aryan Brotherhood, however, lives on.
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Yandell was already serving 65 years to life for murder and voluntary manslaughter when he ordered a prison rubout on Aug. 15, 2015, at a lockup in Sacramento. Two killers were offered spots in the Brotherhood if they snuffed out the other jailbird.
As a chaser, cash from the Aryan Brotherhood would be directed to support the killers. Yandell was accused just last month of pulling a shiv on a guard.
Sylvester earned his button in the Brotherhood for murdering a fellow inmate at a Sacramento prison in 2001. That jailbird was targeted for death for reportedly refusing the AB’s authority.
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Gambino crime family godfather John Gotti was sentenced to life in prison in 1992. The Teflon Don needed protection in the Big House and turned to the Aryan Brotherhood for help.
In exchange, the gangster from Queens established a business partnership with the low-rent thugs, greatly expanding the AB’s power on the streets.
And when a Black inmate attacked Gotti, The Baron began plotting convict Walter Johnson’s demise. Testimony in 2006 revealed that Gotti was offering $500,000 for the hit.
Former member Kevin Roach testified: “(Mills) told us that he wanted us to accept the contract and he wanted me to send word to all the brothers because John Gotti was willing to pay a good sum.
“He wanted to show that the Aryan Brotherhood could get anyone, anywhere and … that shooting someone in a maximum security prison would make an impact on the prison population.”
The hit was never carried out and Gotti died in prison in 2002.
But one thing was certain — it wasn’t the wiseguys calling the shots in the prison yard, it was the Aryan Brotherhood.