Gang based in Nevada prisons targeted
Federal authorities have taken out key members of a violent white supremacist gang responsible for murder, bribing guards and trafficking drugs inside and outside Nevada prisons, officials announced Thursday.
Fourteen members or associates of the Aryan Warriors were indicted by federal authorities. They are accused of a variety of crimes, from slashing a man with a blade to bribing public officials with drugs and money, according to the indictment.
Six of the men indicted were serving time at Ely State prison or the High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs, 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
“It’s obviously a serious problem both inside the prison and on the street,” said David Staretz, supervisory special agent for the Las Vegas FBI.
The FBI began investigating the Aryan Warriors in January 2004, after the Nevada Department of Corrections asked for assistance, officials said.
The man accused of being the gang’s ringleader, 39-year-old Ronald “Joey” Sellers, was being held out of state in protective custody, authorities said. Sellers is serving two life sentences without the chance for parole for first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and robbery with a deadly weapon, according to federal records.
Known as “Fuzzy,” Sellers functioned as the “Supreme Horn Holder” or ultimate leader of the Aryan Warriors. Authorities accuse him of controlling the organization from prison, including directing members outside prison, in Las Vegas, Henderson, Pahrump and Reno. Authorities alleged that the 14 indicted men recruited prison guards and women outside the prison to sell drugs in those cities. The women and guards would also smuggle drugs into prison, according to the indictment.
Money from the drug distribution was used as “start-up” funds for Aryan Warriors freed from prison, officials said.
Sellers is accused of drug trafficking, violent acts, extortion, corrupting public officials and running various gambling schemes.
Sellers’ second in command, Daniel Joseph Egan, also known as “Dano,” was behind bars at the Clark County Detention Center when the indictment was unsealed Thursday. The charges against Egan are similar to those Sellers faces.
The 32-year-old Egan was arrested March 25 on separate charges, including possession of a dangerous weapon, possession of a controlled substance, carrying a concealed weapon, auto burglary and other charges.
The Aryan Warriors are accused of ruling the prisons with an iron fist.
Gang members bribed the guards to look the other way at gambling and other illegal activities, the indictment stated. They also bribed guards for information on prisoners who were homosexual, informants or serving time for child molestation. The Aryan Warriors used the information to extort the inmates, the indictment stated. Gang members also extorted money from inmates’ families by threatening to harm their relatives who were behind bars, the indictment stated.
Officials with the Corrections Department wouldn’t comment on the indictment, except to say the investigation is ongoing.
Staretz hinted that prison staff might face charges in connection with the Aryan Warriors’ activities.
“There might be superseding indictments down the road. This is not the end of the investigation,” he said.
The gang has operated throughout the Nevada prison system for at least 17 years. But some experts believe members have been active for more than 30 years.
The Aryan Warriors first were involved in “protecting” white inmates and promoting white supremacy and white separatism in Nevada’s prisons. However, they eventually became involved in drug dealing and made alliances with nonwhite prison gangs such as the Surenos, a predominantly Hispanic gang, to facilitate drug dealing, the indictment stated.
Michele Lefkowith, the southwest regional investigator with the Anti-Defamation League, said the Aryan Warriors began in California along side the Aryan Brotherhood, one of the most notorious white supremacist prison gangs. She said, however, that the Aryan Warriors weren’t generally accepted by the Aryan Brotherhood and “appear to be operating as their own entity.”
Lefkowith, who consults with law enforcement and prison officials in Nevada, said California and southwestern states have seen a rise in white supremacist gangs that operate inside and outside prisons. Some of those groups, such as the Soldiers of Aryan Culture and Silent Aryan Warriors of Utah and the Orange County, Calif.-based Public Enemy Number One, are newer, while the Aryan Warriors and Aryan Brotherhood are more established groups.
In late June, a 27-year-old member of the white supremacist group the Silent Aryan Warriors shot and killed a 60-year-old corrections officer in Salt Lake City before fleeing from custody. Authorities later took the heavily tattooed Curtis Michael Allgier into custody.
Federal officials said there didn’t appear to be a connection between the Aryan Warriors and the Silent Aryan Warriors.
Federal officials have recently begun cracking down on white supremacist prison gangs in the southwest. In June, federal officials in New Mexico indicted 19 people connected to the Aryan Brotherhood for murder and racketeering charges similar to those brought against the Aryan Warriors.
Natalie Collins, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Las Vegas, said there wasn’t a coordinated regional effort to crack down on white supremacist groups in prisons, but U.S. attorneys’ offices across the nation are pursuing indictments against gang violence and gang-related crime.
The five men who were serving time in Ely State Prison at the time of the indictment were James Milton Wallis, 46; Guy Edward Almony, 35; Charles Lee Axtell, 47; Robert Allen Young, 29; and Scott Michael Sieber, 39, the U.S. attorney’s office stated.
Another man indicted on Thursday, 32-year-old Jason Inman, was serving time at the High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs and another, Kory Allen Crossman, 34, was in federal custody.
Authorities also took four men into custody Thursday morning in Las Vegas. They are Ronnie Lee Jones, 47; Tony Howard Morgan, 38; Kenneth Russell Krum, 37; and Charles Edward Gensemer, 43.
Another man, 53-year-old Michael Wayne Yost, was taken into custody in Pahrump.
They all face charges of criminal racketeering and violent crime in aid of racketeering.
On Thursday, Jones, Morgan, Krum, Gensemer and Yost appeared in federal court in Las Vegas and pleaded not guilty. The men were kept in custody.
Krum’s father, Kenneth Krum Sr., 58, said his son had been in prison twice for drug offenses and mostly served time in Ely. The elder Krum said the announcement of the indictment “came as a complete surprise.”
He described his son as unemployed and tattooed. He said he didn’t know whether his son was involved in a white supremacist gang.
“His friends like that (white supremacists) never came around,” he said.
