⁣In the summer of 2016, Ronald Dean Yandell was as on top of the world as a man doomed to spend the rest of his days in a prison cell could be.
Prison officials, citing Yandell’s membership in the Aryan Brotherhood, had kept him locked away in a modern-day dungeon; he had spent 15 years in solitary confinement at California’s most notorious and secure prison, Pelican Bay.
But in 2015, after statewide hunger strikes and lawsuits challenging the use of solitary confinement, Yandell was transferred to New Folsom prison in Sacramento. For the first time this century, he had a cellmate, relatively easy access to other inmates and he managed to get something else: a contraband cellphone, and with it the ability to reach like-minded gangsters throughout California.
What followed, according to federal prosecutors, was an attempted takeover of the state prison system’s other predominantly white gangs, which has resulted in one of the biggest organized crime takedowns in California.
The indictment explained how at least one defendant was a direct beneficiary of the settlement, and how another defendant, Kevin McNamera, an Orange County, California attorney, allegedly met with prisoners to deliver contraband under the guise of attorney-client meetings. Defendant Petty worked for Golden State Oversight, a company that provides monthly care packages to prisoners, and reportedly conspired to smuggle contraband in package items.
The indictment stated that AB members “conducted extensive, widespread, organized, criminal activity from within California’s most secure prison environments.” It said contraband cell phones were used to coordinate distribution of drugs not only within California but in “South Dakota, Missouri, and elsewhere.” The illicit cell phones were also used to “orchestrate violent crimes,” including murder plots, “both inside and outside of California’s prisons,” and to arrange smuggling of other contraband. The indictment further described murders committed by AB members, including photos of bloody weapons and crime scenes.


It’s now the 2 year anniversary of the indictment that featured Ronnie “Renegade” Yandell as the lead defendant. Yandell was convicted of murder and manslaughter related to a 2001 double homicide in El Sobrante.
The other defendants include Danniel Troxell, “Billy” Sylvester, 5-Yandell’s cellmate, Travis Burhop, Brant Daniel,; Pat Brady, Jason Corbett, ; Matthew Hall, Samuel Keeton, Michael Torres, Jeanna Quesenberry, Kevin MacNamara, Kristen Demar, Justin Petty and Kathleen Nolan and Donald Mazza,8 - former leader of the Public Enemy # Street gang.
This is far from the full lineup of the California AB, but represents the set of people caught up in a particular set of conspiracies which alledge five murders, four murder plots, prison drug trafficking and other crimes.
Prosecutors allege Yandell and Troxell are part of the three-man commission that runs the California wing of the gang. Troxell, 66, serving a life sentence for murder, is the guy who wrote the ederal complaint in 2009 that eventually led California to curb the use of solitary confinement, and was part of the hunger strikes and “end of hostilities” that went on over the last few years. aryan brotherhood indictment