Life in prison for California inmate’s murderer in federal case against Aryan Brotherhood gang
A federal judge on Monday sentenced an Aryan Brotherhood member for killing a fellow inmate to increase his status in the notorious white supremacist California prison gang.
U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller sentenced Patrick “Big Pat” Brady, 53, of Lake Forest to life in prison for murder in aid of racketeering, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento announced in a news release.
In January, Brady pleaded guilty to the murder charge in the 2018 slaying of inmate Donald Pequeen at High Desert State Prison near Susanville.
Court documents indicate Brady and fellow Aryan Brotherhood member Jason Corbett repeatedly stabbed Pequeen in the prison yard “to increase their position” in the prison gang.
Brady admitted that he murdered the victim, because Pequeen falsely claimed to be an Aryan Brotherhood member and had run up a “significant drug debt” at his previous prison, federal prosecutors said in the news release. Both acts are considered violations of the prison gang’s code of conduct.
From 2011 through 2016, Aryan Brotherhood gang members and associates engaged in racketeering activity, committing multiple acts involving murder, conspiracies to murder and drug trafficking crimes, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors allege that Aryan Brotherhood members oversaw a significant heroin and methamphetamine trafficking operation from their California prison cells, using smuggled cellphones to direct drug trafficking activities, order murders and oversee other criminal activities inside and outside of the prisons.
A few weeks after Brady entered his guilty plea, Corbett, 52, pleaded guilty to murder in aid of racketeering in Pequeen’s stabbing death. Prosecutors said Corbett’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 25.
A nine-week trial in federal court ended in April with a jury finding three of Brady’s co-defendants guilty of a racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to murder, murder in aid of racketeering and multiple counts of drug trafficking, prosecutors said. Those convicted defendants, Ronald Yandell, 61, Danny Troxell, 71 and Billy Sylvester, 55, are scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 11.
Prosecutors announced the criminal case in 2019, naming the three defendants and others who they said were affiliated with the gang or involved in efforts to smuggle drugs for gang members. Criminal charges are still pending against two others accused in the alleged conspiracy.
