by Chuck Sharman

A wild day unfolded in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California on November 13, 2025, as the attorney for the last of 16 defendants awaiting sentencing in a massive Aryan Brotherhood (AB) conspiracy noted that he spent nearly 18 months unknowingly targeted for murder by the gang while defending one of its top members—and he accused the presiding judge of lacking “compassion” for that.

Before the hearing, Sacramento attorney Todd Leras had asked for a new trial for his client, Danny Troxell, after learning that fellow AB leaders Ronald Yandell and William Sylvester had targeted Leras for murder—proving the attorney’s theory of the case, he said, that the two had formed an alliance against his client from their shared cell at California State Prison (CSP) in Sacramento. When Judge Kimberly J. Mueller rejected the mistrial request, Leras attempted to withdraw from the case. But Mueller turned down that motion, too, prompting Leras to accuse her of lacking “compassion or concern … for what I went through for having an active murder [hit] on me for 18 months.”

“That’s completely uncalled for,” Mueller retorted, noting that she had called the U.S. Marshals Service as soon as she was alerted to the plot.

But that was long after the DEA uncovered the plot in April 2024, when a recorded phone call captured another indicted prisoner, AB member Pat Brady, telling non-­incarcerated accomplice Donald U. Maxwell that Sylvester wanted him to carry out a hit—apparently on Leras, and apparently in retaliation, after Leras called Sylvester a “rat” during the marathon 37-­day trial of Sylvester, Yandell and Troxell that had just concluded.

That same month, Maxwell was arrested by the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, which reported that he faced federal murder conspiracy charges. But that was quickly walked back with a “correction,” disingenuously stating that Maxwell faced “drug charges.” He died at Wasco State Prison in February 2025, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). The criminal complaint against him was then unsealed in August 2025, and Leras finally learned of the plot against him that it contained.

Why did Leras call Sylvester a “rat”? Because he and Yandell recorded an interview with a CDCR gang investigator in which they discussed a feud between rival gangs and a fellow AB member “who liked ice cream”—an apparent reference to Brant “Two Scoops” Daniel, who was also indicted in the same drug-­running conspiracy as Troxell, Yandell, Sylvester and a dozen other defendants. Sylvester later claimed that he was drunk on prison wine during the interview, which he and Yandell labeled a CDCR attempt to sow discord among the AB ranks.

Case Outcome

The trial of the three AB leaders was marked by further contentiousness, the San Jose Mercury News reported, when Yandell and Troxell exchanged death threats en route to court. In the end, Judge Mueller handed a life sentence to Troxell, 72, on November 18, 2025, plus a $200 special assessment. Yandell, 63, and Sylvester, 57, were sentenced to life on December 18, 2024, with Sylvester’s special assessment set at $400 and Yandell’s at $1,500.

Three additional AB members received life sentences, including Brady, 55, on August 5, 2024, and Jason Corbett, 53, on September 24, 2024. As PLN reported, both men earlier pleaded guilty to carrying out a hit on fellow prisoner Donald “Joker” Pequeen at High Desert State Prison (HDSP) in 2018. The third life term went to Daniel, 51, who pleaded guilty in December 2023 to carrying out a hit on fellow prisoner Zachary Scott at Salinas Valley State Prison in October 2016. [See: PLN, Feb. 2024, p.14.] Brady was also ordered to pay a $100 special assessment. Corbett was ordered to pay the same plus $998.48 in restitution.

Still another sentence was handed down in December 2024 to Kathleen Nolan, 70, who received a 36-­month prison term plus two years of supervised release and a $100 assessment for running drugs for the gang. A second admitted AB drug courier, Samuel Keeton, 45, was sentenced in July 2024 to time served plus two years of supervised release and a $100 assessment. The same sentence was handed to co-­defendant Donald “Popeye” Mazza, 55, in May 2024, after he admitted to plotting with Yandell and Sylvester to kill Michael “Thumper” Trippe, another fellow member of The Brand, as AB is also known.

The two leaders of the Brand also conspired with Travis Burhop, 52, to carry out a hit on fellow AB member James Mickey, according to Burhop’s 2022 plea deal. He was given a sentence in October 2024 of 84 months in prison and five years of supervised release, plus a $300 special assessment.

Former shipping service employee Justin “Rune” Petty, then 41, was sentenced to 130 months in prison in October 2023, after he pleaded guilty to muling drugs between AB members incarcerated at HDSP and CSP-­Sacramento. He was also ordered to serve five years of supervised release and pay a $200 assessment.

Two of those named in the original indictment are now dead. Michael “Mosca” Torres, 59, was fatally stabbed by fellow prisoners at CSP-­Sacramento in July 2023. Public Enemy Number One gang member Matthew “Cyco” Hall, 48, who was originally tapped to carry out the hit on Trippe, committed suicide in Costa Rica in 2017.

Another defendant, disabled attorney Kevin McNamara, was dismissed from the case on March 10, 2025, reportedly because he was terminally ill and near death. The last defendant, Kristin Demar, who is the wife of an AB member, pretended to be McNamara’s paralegal when they smuggled drugs in his wheelchair to Yandell at CSP-­Sacramento in 2016. She was sentenced to time served in May 2024 plus three years of supervised release, and she was ordered to pay a $200 assessment. See: United States v. Yandell, USDC (E.D. Cal.), Case No. 2:19-­cr-­00107.

Post-­Trial Developments

Troxell filed a motion for reconsideration after his sentencing, but that was denied on November 13, 2025. See: United States v. Troxell, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 223752 (E.D. Cal.). The case also featured allegations of official corruption, with Yandell, Sylvester and Troxell all claiming they were subjected to discrimination and retaliation while incarcerated and awaiting trial. As PLN also reported, Daniel’s attorneys filed allegations that guards were eavesdropping on their privileged conversations and had planted a knife in Daniel’s cell, for which he was thrown in disciplinary segregation. [See: PLN, Feb. 2022, p.34.] However, the district court denied his motion for in-­person attorney visits in March 2022.

Brady filed a pro se civil suit alleging he was held in solitary confinement for 167 of 168 hours every week while awaiting trial at the Sacramento County Jail, where he also alleged that deputies of Sheriff Scott Jones illegally surveilled conferences with his attorneys. The district court dismissed many of his claims on October 7, 2025, but one that survived accused guards of videorecording the privileged meetings. The case remains pending, and PLN will continue to monitor developments. See: Brady v. Jones, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 198588 (E.D. Cal.). 

Additional source: San Jose Mercury News

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