SACRAMENTO — As part of an agreement with federal prosecutors, a California prisoner has admitted to running a huge, multi-state drug ring from his cell and to plotting to kill a member of the Aryan Brotherhood at the behest of higher-ups in the prison gang, records show.
Travis Burhop, 49, agreed on Sept. 7 to enter guilty pleas to racketeering and drug charges, according to a court document filed Monday. In exchange for his pleas, prosecutors have agreed to seek a “low end” sentencing under federal guidelines, but haven’t publicly revealed how much prison time they will seek.
Burhop is the fourth person to plead guilty in a large-scale racketeering case targeting 15 members or associates of the Aryan Brotherhood and one member of the Mexican Mafia. The two gangs are widely thought to be the most dominant within the California prison system. The charges include five murders and four additional murder conspiracies that didn’t go through.
The plea agreement, signed by Burhop, says that he plotted with two alleged Aryan Brotherhood commissioners, Ronald Dean Yandell and Danny Troxell, to murder an Aryan Brotherhood member named James Mickey.
The agreement is similar to one signed last June by Donald “Popeye” Mazza, the co-founder and onetime leader of a skinhead gang called Public Enemy Number One, or PEN1, that is closely affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood. Mazza admitted to plotting to kill fellow gang member Michael “Thumper” Trippe, who was warned by authorities, according to court records.
In both agreements, federal prosecutors gave Burhop and Mazza an excuse: that they agreed to aid and abet murders because they were scared of being next on the chopping block, but they really didn’t want to.
“In order go gain entrance into the (Aryan Brotherhood) and avoid the repercussions for not killing Mickey, Burhop agreed to arrange the murder of Mickey at Calipatria state Prison in August 2016, even though his heart was not in the killing,” the agreement says.
But for someone whose heart wasn’t in it, Burhop appears to have taken an active role in the plot.
The plea agreement says that in conversations on contraband cellphones, Burhop engaged in discussions where he floated possible hitmen and talked about Mickey’s current location. When Mickey was taken off a Calipatria prison yard and put into a protective custody unit, Burhop lamented to Yandell that Mickey was likely out of reach, the agreement says.
Before the plot went through, Yandell and Troxell allegedly balked at whether Burhop had the “skills” to arrange and carry out the hit.
“I guess we’re gonna find out, huh?” Troxell allegedly quipped on one wiretapped call.
Mickey was allegedly targeted for the killing for showing cowardice and stealing money from the gang. After the alleged murder plot surfaced he was transferred to a segregated housing unit in Pelican Bay, but has since been released on parole. Mickey had been serving life under the Three Strikes law and was at one point listed as a “shot caller” for the gang.
Burhop also admitted to conspiring with Mexican Mafia member Michael “Mosca’ Torres and several Aryan Brotherhood members and associates to distribute methamphetamine and heroin around the United States, including Washington, Missouri, and California. Included in the plea agreement is an incident where a courier was intercepted in Las Vegas, Nevada while driving across the country with 4.8 pounds of methamphetamine, on Burhop’s orders.
Burhop and his co-defendants were indicted in June 2019. The case is still tentatively set for trial next March, but a new development could change all that: prosecutors have recently revealed they are seeking a new indictment, which could include more charges and/or additional defendants, sometime in the next 30 days.
Meanwhile, one of the defendants, Pat Brady, is proceeding with a lawsuit against the Sacramento jail, which accuses the county sheriff of violating their rights in myriad ways. The suit alleges that the defendants were kept in solitary confinement all but one hour per week and publicly revealed that attorney/client meeting booths were being secretly videotaped.
Since Brady’s suit, the defendants have been transferred from the Sacramento jail to Sacramento State Prison, where several of them were housed when the alleged crimes occurred.
Federal prosecutors have indicated they may seek the death penalty against at least one defendant, despite President Joe Biden’s voiced opposition to the death penalty during the 2020 campaign.
Two other defendants — an alleged drug courier named Samuel Keeton and Kirsten Demar, a woman accused of helping a crooked lawyer smuggle contraband to incarcerated Aryan Brotherhood members — have also entered guilty pleas and are awaiting sentencing. Keeton’s scheduled sentencing date has been postponed several times.
Source: www.mercurynews.com