SACRAMENTO — Members of the Aryan Brotherhood plotted to assassinate a outstanding legal protection lawyer and onetime district lawyer candidate whereas he represented a member of the jail gang’s higher echelon, an alleged conspiracy that remained hidden from public view till a Wednesday afternoon court docket listening to.
The lawyer, Todd Leras, mentioned in court docket Wednesday that regulation enforcement has warned him a number of occasions of dangers to his life caused by an alleged homicide plot hatched behind bars, together with an allegation {that a} hitman working for the Aryan Brotherhood was assigned to journey to Sacramento on the identical day Leras was presenting closing arguments for his shopper in a racketeering case.
On the Wednesday listening to, a dialogue of the alleged plot culminated in a heated back-and-forth between Leras and Senior U.S. District Decide Kimberly Mueller, who additionally alluded to the gang having made an try on a federal prosecutor as effectively.
“The risks to both Mr. (Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason) Hitt and you are very, very serious,” Mueller mentioned to Leras, after accusing Leras of “willful blindness” for suggesting Mueller had not proven “compassion or concern” after she discovered of the homicide plot.
“Most defense attorneys feel their safety is not taken as seriously as the safety of prosecutors,” Leras mentioned. “We’re the ones who are much more in harm’s way.”
The alleged plot is simply the newest instance of the infamous Aryan Brotherhood extending its attain past jail partitions.
Earlier this yr, a federal jury in Fresno convicted three gang leaders of a variety of costs, together with arranging the homicide of two Russian mafia associates in Southern California. Since 2019, prosecutors say they’ve uncovered plots hatched by gang leaders with life sentences to rob, kidnap, torch, assault and kill numerous folks, together with a homicide solicitation that was reportedly assigned to an undercover federal agent.
The plot to kill Leras was hatched in late April 2024, across the time that Leras was trying to defend his shopper, Danny Troxell, towards racketeering and conspiracy costs. DEA Particular Agent Brian Nehring discovered of it in late April 2024, however first believed the sufferer to be a prosecution witness.
It wasn’t till hours after Troxell and his co-defendants, Ronald Yandell and William Sylvester, had been convicted of racketeering and homicide conspiracy that jail officers say they got here to the conclusion that Leras might need truly been the meant goal. They warned him of the plot the morning after the decision, coincidentally as soon as there was no extra probability of Leras utilizing the data to request a mistrial for his shopper. Leras has mentioned the timeline appears too excellent.
Nevertheless it was: a legal criticism drafted that month, however unsealed simply final Aug. 29, particulars communications between Maxwell and an incarcerated Aryan Brotherhood member named Pat Brady, one in all Yandell and Troxell’s co-defendants, who had already pleaded responsible to stabbing a person to demise in jail. In a single dialog, monitored by authorities, Brady alluded to one thing that had lately offended “the Tip,” a reference to the Aryan Brotherhood’s management.
“What happened, without going into it dude, it’s like a slap in the face to the Tip and anybody that’s associated to us man. It cannot stand bro,” Brady allegedly advised Maxwell on April 23, 2024. He went to say that “Billy” — believed to be a reference to Sylvester — advised Brady that Maxwell is “the only one we can really count on for something like this, that has the (expletive) heart to do it.”
Brady assured Maxwell he’d be getting a cellphone name quickly, then organized with one other particular person for that decision to be made, based on court docket data. Their preparations included informing Maxwell he must drive to the Sacramento space, providing to pay for his journey, and implying vital folks within the gang “are proud of you” and stressing the necessity to “get this done,” data present.
Maxwell died in February 2025, in Wasco State Jail, based on court docket data.
Yandell and Sylvester are in a federal jail in Atwater, serving life sentences. Earlier this yr, prosecutors in Sacramento dropped an tried homicide case towards Yandell, who had been charged with brandishing a knife at two state jail guards.
It was a tumultuous trial, the stress solely worsened by an incident the place Troxell and Yandell allegedly threatened to homicide each other whereas being transported from court docket again to state jail, the place they had been serving life sentences.
There was a courtroom outburst as effectively, with Yandell referring to Leras as a “piece of (expletive)” and Leras retorting, “At least I’m not a rat.” That remark was a reference to a dialog Yandell and Sylvester had with a gang investigator, Cory Perryman, the place they mentioned an ongoing drawback between the Mexican Mafia and Fresno Bulldogs gang, and mentioned an unnamed Aryan Brotherhood member who “likes ice cream,” based on a transcript of the listening to.
Sylvester and Yandell have mentioned the dialog was an instance of CDCR creating deceptive data to fire up issues between them and their co-defendants, arguing in court docket that Sylvester was clearly drunk on jail wine throughout the speak and that the transcript doesn’t line up with precise audio of the dialog. In an order denying a brand new trial for Troxell, Decide Mueller mentioned that it was extra seemingly Leras was focused for a “personal” motive because of the “rat” remark, quite than one thing involving his scheduled closing argument.
Leras had contended that authorities’s failure to warn him earlier entitled Troxell to a reversed conviction, contending it proved the protection concept that Yandell and Sylvester had shaped their very own “more violent” conspiracy that went outdoors the extra level-headed Aryan Brotherhood constitution that Troxell represented. After his movement failed, Leras tried — and failed — to persuade Mueller to let him withdraw from the case on Wednesday, resulting in much more rigidity boiling over.
“There hasn’t seemed to be any compassion or concern…for what I went through for having an active murder on me for 18 months,” Leras advised the decide, who instantly turned cross.
“That’s completely uncalled for,” Mueller mentioned, later including, “I personally called the U.S. Marshal Service.”
