Feds detail Aryan Brotherhood investigation and surveillance as founder of PENI skinhead gang moves for release from California jail

Judge to rule on new motion for pretrial release. In their bid to keep the founder of an Orange County skinhead gang in prison while he faces charges of agreeing to kill a fellow Aryan Brotherhood member — an alleged murder plot that was never carried out — prosecutors revealed new details about the federal investigation into white gangs across California, including the fact that police conducted surveillance of a concert featuring the defendant’s hardcore band. The Wednesday filing by the U.S. Attorney’s office responds to a motion Donald Mazza, 49, for release from the Sacramento County Jail, where he is in federal pretrial detention facing conspiracy charges. The defense motion says Mazza has medical issues, including kidney problems, that make him particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. On Thursday, Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller denied Mazza’s petition for release, court records show. Mazza has filed two previous motions for release, both of which also failed. In one of them, he cited assistance from an unexpected ally: the man he was allegedly sent out to kill on behalf of the Aryan Brotherhood, who filed a sworn statement saying he was not the least bit concerned of being killed by his longtime “friend,” Mazza. (…) Mazza, also known as “Popeye,” is a founding member of the Southern California skinhead gang called Public Enemy Number One, or PENI. According to prosecutors, he was one of several PENI members granted entrance into the Aryan Brotherhood “so that the AB could spread its influence and get gang members on the streets.” Last year, Mazza was one of roughly two dozen Aryan Brotherhood members and associates to be indicted on racketeering charges in a massive federal probe into the Aryan Brotherhood. The charges include five murders and four alleged murder plots, all allegedly ordered by high-ranking incarcerated Aryan Brotherhood members. Mazza was charged with agreeing to kill Aryan Brotherhood member Michael “Thumper” Trippe on the order or Ronald Dean Yandell, an Aryan Brotherhood commissioner who allegedly ordered the hit from his prison cell, using a contraband cellphone. During one call with Mazza in August 2019, Yandell allegedly expressed his displeasure that another Aryan Brotherhood member had recently been arrested on unrelated murder charges in San Diego before he carried out the kill order. Mazza was the next hitman in line, prosecutors allege.

voa mercurynews: Feds detail Aryan Brotherhood investigation and surveillance as founder of PENI skinhead gang moves for release from California jail