SACRAMENTO — Brant “Two Scoops” Daniel spent years fighting his racketeering case until last December, when he pleaded guilty to murdering a man in the Soledad prison yard.

Now his only wish is to leave the state prisons he has known for most of his adult life and go behind federal bars.

The 50-year-old Aryan Brotherhood prison gang member called on the government to keep its 2019 promise to move him to federal prison, where prosecutors say he and his gang comrades can be isolated from California prison courses where they operate. enormous power.

Daniel was one of seven members of the Aryan Brotherhood who were already serving life sentences in federal prison and were charged with murder in aid of the notorious prison gang’s racketeering. Of the remaining six, one became a federal informant, while five others pleaded guilty to murder or were convicted at trial. But so far, none of them have spent a single day in federal prison, although three of them have been sentenced to life and three more are facing life sentences in the coming weeks.

Unlike his co-defendants, Daniel said he actually wanted to go to federal prison, if only to escape the “corruption” he says is rampant in the state prison system where he spent his time. almost his entire adult life. He expected to be transferred within days plead guilty last Decemberbut when that didn’t happen, he filed court papers to withdraw from his guilty plea and force the federal government to convict him at trial.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Hitt responded to Daniel’s motion during a court hearing Tuesday, urging a judge to keep Daniel’s plea intact and revealing that the 2019 prosecution was brought because the U.S. Department of Justice hoped to transfer Daniel and his co-defendants to ADX Florence. a “Supermax” prison in Colorado.

When prosecutors announced charges against the group in 2019, they made clear during a press conference that the goal of the operation was to transfer influential members of the Aryan Brotherhood away from the state prison system, where they were able to acquire contraband products. phones, direct drug operations and order murders.

Two things had to happen to get Daniel into federal prison: the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation had to relinquish its primary jurisdiction, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons had to agree to take him in.

Only one of those things happened, Hitt said.

“(California) has given up on it…the Bureau of Prisons has not accepted it,” Hitt said, but he added that the BOP could change course at any time.

Daniel’s lawyer and the federal government agreed to do nothing until about a week before President-elect Donald Trump’s Inauguration Day. By then, Daniel’s co-defendants, Ronald Yandell, William Sylvester and Danny Troxell, will likely all have received life sentences as well. Yandell and Sylvester’s motions to overturn their guilty verdicts were denied by a federal judge this month and they are scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 18, records show.

Two others, Pat Brady and Jason Corbett, also received life sentences, but like Daniel, have not yet been transferred.

An impending prison transfer within the CDCR system further complicates matters. Daniel says he was told he was being sent to secure housing at Corcoran Prison against his will. Years ago, Daniel said in an interview, his defense team was warned by a corrections officer that prison guards had a grudge against Daniel and would kill him if he was transferred there.

The whistleblower, Kevin Steele, committed suicide in the middle an ongoing corruption investigation. Another whistleblower died of a suspected fentanyl overdose around the same time.

This case added to Daniel’s desire to leave the CDCR system. For now, he remains in a single-cell solitary confinement unit at California State Prison in Sacramento, where he will remain until at least January, unless a transfer from federal prison is successful.

Originally published: November 15, 2024 at 11:58 a.m. PST