A self-described leader of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang testified in federal court this week that the gang ruled its prison operations by means of a “commission” that decided whether members who strayed would live or die. Clifford Smith, a convicted murderer who said he was an early leader in the gang, was the first of dozens of inmates that are expected to testify as prosecution witnesses in a complex federal racketeering trial that prosecutors hope will decapitate the notorious gang.
Smith, who admits to being involved in as many as 21 prison murders, said the gang formed a three-man commission in the early 1980s to oversee drug running and prison murders nationwide, and it required prospective members to read from the works of Plato, Nietzsche and Machiavelli.
Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-aryan16mar16,0,3167568.story?coll=la-home-headlines