Members of Aryan Brotherhood prison gang sentenced

A jury deadlocked earlier this year on the death penalty.
SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- Three members of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang were sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for what prosecutors called decades of terrorizing some of the nation's most dangerous penitentiaries.
The three were among the first defendants to stand trial as federal prosecutors try to dismantle the gang and its drug-dealing operations.
Barry "The Baron" Mills, Tyler "The Hulk" Bingham and Edgar "The Snail" Hevle were convicted on charges including murder, conspiracy and racketeering.
Mills, 58, and Bingham, 59, showed no reaction when the sentences were announced. Both hugged their attorneys before marshals escorted them out.
They had been eligible for the death penalty, but a jury deadlocked earlier this year during the trial's penalty phase.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter said the sentence was appropriate for crimes "spanning well over 30 years of murder and organizational murder."
Among other crimes, Mills and Bingham were convicted for inciting a race riot at a prison in Lewisburg, Pa., in 1997 that killed two black inmates, both alleged members of the rival DC Blacks prison gang.
Hevle and the fourth defendant, Christopher Overton Gibson, were convicted of conspiring to murder the black inmates.
Mills, Bingham and Hevle also were convicted of a count of murder for the killing of a prisoner at the Lompoc, Calif., penitentiary in 1989.
The judge sentenced Hevle, 55, on Tuesday to three consecutive life sentences.
Gibson, 47, is recuperating from back surgery and has not been sentenced. He could get 20 years to life in prison for racketeering and conspiracy.
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