Stinson

Shannon P. Ryan, Anne M. Voigts, Stephen G. Wolfe, Assistant United States Attorneys, Los Angeles, CA, for the appellee.

Before: PAMELA ANN RYMER, CONSUELO M. CALLAHAN, and SANDRA S. IKUTA, Circuit Judges.

RYMER, Circuit Judge:

John Stinson and Robert Griffin appeal their convictions for RICO conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. § 1962 (d), for operating the Aryan Brotherhood (AB) prison gang. Stinson also appeals his conviction for violent crime in aid of racketeering (VICAR), 18 U.S.C. § 1959 (a)(1). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

The AB started in 1964 as a group of white prison inmates who asserted the need to protect themselves and later evolved into an organization designed to traffic narcotics across numerous California and federal prisons. In the early 1980s, the California AB was reorganized such that it was governed by a three-member commission. The commission had final say on AB orders to kill, orders to enforce AB rules, and the AB's business efforts. Griffin was an original member of the commission. By 1990, Stinson had joined Griffin on the commission.

A federal grand jury indicted Griffin and Stinson for operating a RICO conspiracy in…