Gotti 'sought help from Aryan Brotherhood gang'

LOS ANGELES - Alongside allegations such as secret messages written in urine, the opening of the Aryan Brotherhood trial includes a charge that late Mafia boss John Gotti asked the prison gang to carry out a hit.

Assistant US Attorney Michael Emmick told jurors in one of the largest death penalty cases in the United States that Gotti sought out the Aryan Brotherhood, also known as the Brand, in July 1996 after he was beaten by a black inmate, Walter Johnson, at the US penitentiary in Marion, Illinois,

"Fighting an organized crime figure may not be such a good idea," Emmick added during his opening remarks on Tuesday.

Aryan Brotherhood chief Barry "The Baron" Mills, his top lieutenant, Tyler "The Hulk" Bingham, Christopher Gibson and Edgar "Snail" Hevle are charged with ruling US prisons through murder, assault and intimidation - using secret messages to order the execution of any inmate who crossed them.

The defendants say they are not a criminal gang but prisoners who banded together to survive behind bars.

Emmick said Gotti, the accused head of the Gambino crime family, was serving a life term for murder and extortion when he told Brand members Michael "Big Mac" McElhiney and David Sahakian he would pay the Aryan Brotherhood to kill Johnson.

The message was passed surreptitiously through the criminal organization to Mills, Emmick said. Mills put out the word from his cell at a maximum-security prison in Colorado that Johnson should be murdered "at all costs," court papers said.

Although Emmick did not elaborate on how the order was sent, he said during his remarks the Aryan Brotherhood often communicated through notes written in secret code or with invisible ink made from fruit juice or urine.

The hit was never carried out, Emmick told the jury, because the Aryan Brotherhood could never find Johnson, and a cancer-stricken Gotti, 61, died behind bars in 2002.

Prosecutors have been careful not to disclose the whereabouts of Johnson, who was serving a 10-year sentence for bank robbery at the time he crossed paths with Gotti.

- REUTERS