New Folsom Aryan Brotherhood ‘commissioner’ sentenced to life in federal prison
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- Federal court in Sacramento sentenced New Folsom Aryan Brotherhood leader to life.
- Troxell, convicted in 2024, received concurrent federal life and 105-month terms.
- Prosecutors detailed gang activities and murder plotting from state prisons.
A high-ranking “commissioner” of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang was sentenced in federal court in Sacramento to life in prison on Tuesday for racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder in a case prosecutors said showed the organization’s blood-drenched reach and power.
Daniel Troxell was convicted in 2024 along with two other inmates at California State Prison, Sacramento, also known as New Folsom, in a wide-ranging case that detailed the gang’s ability to deal drugs and orchestrate murders from within the state’s correctional facilities.
Now 72, Troxell has been incarcerated since 1979 after a Fresno County jury found him guilty of murder. He spent years in the state’s notorious Pelican Bay prison and was part of a hunger strike that led to the closing of its special housing unit, where inmates were in a form of solitary confinement.
On Tuesday, federal Judge Kimberly Mueller sentenced Troxell to life in prison for conspiracy to aid a racketeering operation that included murder, and 105 months for conspiring to murder a fellow gang member in 2016, to run concurrently.
Troxell is currently incarcerated at the Folsom facility, where he is serving a life sentence. Although he was originally sentenced to life without the possibility of parole at the state level, he will be eligible for a parole hearing next year because of changes in the law regarding murder, state records show.
But the new life sentence in federal prison makes the possibility of parole far less likely.
On Tuesday, Troxell appeared before Mueller, his gray hair conservatively short, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and eyeglasses.
He declined to participate in a review that is usually conducted by federal parole officials before sentencing, leaving Mueller without a recommendation on how many years he deserved or what conditions should be placed upon him if he ever gains parole.
Troxell’s attorney, Todd Leras, argued that his client was no longer active in the gang and had tried to make its activities less violent. He said that both he and his client had been the subject of murder plots by the gang, and that Troxell would likely appeal his conviction and sentence.
But Mueller said that Troxell’s leadership role in the gang could not be ignored, and that he was convicted of weighty crimes.
Troxell, she said, “has a different style and a different way of presenting himself” when compared to co-defendants who wore gang tattoos and gave off a menacing air.
“But it is still an aggravating factor that he played a leadership role,” she said in court.
The case, first filed in 2019, at one time included 16 defendants, court records show. After several took plea deals and one committed suicide, it dwindled to include just three people, gang leader Ronald Yandell, his prison cellmate William “Billy” Sylvester and Troxell.
Last December, Yandell, 63, was sentenced to two consecutive life terms plus 50 years in federal prison for 15 counts including racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder, distribution of methamphetamine and heroin, and murder in aid of racketeering in the 2015 slaying of inmate Hugo Pinell, according to previous Bee reporting.
Sylvester, 58, was sentenced to two life terms for conspiracy to conduct racketeering, conspiracy to murder in aid of racketeering and drug charges.
Both Yandell and Sylvester are currently incarcerated in federal prison in Oklahoma, records show.
This story was originally published November 18, 2025 at 3:52 PM with the headline "New Folsom Aryan Brotherhood ‘commissioner’ sentenced to life in federal prison."
