Pelican Bay isn’t just a prison. It’s a fortress built to cage the masterminds of the streets. Even in Solitary, some of the most feared gang bosses still pull strings, calling shots from the shadows. But who are these legends of the underworld, and what makes them so dangerous? Let’s break down six of the most notorious gang leaders locked up in Pelican Bay. Todd Ashker.
Todd Ashker was born in July 1963 and spent his first 10 years in Denver, Colorado. It was just him, his little sister, and their mom who was doing everything she could to keep them afloat. But even as a little kid, Oscar had a habit of stealing. Though he couldn’t quite explain why, he still remembered the first time he was six.
It was Easter morning and he swiped an egg coloring kit from a store because his family didn’t have one. By the time he was eight, he was already getting arrested for stealing toys. In the summer of 1973, they moved to California First Landing near San Diego. He tried out youth sports, but they couldn’t afford the gear, so he just stole it.
After about a year, money got even tighter, so he quit playing altogether. Between 13 and 17, Ashker was in and out of juvenile detention, mostly for stealing and other petty stuff. Despite everything, he never got into physical fights back then. Right after turning 18, he got arrested for burglary. He’d been picking up factory jobs, laundry, painting, sheetrocking.
But when those dried up, he was struggling to take care of himself and his pregnant girlfriend. He admitted he was guilty and did almost 9 months in county jail with a prison sentence hanging over his head. While he was locked up, his girlfriend made the decision to get an abortion, even though he didn’t want her to.
That hit him hard. When he got out, he only stayed free for 70 days. Then, just a few days before his 19th birthday in 1982, he was arrested again for burglary. This time, he got 26 months and was sent to Dwell Vocational Institution near Tracy, California. During that time, he covered himself in tattoos, something a lot of young inmates did, mostly to show pride in their race and culture.
People assumed he was part of a neo-Nazi group because of them, but he always denied it. But what really got to him about his 1982 burglary conviction, he swore he didn’t do it. The court offered him a deal, 13 months if he plead guilty, but he wasn’t about to admit to something he didn’t do.
So, he went to trial and lost. He served 26 months and got out on August 31st, 1984. But he was holding a serious grudge, feeling like the system had screwed him over. And with nobody to help him, his new freedom was just partying and recklessness. A little over a month later, on October 2nd, 1984, he was arrested again for burglary.
This time, he plead guilty in December and got 5 years. By February 1985, at 21 years old, he arrived at Folsam State Prison to start his sentence. He was healthy, had a good attitude, and planned to take things one day at a time. But Folsam at that time was a war zone. Then in August 1986, he was sent to the security housing unit, the SHU, after what he called a mixup between him, his cellmate, and the prison guards.
A month later, they accused him of attacking another prisoner while he was in the SHU. He took a plea deal, admitted to having a weapon, and they dropped the assault charge. But that still tacked three more years onto his sentence and locked him deeper into the system. A few months later, on May 22nd, 1987, he had a SU committee hearing where they officially noted he had no gang ties.
They even recommended he be released into general population by July as long as he kept out of trouble. But things didn’t go as planned. Another inmate had a personal grudge against him and challenged him to a fist fight. Ashker felt like he had no choice but to accept. Backing down would mean asking for protective custody, and that wasn’t an option for him.
On May 25th, 1987, Ashker stepped into the other inmate’s cell, expecting a fight. But as soon as he was inside, the guy’s cellmate threw a mattress over the door opening, blocking the guard’s view. That was so the guards, who were watching the showers, wouldn’t start shooting into the cell if things got out of hand. The second Ashker walked in, the other inmate attacked with an 8-in knife.
A fight broke out and two guards fired three rifle shots through the door, right through the mattress, covering it. When it was over, the inmate had been stabbed and hit in the shoulder by a mini-14 rifle round. He was rushed to an outside hospital, but died about an hour later. Ashker was charged with murder.
On May 2nd, 1990, they moved him from New Folsam HU to the AHU at Pelican Bay State Prison. And when he got there, the prison staff made it clear he was only leaving in one of three ways. Parole, death, or debriefing. And debriefing, that meant snitching, becoming a state informant. That was never going to happen. Ronald Yandell.
Ronald Yandell has spent most of his adult life behind bars. He’s from West Contra Costa and years ago did time in federal prison on the east coast for having materials to make meth. After that, he was sent to a supermax prison in Colorado before eventually being transferred back to the Bay Area.
But just weeks after getting out in 2001, he was arrested again, this time for a double murder in Elsa Bronte. 3 years later, he was convicted of murder and manslaughter, earning him a state prison sentence of 65 years to life. a huge chunk of that spend in the Pelican Bay at you locked down tight. Now Yandelle’s not just any inmate.
He’s Aryan Brotherhood. He got involved back in the 90s while serving time for substances. Then in the 2000s, a murder conviction landed him a life sentence in California. But after the Ashker settlement, they moved him to a less restrictive unit in Folsam. That’s where he ended up sharing a cell with Sylvester, another Brotherhood guy.
Then in 2014, DEA agents in Sacramento started tracking this woman, Jenna Queensberry. They suspected she was moving a whole lot of substances in North Sacramento. She first popped up when they were looking into the family affiliated Irish mafia. So the DEA, they start playing the long game. Undercover drug buys, wiretaps, the whole nine.
And turns out Queensberry wasn’t just some street dealer. She was taking orders straight from Yandel who was sitting inside Folsam prison. Prosecutors say Yandelle was running things with a smuggled cell phone. He’d get Queensberry to put in orders, then send Brotherhood member Travis Burhop to his LA Connects.
And Katon, some car thief out on parole. He was the runner, moving product from LA to Sacramento for Queensberry. Then came August 15th, 2015. That’s when two inmates at CSP Sacramento carried out a brutal murder. Hugo Panel, a leader in the Black Gorilla family and one of the infamous San Quinton 6. And this this was on Yandel’s orders.
Before the hit, Yandell had promised the two killers something big, Aryan Brotherhood membership, if they pulled it off. About a year after that murder, the DEA wiretapped Yandel’s smuggled phone. And he wasn’t even trying to hide what he’d done. He bragged about ordering the hit and even sponsoring the killers into the Brotherhood.
But that was just the start. Even though he was already serving 65 to life for murder, Yandel was still running the Brotherhood’s finances from behind bars. The feds say he ordered all the gang’s drug money to go towards supporting the two inmates who carried out the hit for him. And that same year, he didn’t just see himself as a highranking member.
He was calling himself one of the Aryan Brotherhood’s top bosses inside the California prison system. Then in 2019, after years of investigating, Yandelle was finally hit with federal charges. They say he was behind multiple murders, rival gang members, even brotherhood guys who didn’t follow the rules. And according to federal officials, he wasn’t just some foot soldier.
He was one of the Aryan Brotherhood’s top three leaders. And in April 2024, it all came crashing down. A jury found him guilty. Murder, conspiracy, drug trafficking, the whole nine yards. Life in prison, and no chance of parole. But just recently, Yandel made headlines again. While being escorted back to his cell from a medical appointment, he attacked two officers, pulled out a homemade weapon, but they got him to drop it after hitting him with pepper spray.
Aruro Castellanos. Aruro Castellanos has a long history. He was convicted of murder in LA County back in 79 and sentenced to 26 to life. But prison didn’t slow him down. If anything, it gave him an even bigger stage. Even behind bars, Castellano stayed heavily involved in the game. His record, brutal, six stabbings, multiple drug violations.
By 1990, prison officials had enough. They shipped him off to the SHU at Pelican Bay, the infamous lockdown unit for the worst of the worst. Their reason, they said he was Mexican mafia. Now, here’s where it gets wild. Even inside one of the most secure prisons in the country, Castellanos was still calling shots. They say he was running the show through tiny smuggled notes called kites, slipping orders out of Pelican Bay to the streets.
And the proof, a secret letter supposedly written by Castellanos inside Pelican Bay, sent straight to Florencia 13, the long-standing South LA street gang. This letter wasn’t just any letter. It laid out the entire system, the blueprint for making the Mexican mafia even richer. Then in August, the feds dropped the hammer.
Castellanos was named in a major indictment in LA. Drug trafficking, gun charges, fraud, all of it happening while he was still sitting in his Pelican Bay cell. But the biggest claim, they said Castellanos wasn’t just a Mexican mafia member. He was the undisputed leader of Florencia 13 and all its subsets. And they say he was still getting paid with gang money flowing straight into his prison account.
The indictment didn’t just accuse him of running the show. It used the very rules he wrote as evidence. They say Castellano set up a whole leadership structure in the Florence Firestone area of LA, putting shot callers in charge of handling drugs, collecting protection money, and keeping the gang’s territory in check. That meant settling disputes, keeping rival gangs in line, and making sure Florencia 13 stayed on top.
Then there was the next indictment, also from August. This one, it accused Mexican mafia leaders of working with a major cartel. And the green light for that partnership, it allegedly came straight from Pelican Bay. But Castellanos, he’s calling the whole thing a setup. In a letter put out by inmate supporters, he said the feds were twisting the story, making it seem like he was still running Florencia 13 when, in his words, that was just his old childhood street gang.
And if all this was true, he asked, why was his name in the indictment but not the actual charges? Funny thing is, this isn’t the first time his name’s popped up. That same note was mentioned in a 2007 indictment against other gang members. And Peter Hernandez, a former assistant US attorney who’s worked on Mexican mafia cases, says there’s a reason Castellanos was never dragged into court.
Back then, the government decided it was safer to keep him locked down at Pelican Bay alone rather than risk bringing him to hearings in LA. Because if they had, he’d have been back in the mix. able to send orders firsthand. And then there’s Renee Enriquez, a former Mexican mafia big shot who’s now working with the feds. He thinks Castellanos actually wants to be indicted, not to fight the charges, but to get moved to federal prison where life’s easier.
In the feds, he’d get monthly phone calls, access to the general population, more freedom than Pelican Bay could ever give him. And according to Enriquez, all this, the crime, the prison politics, even the protests Castellanos has been tied to, it’s not just about power, it’s about ego. He says Castellanos wants the world to see him as one of the biggest bosses of the Mexican mafia, someone with a name that carries weight no matter where he’s locked up. Omar Azarte.
Back in November 2018, Joanna D was just 17 and she was dating Arzad. Late on November 15th, he picked her up from work and took her back to his place. That’s when he found birth control pills in her purse. He snapped, threw the purse at her, called her all kinds of awful names, and then started hitting her in the face.
Then, Arzad grabbed a gun from under his mattress. He pointed it right at Joanna’s head, not even a foot away, and kept hitting her. Her nose started bleeding, and he kept threatening to shoot her. She was crying, shaking, terrified. Then he accused her of cheating, snatched her phone, and snapped it clean in half. After that, he threw her on the bed, and started choking her.
His hands were tight around her neck, and she said the pain was bad. She couldn’t even breathe. Arzati’s parents came in and tried to stop him, but it didn’t work. Then he forced Joanna into his car. She didn’t want to go, but with a gun in her face, she wasn’t about to argue. He told her to keep her head down, so she did.
He stopped at a park parking lot and hit her a few more times hard. After about half an hour, he drove back home, passed out, and that’s when Joanna made her move. She grabbed his mom’s phone and called her dad. Her dad came to get her, and as soon as she was safe, she used his phone to call the cops. When officers searched Arzad’s room, they found a semi-automatic A9 assault pistol, like a Tech 9.
It had a detachable magazine holding 20 rounds of 9mm bullets. Now, here’s where things get weird. The official court records don’t have a full transcript for December 31st, 2019. In fact, there’s not even an official minute order for that day. But here’s the kicker. Part of the transcript is attached to the prosecution’s sentencing report.
And it reveals exactly what went down on December 30th. That day, after the court denied his motion to have the judge kicked off the case, Arzate just stood up and started walking out. The baiff ordered him to sit back down, but he refused. Then he straight up challenged the deputy to a fight. The next thing you know, he’s swinging at the deputy and it turns into a fullon brawl.
Judge Bourke, in 12 years on the bench, had never hit the emergency button before. But that day, he did. Within seconds, a bunch of deputies rushed in and took Arzate down to the floor. And the whole time, he was only a few feet away from the courtroom clerk. When it was all said and done, the jury found Arzat guilty on all four counts.
And the gun charges stuck, too. The court handed him 36 years and 4 months in state prison. On top of that, Los Angeles County added another 3 years for fighting and threatening an officer, but that runs alongside his main sentence. He was transferred to Pelican Bay from LA County on April 6th, 2021. Now, the California Department of Corrections is investigating a homicide at Pelican Bay from April 21st, 2024.
It all went down around 6:55 p.m. during dayroom activities. You know, when inmates get some time to socialize, that’s when things took a turn. Michael R. Shalon got into a fight with another inmate, Joseph Quantero. By the time the guards stepped in to break it up, Shalon had been stabbed multiple times. Prison staff jumped in with first aid and an ambulance rushed him to the hospital.
Right after that, the guards locked down the area. They searched inmates, cells, anything that could be connected to the attack. That’s when they found Michael Jones, 49, standing near the cell where Oscar Moss Bay and Omar Arzad were. They searched all three of them, checked the cell, and found a homemade weapon, something an inmate had crafted.
That weapon, they think that’s what was used to stab Shall. Now, Quantero, Jones, Monty Bay, and Arzate have all been placed in restricted housing while the investigation continues. In response, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has also tightened movement within the prison.
Antonio Chuko Gueen on April 19th, 1999, around 6:45 p.m., a stolen Ford Explorer rolls up in front of Vera Montes’s house. Yeah, stolen. Someone in the Rose Garden neighborhood left their keys sitting in the glove box. And Albert Beto Aila wasn’t about to let that slide. Now Beto, he’s just sitting there behind the wheel, not moving, not rushing, while two guys hop out of the passenger doors, both rocking t-shirts and shorts.
First one to start shooting, David Dreamer Escamilla. Young dude, part of the northern structure, basically the farm team for the NF. And he wasn’t fresh out the box either. He just gotten out on parole for attempting to kill someone. The other shooter, Santos bad boy, Bernius, a straightup OG, been with the NF for years and also did time for attempted murder.
And then there was Antonio Chuko Gillin, the NF under boss from San Jose, watching the whole thing from a car down the street. Chuko had only been out of prison 3 months after doing time for assault with a deadly weapon. Dreamer and Bad Boy walk right up the driveway, guns out with no hesitation. They start letting off shots.
Vermonte spins around trying to make it back inside through the open garage. He’s crawling toward the door, but it’s too late. Bullets tear through him. Seven shots, chest, back, legs, arms. One even grazes his face. Dreamer got so close that blood actually splattered back onto his hands. Robert Vera Montes’s murder was just another hit ordered from inside Pelican Bay State Prison, a place that might as well be Nestraia’s corporate headquarters.
Fast forward to April 24th. Choco and Bad Boy dipped to South San Francisco trying to stay ahead of the heat. After a gang hit, Paroleies are always the first ones rounded up. And they knew Campbell PD wasn’t about to let this slide. That night around 9:00 p.m., Chuko, Bad Boy, and their girlfriends, Naen Serrano, and Leona Rodriguez pile into Chuko’s car. He’s driving.
Nadine’s riding shotgun, Bad Boy, and Lyanna in the back. They roll up to a four-way stop near the I280 crossing about to hit 101. Right there at the stop, a police car. Chuko gives a little wave. Go ahead. The cop waves back. Nah, you first. Choco inches forward. Then all of a sudden, lights, sirens, and cops everywhere. Choco floors it.
The engine roaring as they tear onto the freeway with cops hot on their tail. He’s pushing 80, weaving through traffic, but the road’s packed. No gaps, no way through. Desperate, he veers onto the shoulder, kicking up dust and debris. Then trouble. A wall of cars dead stop ahead. No time, no options. He yanks the wheel, skids off road, and then crashes.
Before the dust even settles, Chuko’s moving. He lunges over Naen, throws the door open, and bolts. Gets maybe 10 ft before a cop takes him down full force. After hearing testimony from 73 witnesses over three months, the grand jury reached a swift decision. The indictment was secured and by March 2000, Chuko was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Antonio Chuko Gilin, the mastermind behind it all, now calls the shots for Nestra Familia from inside Pelican Bay. Life in prison hasn’t slowed him down one bit. He’s still the top dog, the highest ranking of three gang generals, all running the show from behind bars. In California’s Nortano world, he’s the undisputed granddaddy. Ronnie Dubberry.
Ronnie Dubberry, better known as Satawa Nantu Jamaa, got pulled into crime and violence on the tough streets of California. He became involved with the Black Gorilla Family, a gang that’s been around since the 60s, blending criminal activity with revolutionary ideals. That affiliation made him a key figure in the underworld.
His record speaks for itself. He was convicted of murder in Alama County in 1980, landing a 25 to life sentence. But prison didn’t just lock him up. It allowed him to rise through the ranks of the BGF. Inside, he became a lead influencing other inmates, mostly through fear and violence. By 1990, he was locked in the security housing unit at Pelican Bay State Prison, the SHU, and he’s been there ever since.
Now, jump to July 8th, 2013. Inside Pelican Bay, one of the toughest prisons in the country. Todd Ashker, an inmate in the SHU, the most locked down, isolated part of the prison, kicked off a hunger strike. Ashker was a well-known figure in the Aryan Brotherhood. For years, he shared a pod with Sitawa Jama, the so-called education minister of the black gorilla family.
Next door, a guy rumored to be a shot caller for the Mexican mafia. And right beside him, one of the three generals of Noestra Familia. These men had spent most of their lives ordering hits on each other. But somehow through quiet, patient conversations in the depths of Pelican Bay, they forged an unlikely pact. Nobody knew how long the hunger strike would last, but the men leading it understood that if they wanted to make a real impact, they had to go all the way.
They had to make it seem like they were willing to die for the cause. Then on the 43rd day, Judge Henderson, who had ruled on fixing the SAIU nearly two decades earlier, made a crucial decision. He authorized the state to force-feed prisoners at risk of death or serious harm. Officials were also given the power to override do not resuscitate orders if they believed an inmate had been pressured into signing one.
Health officials, growing increasingly anxious about the situation, backed the corrections department’s request. Barnett, the department’s head, admitted he was worried that the 40 or 50 prisoners still refusing food might not make it. By September 5th, the 59th day of the strike, the men leading the short corridor collective announced they were suspending their protest.
Ronnie’s health has taken a serious hit over the years. Stomach problems that won’t go away, swollen thyroid, low vitamin D, high blood pressure. Even when he needs meds, sometimes they refuse to give them to him. Now at 61 years old, he’s at the California Healthc Care Facility in Stockton, a prison designed for inmates with major medical issues.
And a parole board is about to take a look at his case. Appreciate you watching. If you enjoyed the video, hit that like button and make sure to subscribe for more.
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
