SACRAMENTO — A federal judge has allowed a lawsuit filed by an alleged leader of the Aryan Brotherhood to proceed on grounds that the jail is improperly withholding a religious vegetarian diet, court records show.
But the Sept. 24 order by U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez also throws out several more serious claims by 59-year-old Richmond native Ronald Dean Yandell that accuse the Sacramento sheriff of retaliation and harassment. Mendez’s order upholds recommendations by a federal magistrate, which Yandell objected to.
Last month, U.S. Magistrate Judge Allison Claire noted that when Yandell asked for a vegetarian diet to adhere to his “strict Buddhist” beliefs, jail staff denied the claim as insincere.
“On screening the court accepts the professed sincerity of plaintiff’s religious belief, as it must accept the truth of all factual allegations…A request for religious diet made for the first time after someone has been in custody is not necessarily insincere,” Claire wrote in her recommendations.
Claire recommended tossing Yandell’s claims that the sheriff was harassing him by constantly transferring him and other co-defendants to different cells in the Sacramento Jail, where Yandell and several other alleged Aryan Brotherhood members await trial on racketeering charges. Federal prosecutors charged them in 2019 with murder, drug smuggling in state prison, and various gang offenses.
In his objection to Claire’s finding, Yandell said the cell transfers started after July 11, 2020, when he was involved in an “altercation” with three deputies. After that incident, staff began “rousing plaintiff in the middle of the night,” where he was “handcuffed, taken to intake for full body scan, and placed in a different, unsanitary cell,” he wrote.
“Plaintiff contends that the chronological order of events paints a clear picture of retaliation since moving plaintiff every few weeks to the exact same cells has absolutely no legitimate penological goal,” Yandell wrote.
The July 2020 incident in question occurred after Yandell’s co-defendant, William Sylvester, was caught with a batch of jail alcohol and responded by yelling, “When I come out, I’m f—— these b—— up,” referring to jail deputies, according to a report written by Sacramento sheriff officials and filed in federal court.
Deputies wrote that when they attempted to escort Yandell to dayroom, he “aggressively approached” deputies with his fists cocked and called one “a punk and a b—-.” Three deputies tackled him to the ground in an ensuing confrontation, the report alleges.
Since the case was filed, one of Yandell’s co-defendants, Pat Brady, filed a similar suit that publicly exposed sheriff officials had violated the law by recording attorney/client meetings in the jail. A sheriff memo says the practice was accidental and that just audio, not video, was recorded, but local offense attorneys have publicly cast doubts.
Meanwhile, another co-defendant who is being housed at California State Prison, Sacramento, Brant Daniel, has filed a motion to be transferred to the jail out of fear that prison guards will murder him. The prison is under investigation by the FBI for alleged staff corruption, the Sacramento Bee reported last April.
