Latest news with #KennethJohnson
CBS News
21-05-2025
- CBS News
Aryan Brotherhood members convicted of ordering murders from California prisons sentenced to life in federal prison
Three white supremacists and members of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang were sentenced to federal prison Monday after being convicted of ordering multiple murders while serving time in the California prison system, authorities said. A federal judge in Fresno sentenced Francis Clement, 58, to life in prison for a racketeering conspiracy that included five murders, drug trafficking, fraud, and robbery, according to a press statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California. Each of the murders in Los Angeles County occurred when Clement was in state prison, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. Clement was convicted in February along with Kenneth Johnson, 63, who was convicted of two of the murders in the aid of racketeering, along with conspiracy. Johnson was also sentenced to life in federal prison, where there is no parole. In addition, John Stinson, 70, who was also serving a lengthy sentence in the California state prison system, was sentenced to 20 years in federal custody, the press statement said. He was already serving a life sentence for a 1979 murder and Court documents indicated Clement and Johnson held leadership roles in the Aryan Brotherhood and directed crimes by gang members inside and outside of prison using smuggled cellphones. Prosecutors said Johnson and Clement together ordered the killings between 2020 and 2022 because they believed their victims either violated gang rules or owed the gang money. The statement said evidence presented at the trial showed Stinson was also a high-ranking Aryan Brotherhood leader with substantial authority over the enterprise, and used a contraband cellphone within his prison cell to engage in drug trafficking. His ranking in the gang allowed Stinson to receive a cut of prison and street-level drug sales, as did Clement, prosecutors said. Stinson was already serving a life sentence for a 1979 Long Beach murder and a 2007 racketeering conviction. (L-R) Kenneth Johnson, Francis Clement, John Stinson California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation "The convicted defendants led a notorious prison gang that committed ruthless murders, widespread methamphetamine trafficking, and perpetuated a culture of mayhem, fear, and disorder within the prison system that bled into the outside world," said a prepared statement from Matthew Galeotti, who heads the U.S. Justice Department's Criminal Division. "Organized crime within the prison system, enabled by the use of contraband cellphones, endangers American neighborhoods by flooding streets with dangerous drugs. The Criminal Division will continue to pursue crime syndicates, like the Aryan Brotherhood and their facilitators, to ensure they go to prison and the harm they inflict on society ends once incarcerated." "Today's sentences are yet another blow to the leadership of a violent criminal enterprise run from inside California prisons and spanning multiple counties and states," said Michele Beckwith, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California. "The Aryan Brotherhood has maintained its deadly influence over members, associates and others both inside and outside prison. We are committed to doing everything we can to stop these violent inmates from orchestrating their criminal activities from inside prison walls." Attorneys for Clement, Johnson, and Stinson had argued that they were convicted with testimony from lifelong criminals seeking to cut themselves a better deal. The Los Angeles Times reported that Clement's lawyers noted in a sentencing memo that no prison guards were prosecuted for smuggling in phones or colluding with gang leaders. The Times also reported that lawyers for Johnson and Clement filed a motion to delay their sentencing because the men had been marked for "assault and/or murder" after the trial and the threat could be grounds for a new trial. Eleven defendants in total were charged in the racketeering conspiracy case; five other defendants are awaiting trial and three have pleaded guilty.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Teesside stories you may have missed this week
VE Day parties and parades and the heart-warming story of Saltburn grandmothers knitting jumpers to help save penguins caught up in oil spills. Here are some stories you may have missed on Teesside this week. "It was like nothing I'd ever seen," 102-year-old RAF veteran Kenneth Johnson said of the VE Day celebrations in 1945. He is one of thousands across the north-east of England and Cumbria who commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe. Services and parties took place, including parades in Redcar, ahead of the lighting of beacons as part of a national hilltop ceremony. "Everyone was waltzing and snake dancing [conga lines] - it seems quite silly now," Mr Johnson, from Darlington recalled. Read about Mr Johnson's memories here llegal vapes and tobacco worth more than £12,000 were stored under "rotting waste" in wheelie bins, Trading Standards officers found. The officials seized 685 packs of cigarettes, 24 packs of hand-rolling tobacco and 83 illegal vapes from bins outside a shop in Darlington. Cleveland Police informed Darlington Borough Council after spotting a shop worker removing tobacco from the bins where it was being used as off-site storage. Read the full story here Little jumpers knitted by grandmothers are being used to prevent penguins caught in oil spills from getting ill while trying to clean their feathers. Dubbing themselves the Knitting Nannas, the group based at Hazelgrove Court Care Home in Saltburn, Teesside, have been sending their mini creations to a charity in Australia. The woolly tops are used as a barrier to stop the birds ingesting toxic chemicals when they try to preen themselves after swimming through oil. Read all about the Knitting Nannas story here A football fan paid £1,000 to help others travel to Wembley for an FA Trophy final. Lifelong Spennymoor Town FC fan Gary Finley said he had to "follow his heart" and pay transport costs for more than 65 fans going to watch their team play Aldershot Town on Sunday. It comes after Spennymoor Town Council refused to help the club pay for fans to travel to the final as part of their Back the Fans and Pack the Stands campaign. Read all about this act of generosity here Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Teesside stories you may have missed this week
VE Day parties and parades and the heart-warming story of Saltburn grandmothers knitting jumpers to help save penguins caught up in oil spills. Here are some stories you may have missed on Teesside this week. "It was like nothing I'd ever seen," 102-year-old RAF veteran Kenneth Johnson said of the VE Day celebrations in 1945. He is one of thousands across the north-east of England and Cumbria who commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe. Services and parties took place, including parades in Redcar, ahead of the lighting of beacons as part of a national hilltop ceremony. "Everyone was waltzing and snake dancing [conga lines] - it seems quite silly now," Mr Johnson, from Darlington recalled. Read about Mr Johnson's memories here llegal vapes and tobacco worth more than £12,000 were stored under "rotting waste" in wheelie bins, Trading Standards officers found. The officials seized 685 packs of cigarettes, 24 packs of hand-rolling tobacco and 83 illegal vapes from bins outside a shop in Darlington. Cleveland Police informed Darlington Borough Council after spotting a shop worker removing tobacco from the bins where it was being used as off-site storage. Read the full story here Little jumpers knitted by grandmothers are being used to prevent penguins caught in oil spills from getting ill while trying to clean their feathers. Dubbing themselves the Knitting Nannas, the group based at Hazelgrove Court Care Home in Saltburn, Teesside, have been sending their mini creations to a charity in Australia. The woolly tops are used as a barrier to stop the birds ingesting toxic chemicals when they try to preen themselves after swimming through oil. Read all about the Knitting Nannas story here A football fan paid £1,000 to help others travel to Wembley for an FA Trophy final. Lifelong Spennymoor Town FC fan Gary Finley said he had to "follow his heart" and pay transport costs for more than 65 fans going to watch their team play Aldershot Town on Sunday. It comes after Spennymoor Town Council refused to help the club pay for fans to travel to the final as part of their Back the Fans and Pack the Stands campaign. Read all about this act of generosity here Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
VE Day celebrations like 'nothing I'd ever seen'
"It was like nothing I'd ever seen," 102-year-old RAF veteran Kenneth Johnson said of the VE Day celebrations in 1945. He is one of thousands across the north-east of England and Cumbria commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe. Services and parties have taken place across the region, including parades in Redcar and the unveiling of a poppy art installation in Windermere, ahead of the lighting of beacons later as part of a national hilltop ceremony. "Everyone was waltzing and snake dancing [conga lines] - it seems quite silly now," Mr Johnson remembers. Mr Johnson, from Darlington, "broke out" of his barracks near Aylesbury to attend the Victory in Europe Day celebrations. After enjoying themselves, Mr Johnson said he and his fellow comrades spent the night in an "underground shelter" and the following morning attempted to "sneak back" to their barracks. "When we got off the train we saw the Red Hats [military police] were waiting at the station, they grabbed a few lads but we ran and hid," he said. After getting back to the aerodrome base, Mr Johnson realised they were not the only ones to have left so he escaped disciplinary action. He was 23 when the war in Europe ended and admits of feeling a sense of "relief" on hearing the news, but the memories are still there. "The war was a terrible, I hope it's remembered, not what I did, because greater people played their parts than me." One hundred-year-old George Young, from Amble, was stationed in Sri Lanka with the RAF during World War Two. He now spends his time with his family playing golf, but told BBC Radio Newcastle how he still remembered his years spent in service. "Height of winter, freezing conditions, storms, wind, anything could have happened," he said. "I lost four years of my young life. I'd just joined the Amble golf club as a boy but the war started, the army moved in." Mr Young was called up for service at the age of 18. He said: "I remember firing a Sten gun, throwing a live hand grenade and on the passing out parade, we were the smartest guardsmen. "There aren't many of us left so it is good to have a record of what did happen." Parades and services have taken place across the North East, including in Redcar, where hundreds of veterans and service men and women walked from the boating lake to Redcar Beacon. At Carlisle Cathedral, a service of choral evensong concluded at 18:30 BST with the ringing of the cathedral bells as part of the national "Ring Out In Celebration". It mirrored the moment on 8 May 1945, when bells rang out across Britain as the nation took to the streets in celebration. Elsewhere in Cumbria, primary school children marked the occasion by dressing as war evacuees. Briony, a pupil at Windermere's St Martin and St Mary Church of England Primary, said VE Day was about "remembering all of the soldiers who gave up their lives for all of us and tried helping us live in peace". Fellow pupil Noah said: "Soldiers, and not just soldiers but other people, have tried to make this world a better place for us to live in so we don't have to live in more world wars." The students were also part of a project in which four Windermere schools helped create 4ft (1.2m) poppies under the guidance of artist, Donna Campbell. They have been installed in various locations in the town, including at the war memorial where a short service was held for VE Day. A beacon ceremony will take place in Windermere later, held on the summit of Orrest Head. It will be lit at about 21:30 BST as part of a national network of hilltop beacons. Lord Mayor of Newcastle, councillor Rob Higgins, will light the flambeau beacons in Newcastle later, and the lighting of a beacon at Keel Square, in Sunderland will also take place. Hundreds gathered to get their spot in the square for the lighting ceremony. Joanne Willis and Michelle Jenkins, both from Sunderland, arrived in Keel Square on Thursday morning. They told the BBC they were "excited to be here" and would be staying until the beacon is lit tonight. Beverley Thirwell and her mother Eileen Thirwell also grabbed their seats for the ceremony. Eileen was alive during World War Two and remembers the original VE Day when she was just 14. "It was lovely, everybody was singing," she said. Beacons in Northumberland, County Durham, Hexham, Blyth and South Tyneside will also be lit. Additional reporting by Andrew Watson, Phil Chapman and Jim Scott. Follow BBC North East on X and Facebook and BBC Cumbria on X and Facebook and both on Nextdoor and Instagram. LIVE: Follow all the latest VE Day 80th anniversary updates WE WERE THERE: Three women's bittersweet memories of VE Day SIMPLE GUIDE: What's to come - and what you might have missed WATCH: Queen Elizabeth II's big VE Day adventure EXPLORE: More on VE Day 'We will never forget,' King says in handwritten note at VE Day service VE Day film descendants gather to watch ancestors Street parties mark VE Day anniversary
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
VE Day celebrations like 'nothing I'd ever seen'
"It was like nothing I'd ever seen," 102-year-old RAF veteran Kenneth Johnson said of the VE Day celebrations in 1945. He is one of thousands across the north-east of England and Cumbria commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe. Services and parties have taken place across the region, including parades in Redcar and the unveiling of a poppy art installation in Windermere, ahead of the lighting of beacons later as part of a national hilltop ceremony. "Everyone was waltzing and snake dancing [conga lines] - it seems quite silly now," Mr Johnson remembers. Mr Johnson, from Darlington, "broke out" of his barracks near Aylesbury to attend the Victory in Europe Day celebrations. After enjoying themselves, Mr Johnson said he and his fellow comrades spent the night in an "underground shelter" and the following morning attempted to "sneak back" to their barracks. "When we got off the train we saw the Red Hats [military police] were waiting at the station, they grabbed a few lads but we ran and hid," he said. After getting back to the aerodrome base, Mr Johnson realised they were not the only ones to have left so he escaped disciplinary action. He was 23 when the war in Europe ended and admits of feeling a sense of "relief" on hearing the news, but the memories are still there. "The war was a terrible, I hope it's remembered, not what I did, because greater people played their parts than me." One hundred-year-old George Young, from Amble, was stationed in Sri Lanka with the RAF during World War Two. He now spends his time with his family playing golf, but told BBC Radio Newcastle how he still remembered his years spent in service. "Height of winter, freezing conditions, storms, wind, anything could have happened," he said. "I lost four years of my young life. I'd just joined the Amble golf club as a boy but the war started, the army moved in." Mr Young was called up for service at the age of 18. He said: "I remember firing a Sten gun, throwing a live hand grenade and on the passing out parade, we were the smartest guardsmen. "There aren't many of us left so it is good to have a record of what did happen." Parades and services have taken place across the North East, including in Redcar, where hundreds of veterans and service men and women walked from the boating lake to Redcar Beacon. At Carlisle Cathedral, a service of choral evensong concluded at 18:30 BST with the ringing of the cathedral bells as part of the national "Ring Out In Celebration". It mirrored the moment on 8 May 1945, when bells rang out across Britain as the nation took to the streets in celebration. Elsewhere in Cumbria, primary school children marked the occasion by dressing as war evacuees. Briony, a pupil at Windermere's St Martin and St Mary Church of England Primary, said VE Day was about "remembering all of the soldiers who gave up their lives for all of us and tried helping us live in peace". Fellow pupil Noah said: "Soldiers, and not just soldiers but other people, have tried to make this world a better place for us to live in so we don't have to live in more world wars." The students were also part of a project in which four Windermere schools helped create 4ft (1.2m) poppies under the guidance of artist, Donna Campbell. They have been installed in various locations in the town, including at the war memorial where a short service was held for VE Day. A beacon ceremony will take place in Windermere later, held on the summit of Orrest Head. It will be lit at about 21:30 BST as part of a national network of hilltop beacons. Lord Mayor of Newcastle, councillor Rob Higgins, will light the flambeau beacons in Newcastle later, and the lighting of a beacon at Keel Square, in Sunderland will also take place. Hundreds gathered to get their spot in the square for the lighting ceremony. Joanne Willis and Michelle Jenkins, both from Sunderland, arrived in Keel Square on Thursday morning. They told the BBC they were "excited to be here" and would be staying until the beacon is lit tonight. Beverley Thirwell and her mother Eileen Thirwell also grabbed their seats for the ceremony. Eileen was alive during World War Two and remembers the original VE Day when she was just 14. "It was lovely, everybody was singing," she said. Beacons in Northumberland, County Durham, Hexham, Blyth and South Tyneside will also be lit. Additional reporting by Andrew Watson, Phil Chapman and Jim Scott. Follow BBC North East on X and Facebook and BBC Cumbria on X and Facebook and both on Nextdoor and Instagram. LIVE: Follow all the latest VE Day 80th anniversary updates WE WERE THERE: Three women's bittersweet memories of VE Day SIMPLE GUIDE: What's to come - and what you might have missed WATCH: Queen Elizabeth II's big VE Day adventure EXPLORE: More on VE Day 'We will never forget,' King says in handwritten note at VE Day service VE Day film descendants gather to watch ancestors Street parties mark VE Day anniversary
