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Remarks by District Attorney Tony Rackauckas
Operation Stormfront Press Conference
December 16, 2010
Thank you all for coming. I would like to take this time to recognize Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, Assistant U.S. Attorney Denise Willett, Chief of the Santa Ana Office, John A. Torres, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Los Angeles Field Division, Chief John Dunkin, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations, Office of Correctional Safety, Special Agent in Charge, Resident Agent in Charge, James Kollar, United States Secret Service , Orange County Office, Dr. Kevin OGrady, Anti-Defamation League. These officials represent the Orange County law enforcement united front in our war against gangs.
In Orange County, we will never accept that gangs are here to stay, and we will never give up the battle. A gangs only purpose is to do evil. The best way to keep the public safe is to eliminate gangs. We are committed to disrupting gang leadership, taking away their financial resources and guns, and taking gang members off the street as many times as we can and for as long as we can.
Operation Stormfront has taken 34 dangerous gang members off our street through new indictments and probation and parole violations. This is the largest-ever take-down of white supremacist prison and street gang criminal enterprises in Orange County.
ATF and the Orange County Sheriffs Department pooled their resources to investigate and share information about white supremacist prison and street gang members. U.S. Secret Service was investigating counterfeiting fraud. As many of the defendants became targets, CDCR worked to get them into protective custody during the ongoing investigation.
These agencies kept the U.S. Attorneys Office and the Orange County District Attorneys Office up to date helping us to make the legal determination as to which jurisdiction would yield the most punishment for the potential charges and obtained federal and state indictments accordingly.
The efforts by the federal agencies have led to the prosecution of numerous firearm, narcotics, and fraud cases. At the State level, the OCDA obtained three related indictments against 14 defendants involving extortion, conspiracy, and solicitation of aggravated assault and murder.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Sheriffs Department also worked to arrest 20 additional white supremacist gang members and associates for various parole and probation violations, non-violent felonies, and one attempted murder. The firearm used in that attempted murder case was obtained by ATF and is on display here today.
At the center of these conspiracies is married couple, Wayne and Ruthie Marshall. Wayne Marshall is a white supremacist prison gang leader and inmate in Orange County Jail. He was in Sheriff Hutchens custody awaiting trial on a series of robberies.
With the help of his wife Ruthie, Wayne Marshall acted as a shot caller for two white supremacist criminal street gangs in the jail and on the street for the benefit of his prison gang -- giving criminal orders and conducting criminal business through phone calls from jail to the outside and in person during jail visits.
Ruthie acted as his trusty lieutenant and facilitated three-way calls, acted as a communication bridge between her husband and criminal street gang members, gave orders on his behalf, and gave her own orders under the pretense of acting on his behalf.
The indictment Case ending in 92 came about when Jeremy Ball took Ruthie Marshalls car for several days without her permission. Ruthie Marshall became angry because she was unable to retrieve the car from impound after Ball was stopped by police in a traffic stop. She and her associates lured Ball to a motel on two separate occasions and assaulted him repeatedly for money.
During the first assault, Ruthie Marshall used her arm in a hard cast to repeatedly hit the victim. In the second assault, the victim was pistol whipped. They are accused of committing these assaults for the benefit of white supremacist prison and criminal street gangs.
The indictment Case ending in 97 involves Wayne Marshall becoming angry after learning that white supremacist criminal street gang member Charles Hull had disrespected him and not sharing drugs smuggled into the jail. Ruthie Marshall was the go-between by placing and participating in three-way phone calls for Wayne Marshall and other white supremacist gang members which resulted in the assault and extortion plot.
The third and most recent set of Operation Stormfront indictments charges six white supremacist gang member defendants. The evidence and testimony presented during the grand jury proceedings are sealed for 10 days by law and information on the circumstances of the third case cannot be released at this time.
The 14 defendants in three cases all face a maximum sentence of life in state prison if convicted. When there are gang members, there are guns, lots of guns
violent crimes and criminal enterprises. With these three indictments, parole violations, and federal cases, we have prevented additional people from becoming victims of crime by removing these gang members from terrorizing our streets. I will now turn it over to Sheriff Hutchens.
