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twitterLOOKING IN ON: JUSTICE:
Lawyers seek liver transplant for Aryan Warrior
Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2009 | 2 a.m.
The Aryan Warriors' reputed leader in Nevada, Ronald "Joey" Sellers (shown in his 1991 booking mug), is serving a life sentence.
Sun Archives
- 5 Aryan Warriors prison gang members found guilty (7-6-09)
- Aryan Warriors meth cook gets 11 years (11-26-2008)
- Aryan Warrior prison gang leader sentenced to more than 16 years (9-17-2008)
- Lockdown hell (9-19-2008)
- Feds may race Grim Reaper in gang case (7-31-2008)
- Aryan Warriors threaten violence (6-6-2008)
In a bizarre saga that has dragged on for eight months, lawyers for imprisoned white supremacist Ronald “Joey” Sellers are making another push to get the government to buy him a liver transplant.
And once again, federal prosecutors — who are considering seeking the death penalty for Sellers, the jailed reputed leader of the Aryan Warriors prison gang — are resisting.
Sellers, 41, being held at the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in Southern California, is the last of 14 defendants to be tried as the result of a federal racketeering investigation into the violent prison gang. The others have pleaded guilty or were convicted this year.
In court papers, Sellers’ lawyers say his health is deteriorating, and they provide graphic details.
“The defendant is quite ill from his end-stage liver failure,” they report. “He is severely bloated, has a massive hernia so large that a fist-size portion of his intestines are protruding from his muscular wall and he is in constant pain requiring medication in sufficient dosages that he risks addiction.”
Sellers contends his liver problems are the result of becoming infected with the hepatitis C virus while in the custody of the Nevada prison system.
His lawyers say that if he doesn’t get the liver transplant, he’ll die before a jury gets a chance to decide his fate on the racketeering charges. His trial is on hold indefinitely while prosecutors consider going through the lengthy death penalty approval process.
Sellers’ lawyers wrote that they “are doubtful that the defendant has the strength to withstand the rigors of a trial without this necessary treatment.”
But in their response, federal prosecutors are asking U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson to deny Sellers’ request for the liver transplant, which, according to medical Web sites, could cost up to $400,000.
The prosecutors say that Sellers’ medical treatment behind bars is being “monitored at the highest levels of the Marshals Service” and that during a recent evaluation at the USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, Sellers was not accepted as a transplant candidate.
The debate continues at an Aug. 25 hearing before Dawson.
•••
White House drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske will get a firsthand look Wednesday at Clark County’s Drug Court, run by Family Court Judge Jennifer Elliott.
Before that he’ll hold a 9:30 a.m. news conference at the Nevada Highway Patrol Building on West Sunset Road with top-level law enforcement officials on the “threat of drugged driving.”
According to the drug czar’s office, a national survey recently found there were five times as many nighttime weekend drivers under the influence of illegal drugs as under the influence of alcohol.
Discussion: 35 comments so far…
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Surely the liver of some young unfortunate black man can be found. Here's hoping.
And we should protest Kerlikowske being here. What a gross waste of our money.
Wow no liver for you!
If he were an illegal he'd get all the free medical care he needed!
He's not even convicted and he's been treated as if he has been.
rejco100 - He actually was convicted of a previous crime and is serving a life sentence. The trial he is facing now is for charges received from crimes and prison violence as a member/leader of the prison gang Aryan Warrior.
If they are considering the death penalty then he must have killed or ordered the killing of someone in prison I suspect. Article lack any details about the pending trial.
Isn't karma something when you hate?? A liver needs to go to someone deserving. There's a price to pay for hatred. Guess he's getting his now.
Comment removed by staff.
The man has committed crimes against society, if he obtained HepC while in the NV prison system, he placed himself there by decisions and actions he himself made ,
I say NO LIVER for him, there are FAR more deserving people in need of expesnive medical care than this wart on societys behind
Just deny the liver and it sounds like the rest of the problems kind of work themselves out!
No need to waste a perfectly good liver on this guy!
Not only that, but he'll still have hep c, won't it destroy a transplanted liver also?
Convicted in the United States does not mean you did it! Thousands of HORROR stories out there.
Mr. Sellers is being tried for SELF-DEFENSE in the HORRIFYING TORTURE CHAMBERS of the State of Nevada's Prison System.
Prison isn't supposed to be fun!
Liver Let Die...
Liver la vida loca?
Let's see, He had no compassion, hated, committed crimes, probably killed or gave the order to kill. Let's be just like him - No Liver
This is insane, but how about a liver with a nice chianti?
Chianti? Depends if its beef liver or chicken livers. Of course, I prefer a cold beer with fried chicken livers and gizzards.
A recent study found that people who consumed one glass of wine a day were at a lower risk of developing liver disease than non drinkers. Maybe give the aryan warrior a glass of wine per day for his illness. On the other hand, give me the glass of wine.
By the way... Do you think the Birdie has a gizzard? I think he might have something stuck in his craw.
deLIVERance?
Although he isn't convicted, yet anyway, why should our taxpayers pay for a new liver? As a person who works full time with no insurance, nor the possibility of obtaining insurance through work I would be refused a liver transplant due to lack of funding. Why should a criminal get better health care than I? And if that is the case, how crowded will our prisons get for the purpose of obtaining health care and whatever else these people are entitled to that the general working public struggling to survive are not entitled to, simply because we choose to work?
While some person is waiting for a liver transplant or doesn't have the financial resources or insurance to pay for one lets give a loser criminal in prison a transplant. The other side of the coin is he probably won't live to get the liver anyway. Justice will be served.
You only liver once!
"Convicted in the United States does not mean you did it! Thousands of HORROR stories out there."
Look at his haircut. He's guilty!
"Sellers contends his liver problems are the result of becoming infected with the hepatitis C virus while in the custody of the Nevada prison system."
So he either got a prison tattoo, shot up drugs, or had prison sex.
NO LIVER FOR YOU!
My wife had a liver transplant in '06.
The state and prison officials are not making the decision here.
If you don't get a thumbs up from the transplant center (in this case
UCLA) after the rigorous week long evaluation process, you don't get
a new liver. The transplant center decides on the basis of your medical
condition, and on the prospects for survival with the new organ.
Some candidates are simply too sick to survive the surgery.
I guess the above comments can serve as public record for those who actually favor government rationing of health care.
ThisOneGuy,
Health care rationing for a racist pig facing the death penalty? Absolutely. For the record, I'm also in favor of rationing food and water by taking it from this guy and giving it to more deserving people.
Hendo, you are right on.
Taxpayers will pay either way, if he dies relatives will sue.
Isn't there a dying child they can give the liver to instead? Giving it to this guy feels like a waist.
*sigh* This is a no-brainer, or should be. Since U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Estelle v Gamble, prisons and jails are *required* to provide necessary medical care to detainees. The reason for this is obvious--a prisoner can't walk himself or herself down to UMC and get treatment. Denying a prisoner treatment needed to maintain their life is classified as cruel and unusual punishment and is therefore unlawful. The rule of Estelle applies whether the prisoner in question is Rev. Ralph Abernathy or an A-Dub.
"...if he was from across the boarder, well he wouldn't even be in jail now !"
How profound. There are no Hispanics is prison, and the only reason Captain Aryan trailer-bacon is in prison is because of reverse discrimination.
Brilliant.
Once again ladies and bigots, "Boarder" does not mean "Border".
Boarder?? waist?? what the hell are they teaching in dese skools nowadaze?
I worked with a woman whose husband had HepC- contracted through a bad blood transfusion earlier in his life. Her husband became so ill with his damaged liver that it was determined that he needed a transplant. He was evaluated and denied on the basis of the HepC (severity of illness) and was informed that he was not a suitable candidate for a liver transplant.
He died several months later.
I believe that our prisoner, Mr Sellers, has been offered the same options of evaluation that my friend's husband was. I believe that he was rejected for the same reason-that a new liver would not be a viable option for someone with HepC (and level of illness); Mr Sellers has had the same treatment options as that of a person not incarcerated and received the same answers.
Mr Sellers should be medicated to ease pain, because we as a society are not completely barbaric asses; and at this point of illness, I don't think that addiction is an issue to be concerned with. If he does survive well, withdrawal issues are something that are dealt with as they arise and just the way life works sometimes.
Case closed.