Popeye: The Former AB Brother
Donald "Popeye" Mazza testified for the government and provided significant insight into the Aryan Brotherhood.
I’m re-posting this article about Donald “Popeye” Mazza, which was originally posted on March 7, 2024. It was my third ever Substack post and the first about the Sacramento Aryan Brotherhood RICO trial. As it would turn out, Mazza ended up being the government’s star witness in the Sacramento trial. Illustrating Mazza’s credibility on the witness stand, none of the three defense teams mentioned him—much less roasted him—during their closing arguments. Mazza, who pleaded guilty to racketeering and conspiring to murder Michael Trippe (which didn’t happen), was ultimately sentenced to time served plus 90 days and was released from custody in Summer 2024.
Donald “Popeye” Mazza testified over three days in the big Aryan Brotherhood (AB) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) trial in Sacramento, which is officially captioned as USA v. Ronald Yandell, William Sylvester, and Daniel Troxell. Having turned State’s evidence, Mazza is officially In The Hat—AB parlance for being a marked man. Whereas most Rat Witnesses are reprehensible and weak individuals, Mazza is one of the few whose attributes outweigh his past misdeeds.
Popeye Mazza is well known in Orange County as the co-founder of Public Enemy Number One (PENI), a Southern California street gang labeled as White supremacist by the types of folks that like to throw those kinds of labels around. Mazza also has the distinction of being a Nazi Lowrider member before graduating to the apex of the Woodpile as a full-fledged Aryan Brotherhood member.
On June 6, 2019, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of California, which encompasses the inland areas of the state from the Oregon Border down to Kern County, unveiled a RICO indictment against 16 Aryan Brotherhood members or associates. The top-named defendant, Ronald “Renegade” Yandell, had his contraband prison cell phone wire tapped by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) between August and October 2016. Mazza, the sixth-named defendant, was recorded talking to Yandell on August 31, 2016, about murdering Aryan Brotherhood member Michael “Thumper” Trippe (pronounced Trip) who was falsely suspected of being a police informant.
Mazza pled guilty to federal RICO charges for conspiracy to plot the murder of Thumper Trippe and agreed to cooperate in the prosecution of his co-defendants in 2022. Popeye’s sentencing was pending at the time of his testimony and dependent on how he did on the witness stand.
The Long Road To Becoming A Brother
Born September 9, 1970, Donald Mazza co-founded PENI in the late 1980s. PENI emerged from the Orange County punk rock scene. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes PENI as “unusual hybrid of a racist skinhead gang, street gang and prison gang.” The ADL states that PENI has two factions, with “one emphasizing white supremacist ideology and the other criminal activity; the current leadership steered the group into criminal operations in and out of prison.”
Where Mazza fell in terms of which faction he was aligned with was unclear. However, he admitted to once having a tattoo on his chest that would be consistent with White supremacy, although he later had it removed.
“There was a time in my life where I dabbled in that ideology,” Mazza testified, adding that he had since disavowed those views.
In 1994, Mazza was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with great bodily injury, which resulted in a prison commitment to Chino State Prison. He ended up in the notorious Palm Hall, where some of the most infamous prison gang members, including Rodolfo “Cheyene” Cadena and Joe “Cocolisco” Morgan, have been housed. It was there that Mazza met AB members who had been pulled down to Southern California from Pelican Bay State Prison for court appearances. Robert “Blinky” Griffin was one of the first AB members he met. The two got along well and this started Mazza's progress to becoming a full-fledged Aryan Brotherhood member.
Following his release from prison, Mazza and fellow PENI member Nick Rizzo stabbed a drug informant working for the Westminster Police Department in April 1999. Mazza testified on direct examination that he masterminded some defense discovery shenanigans that prompted the Orange County District Attorney’s Office to offer him a deal for attempted murder and a gang enhancement with a sentence of 15 years at 85 percent in 2003. Mazza took the deal, while Rizzo went to trial and ended up with a 25 to Life sentence.
While Mazza was fighting his case in the Orange County Jail, he engaged in shot calling. Three assaults occurred at his direction. An inmate nicknamed Elephant stabbed another nicknamed Stress to gain entry to PENI. Another inmate nicknamed White Knight was alleged to have told too much to the cops and threw his paperwork onto the tier. Mazza read it and confirmed that White Knight was telling. White Knight’s face was subsequently cut up with razor blades. The final assault authorized by Mazza involved stabbing an inmate who was alleged to have killed a teenage girl, placed her body in the trunk of a car, and set it ablaze. Mazza also revealed how he orchestrated a conspiracy to get drugs into jail through trial clothes.
“My main motivation was to stay high back then,” Mazza testified about his mindset in the Orange County Jail.
By this point, Mazza was a Nazi Lowrider member. Upon entering the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), he was sent to the Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (SHU). Mazza ended up C-9, which he described as “very quiet” in contrast to raucous Palm Hall. The first AB member he met was Kenneth “Kenwood” Johnson, who chatted him up and implied he was with The Brand. Mazza didn’t have aspirations to become a Brother, at least at this point.
However, Mazza soon met AB members Dale Bretches (co-owner of the Presa Canarios that mauled Dianne Whipple to death in San Francisco in 2001), Rick Rainey, Danny Christensen, and Steve “Steve-O” Olivares. Bretches laced Mazza up on the history of the AB and mentored him on what it meant to be a Brother. Bretches told Mazza that the “Sacrifice is greater than the benefits.”
Mazza was put “Up for the Tip,” or sponsored for AB membership by Bretches and Rainey circa 2005. He went through a 2-year probationary period and became a full-fledged Aryan Brotherhood member in 2007.
Because of his association with PENI, Mazza was tasked with getting the various skinhead prison factions that had aligned themselves against The Brand to resume programming with the AB.
The United Society of Aryan Skinheads (USAS) was a real thorn in the side of the AB. USAS had at least 100 members, whereas the AB had around 40 members. Two of the USAS leaders, Scott Taylor and Ray Sharp, were real-deal, anti-Semitic, White supremacists and objected to The Brand having a Jewish member in its federal faction, having a Native American as a full-fledged member, and selling hard core drugs such as crystal methamphetamine and heroin to White folks. Mazza, who by this point, was sober and off drugs, could relate to the USAS guys.
“I had a hard time being mad at them,” Mazza testified. “They believed in something different.”
Ultimately, The Brand prevailed after conducting a couple hits, which caused most of the USAS members to request protective custody, Mazza testified.
Mazza paroled from prison in April 2013 at 42. He returned to Orange County. His intentions were to become a Citizen—a sober and productive member of society that is employed, pays taxes, and stays out of trouble.
Popeye and Wile E. Coyote
Donald “Popeye” Mazza described Matt “Cyco” Hall as a “Movie Character” during his testimony on March 5, 2024. Hall committed suicide in a Costa Rican jail in September 2019.
Matt Hall was born July 21, 1968. He held a degree from UCLA. Standing 6’5”, 275 pounds, Hall pursued a career in Mixed Martial Arts and competed at an international jujitsu competition in Hawaii circa 1997, supposedly winning medals, although this has yet to be verified.
Hall was convicted of second degree robbery in 1993 and assault with a deadly weapon with great bodily injury in 1999. He was busted with a firearm while on parole in 2007 and ended up in Delano—either North Kern State Prison or Kern Valley State Prison—where he met Donald Mazza. Hall became a PENI member at some point prior to meeting Mazza, but the two did not know each other on the streets.
Danny Troxell’s attorney Todd Leras characterized Hall as a “Cartoon Character” and compared him to Wile E. Coyote on cross examination on March 6, 2024. Indeed, the Wile E. Coyote comparison was fitting: Matt Hall’s attempts to engage in criminal activity invariably went bad, often comically.
In Summer 2016, Hall organized a robbery of a cannabis grow in the Sacramento area. He recruited two accomplices to assist. The robbery went bad after the growers opened fire and shot one of Hall’s accomplices.
On July 13, 2016, Hall participated in a botched drug robbery with two other co-conspirators in an Anaheim motel room. The intended target turned the tables on the trio, seized the gun of PENI member Daniel “Shakey” Richardson, and, in the struggle, Shakey was shot and killed. The intended target escaped unscathed. Richardson took part in the robbery to work off a $2,500 fine that had been imposed by AB member Kenneth “Kenwood” Johnson. Following the botched robbery, Hall was on the phone with Ronnie Yandell complaining about Kenwood.
“He loved talking on the phone, which I hate,” Mazza testified about why Hall was in regular communication with the likes of Yandell and Johnson.
Kenwood Johnson wasn’t the easiest guy to work for. He was demanding and made no attempt to disguise who he was or what he wanted done. Mazza testified Kenwood would often call AB members or associates on his contraband prison cell phone, mention the words “Aryan Brotherhood” on voice or text messages, and demand they “Do this or you're dead!” Following the motel lick gone bad, Kenwood was despised by Ronnie Yandell, Billy Sylvester, Matt Hall, Donald Mazza, and many others. Yandell and Sylvester discussed killing Kenwood on wiretapped phone calls. Only Kenwood’s close relationship with Danny Troxell spared him. CDCR placed Kenwood in protective custody after the DEA wire taps intercepted calls of Yandell and Sylvester plotting to kill him.
Hall also discussed home invasion robberies on intercepted calls. When DEA Agent Brian Nehring heard those calls, he forwarded that information to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. On September 30, 2016, the Sheriff’s Department SWAT raided Hall’s Hermosa Beach apartment. It just so happened that Donald Mazza was staying over at Hall’s apartment at the time of the raid in preparation of catching an early flight out of LAX to Florida. Mazza had advised Hall to remove any incriminating evidence from his apartment prior to his arrival. Hall apparently didn’t do so and police found a PENI jacket and firearms.
Trippin’ On Trippe
Michael “Thumper” Trippe was an AB member from San Diego. Donald Mazza had known Trippe from his time in the Pelican Bay SHU and respected him. Trippe had paroled from the SHU circa 2012 roughly a year before Mazza. Trippe was sober and employed. He also had been diagnosed with cancer and had been in and out of the hospital, nearly passing on a couple of occasions.
“He took a step back,” Mazza testified about Trippe’s priorities circa 2015-2016.
Between his sobriety and health issues, Trippe wasn’t “doin’ shit to Shine the Rock” (or put in work for The Brand) in the words of Ronnie Yandell. On top of that, a rumor had been started by AB member Tim “Slider” Cook that Trippe had gotten in a jam on a drug case and was working it off as a police informant. By early 2016, Michael Trippe was In The Hat.
“If you ain’t been in the hat, you ain’t nobody,” Mazza testified about the significance of Trippe’s status. Trippe was a legend and had fallen out of favor with influential members of The Tip.
Ronnie Yandell initially ordered Scott “Rascal” Grizzle to kill Michael Trippe. Grizzle had been released from prison in late 2015 after his life sentence was overturned on appeal. Grizzle, a meth user, soon caught a new murder case after a home invasion drug ripoff went wrong in May 2016. Soon thereafter, Yandell reassigned the Trippe hit to Donald “Popeye” Mazza.
In mid-2016, Mazza was sober, employed in home improvement sales, and had a band, Dead Friends 46, that was playing shows around Orange County.
“I had a good life,” Mazza testified. Now his life was going to get a lot more complicated. And predictably, Matt “Cyco” Hall was in the thick of it.
On September 23, 2016, Hall called a meeting at Mazza’s residence in Anaheim. AB Member Rick Rainey was in attendance, along with Mazza’s friend Jeff Martin. Hall arrived with a duffel bag full of guns. Mazza asked Hall to return the bag to his vehicle because he didn’t want his retired across-the-street neighbor, who spent a lot of time in his front yard, to get any ideas something was going on the other side of the street. At this meeting, Hall implored Mazza and company about the urgency of whacking Trippe. Mazza and Rainey pushed back. Killing a full-fledged AB member required the California Commission’s approval.
“There’s no retirement plan here…No 401(k),” Hall later recounted what he told Mazza and Rainey at the Anaheim meeting to Yandell on an intercepted phone call. The fellas had to do “licks,” be “active,” and “get down.”
Mozza found it contrary to protocol that Hall, an associate who was “Up For The Tip,” would give orders to kill a Brother to full-fledged Brand members. It would have made more sense for Hall to “Earn His Rock” by smoking Trippe if, in fact, the Commission had sanctioned the murder. Hall ultimately became a full-fledged AB member, but not because of his involvement with the Trippe plot.
On top of that, Mazza had conducted his own investigation into Trippe’s status. Between interviews and paperwork checks, Mazza concluded that the allegations of Trippe being an informant were Fake News and testified he had no intentions of killing Thumper.
A week after the meeting at Mazza’s Anaheim residence, the LA County Sheriff’s SWAT raided Hall’s apartment on September 30, 2016. Hours later, Hall and Yandell discussed the status of the Trippe hit on a phone call that was intercepted by the DEA.
“He needs to go kill that dude, right?” Hall said to Yandell. He noted Mazza was out on bail but needed “to go handle that shit.”
Within days, people were turning on Mazza. Hall suspected Mazza was an informant because he was present when the SWAT raid went down. AB members were recorded in wiretapped conversations plotting to kill Mazza. In October 2016, Popeye was called to a meeting with his parole agent and advised about the threats to his life.
While this drama was going on, Mazza summoned Trippe to meet him at Rutabegorz, a vegan restaurant in Fullerton, to discuss how to get out of the hat. Trippe assumed Mazza was going to whack him. One of the first things Trippe said to Mazza at the restaurant was, “I thought I might get killed today.” Mazza advised Trippe on what he could do to get back in good standing, namely putting money on the books of incarcerated AB members.
Mazza testified he put money on the books of incarcerated AB members Frank Clement, John Stinson, Billy Sylvester, Danny Troxell, and Ronnie Yandell via JPay, a vendor that provides phone and internet services to inmates for a hefty fee. Testimony from JPay Senior Account Manager Aubrey Cassas indicated those inmates received sporadic deposits in the amount of $100 to $200 from a third party that Mazza routed payments through. The cumulative amount each Brother received wasn’t much; for example, over a multi-year period, Troxell received a total of $535 from Mazza. However, this allowed Mazza to be “left alone” and avoid any involvement with drugs or murders.
“I tried to spread some money around,” Mazza testified, adding that he wasn’t fond of some of those AB members he was financially supporting.
During his last day on the witness stand, Mazza wryly noted during a blistering re-cross-examination that he never had any intention of killing Michael Trippe.
“That’s why he’s alive,” Mazza testified
Eight West
Most of the male co-defendants in the USA v. Yandell et al. were transferred to Sacramento County Jail in June 2019 and housed on the 8th floor, in a unit known as Eight West. It was there where the treachery began.
Defense discovery began coming out, including Ronnie Yandell’s recorded contraband prison phone conversation transcripts. Travis Burhop and Samuel Keeton, who had frequent phone conversations with Yandell, were upset and blamed Ronnie for being careless.
Sylvester would get drunk on jail pruno and brag about murders he had taken part in. According to Mazza’s testimony, Sylvester aspired to commit five murders, but had only done three at the time of the conversation. One of which was the murder of Devlin “Gazoo” Stringfellow at New Folsom in January 2018. Stringfellow was also a founding member of PENI and a close friend of Donald Mazza. Sylvester told Mazza that Stringfellow was “Rocked to Sleep,” that is, he was distracted on a ruse and then hit. Stringfellow had a release date of June 2020. Mazza, who was still on the streets in 2018, was the keynote speaker at Stringfellow’s memorial service. Recent testimony from Travis Burhop indicated that Stringfellow made a lot of enemies while in prison.
The jury saw surveillance footage of Stringfellow’s murder at New Folsom. Stringfellow was sitting along the track. Sylvester sat down next to Stringfellow and put his arm around him. Seconds later, Stringfellow was struck in the head with a rock. He later died.
Mazza was not impressed by Sylvester’s bragging. On top of that, the CDCR Office of Correctional Safety (OCS) Unit had interviewed Yandell and Sylvester in November 2018 about conflict between the Fresno Bulldogs and the Mexican Mafia and whether the AB had any intentions of joining. Apparently, Yandell and Sylvester talked to CDCR investigators in a rather chummy fashion for around an hour.
Pat Brady, an AB member that engaged in multiple murders at High Desert State Prison, vowed to kill Ronnie Yandell for the OCS interview. Brant “Two Scoops” Daniel, who killed an AB associate who had lost a half ounce of meth at Salinas Valley State Prison, called Yandell and Billy Sylvester “Rats” during a court appearance. The OCS interview was made available to Mazza as part of defense discovery. By this point, he had resolved to cooperate.
“I would have cooperated either way, but it made it easier,” Mazza testified about the interview. Mazza was the first defendant to debrief and leave Eight West.
Six AB members were pulled out of their cells for interviews with OCS, including Danny Troxell, Travis Burhop, David “Big Country” Chance, and Calvin “Cowboy” Bell. None provided any information to OCS. Four members of other prison gangs were also interviewed.
Underscoring Donald Mazza’s significance, his first day of testimony on March 5, 2024 indirectly led to the infamous Van Ride From Hell.
Super interesting! I’d like to see an article breaking down the factions within the AB and who falls under who’s authority as you see it.
Also learning who is beefing with whom. It’s fascinating to hear about these political factions.