Five people affiliated with a neo-Nazi prison gang, including one who legally changed his name to Filthy Fuhrer, were convicted in the grisly murder of a fellow white supremacist whose gang tattoo was sliced from his torso with a heated knife.
Michael Staton was kidnapped, beaten, tortured and shot on Aug. 3 2017. Fuhrer, 45, was the gang’s leader and had changed his name from Timothy Lobdell. All five men were convicted of murder, racketeering, kidnapping and assault.
All face a mandatory sentences of life imprisonment without parole when they are sentenced in federal court in Alaska. The hearings are scheduled for October.
The gang operated inside and outside of prisons, prosecutors said. Their racist beliefs were emblazoned on their skin in extensive Nazi and white supremacist symbols.
Fuhrer ordered gang members to commit violent kidnappings and attacks in the “free world” outside of prison, prosecutors said.
The gang leader ordered the hits from behind bars, where he was serving a 19-year sentence for attempting to kill an Alaska State Trooper 20 years ago, authorities said.
The others convicted were Roy Naughton, 43; Glen Baldwin, 40; Colter O’Dell, 29; and Craig King, 56.
According to a 2018 plea agreement by gang member Nicholas Kozorra, a blade “was heated up with a propane torch and the defendant, Baldwin, and King took turns burning Staten’s (tattoo) from the ribcage area of his body with a hot knife and blowtorch,” the Anchorage Daily News reported.
