SOLEDAD — The attorney for an Aryan Brotherhood-associate California prisoner who was allegedly caught by a guard exiting his cell while holding a smartphone now wants the data deemed inadmissible on the grounds that a search of the contraband phone violated the Fourth Amendment.
Defense attorney W. Scott Quinlan filed a series of recent motions seeking to suppress not only cellphone data from his client, Kenneth Bash, but subsequent wiretaps of Bash’s friends and associates who now stand accused of conspiring to smuggle drugs into Salinas Valley State Prison and sell methamphetamine and heroin on the outside. Quinlan’s motions accuse Anthony Gonzalez, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, of conducting a warrantless search of Bash’s contraband phone and describe subsequent wiretaps based on that search as “the fruit from the poisonous tree.”
“(Gonzalez) used the search warrant to search the illegally obtained thumb drive containing the warrantless forensic download. He and his team then used information from that search to justify wiretaps of Stephanie Madsen, Derek Smith, and of Mr. Bash’s wife Kristen Bash, who communicated with Mr. Bash,” Quinlan wrote. “That in turn allowed eavesdropping officers to learn of Mr. Bash’s phone numbers, enabling them to apply for wiretaps of his phones.”
Bash, 34, is described by authorities as an Aryan Brotherhood-linked “shot caller” of the B Yard in Salinas Valley, who operated under Todd “Fox” Morgan, a member of the notorious all-white prison gang who is also incarcerated. He also allegedly had influence over a Fresno-based white gang known as the Fresnecks, whom he allegedly coordinated with in a massive, multistate drug trafficking operation.
Over the past two years, federal prosecutors in Sacramento have filed several cases against alleged Aryan Brotherhood members and associates, accusing some of running multi-million dollar drug rings from their prison cells, and others of ordering murders within the prison system. Much of the evidence is reportedly based on information found on the defendants’ contraband cellphones.
In their response to Quinlan’s motion, prosecutors wrote that the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches doesn’t apply to prisoners.
“(Bash) had no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding the contraband cell phone and contents of the cell phone,” assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Stokman wrote in his response. “Even so, agents had probable cause to believe that defendant was committing drug trafficking offenses from within the prison, using contraband phones, and a warrant was obtained to search the contents of the recovered phone.”
Law enforcement reports filed as an attachment to one of Quinlan’s motions offer details into the types of conversations authorities reportedly found. They include Bash allegedly instructing Madsen, a woman described by authorities as his “secretary” on the outside, to soak letters with liquidized drugs and mail them to Morgan, and conversations with Kristen Bash about committing EDD fraud. Kenneth Bash and Derek “Pup” Smith reportedly talked about doing business with a man who owned a car lot in the Central Valley and was involved in illicit sidebusinesses.
The discovery of Bash’s contraband phone hardly required a sophisticated police investigation; a prison guard at Salinas Valley simply spotted Bash exiting his cell with the phone in his hand, according to one of the reports.
Authorities in Montana have already linked Bash and Madsen to a large-scale meth ring there, alleging that Bash directed Madsen and others to ship or transport packages of meth weighing as much as 22 pounds. The Montana ring was also connected to the infamous Sinaloa Cartel, and resulted in two guilty pleas by middleman drug distributors in the state, according to federal prosecutors.
The B Yard at Salinas Valley, which authorities accuse Bash of helping run for the Aryan Brotherhood, is also where alleged Aryan Brotherhood member Brant “Two Scoops” Daniel murdered fellow inmate Zachary Scott in 2017, allegedly stabbing Scott so hard the knife went through his torso. Daniel, now incarcerated at California State Prison, Sacramento as he awaits racketeering charges, has accused prison officials there of plotting to kill him and assisting in other inmate murders. Prison officials, meanwhile, have placed him in solitary confinement and accused him of plotting to murder a guard, which Daniel denies.
