Reputed prison gang leader told operation not available

The reputed leader of the Aryan Warriors prison gang will not get a liver transplant -- for now.

Ronald "Joey" Sellers, who is suffering from end-stage liver failure, had asked U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson to order the government to provide the life-saving procedure.

At a hearing Tuesday morning, Dawson said the government was willing to fund the operation, but the problem was finding a hospital to do it.

"They don't provide surgery. They only pay for it," Dawson said of the government.

A liver transplant surgery and follow-up costs for the first year total nearly $450,000, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

Sellers, 41, was housed at the federal prison at Terminal Island in Southern California. Two nearby transplant facilities at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California were approached about performing the operation.

UCLA didn't respond. USC determined Sellers was not a good transplant candidate, citing a lack of a support system, inadequate follow-up care in prison and other factors, the judge said.

Indiana-based lawyer Richard Kammen, who attended the hearing via teleconference, said he would try to transfer his client to a federal prison with better post-operative medical facilities in hopes of qualifying him for the transplant.

"It strikes me as unfair and a little bit unconscionable that everyone believes he needs this treatment, but no one can figure out how to get it to him," Kammen said.

Sellers' brother and son have agreed to donate part of their livers to Sellers, who has hepatitis C. He said he contracted the disease in a Nevada prison.

Sellers is accused of heading the Aryan Warriors inside Nevada prisons. Under his leadership, the gang distributed methamphetamine, sought to corrupt prison guards, and assaulted fellow prisoners in racially motivated attacks that left one inmate dead, federal authorities said.

Federal prosecutors have indicated they will seek the death penalty against him at trial.

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0281.