Five Aryan Brotherhood of Texas Members Sentenced for Assault

Five Aryan Brotherhood of Texas gang members have been sentenced in Houston.

The Houston-area ABT members were sentenced for their role in an aggravated assault in Tomball, Texas in September 2008.

31-year-old Zechariah Aaron Johnston, also known as Oz, was sentenced to 84 months in prison; 33-year-old Stephen Kyle Knebel, also known as “Lil Evil,” has been sentenced to 24 months; 33-year-old Robert Lynn Sheats was sentenced to 36 months in prison; and 35-year-old Johnny Ray Nichols was sentenced to 18 months.

Last March, 34-year-old Rusty Dwayne Plante was also sentenced to 36 months in prison.

Johnston, Knebel, and Nichols each pleaded guilty to racketeering aggravated assault, and Plante and Sheats pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering aggravated assault.

Court documents show that the five, along with seven other ABT gang members, participated in the beating of an ABT prospect member, who sustained serious bodily injury. The prospective member apparently violated ABT rules of conduct.

Eleven of the 12 defendants in the case have pleaded guilty, and 43-year-old gang member David Harlow was found guilty by a judge last March.

The ABT began in the early 1980s in the Texas Prison System, and enforces its rules and promotes discipline in members through murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to murder, assault, robbery, and threats.