Racist gang leader gets life for dissident's death

Steven Walter Cooke was sentenced Thursday in federal court

Published On: May 03 2012 09:07:20 PM CDT   Updated On: May 03 2012 09:16:19 PM CDT
BEAUMONT, Texas -

A man described by prosecutors as a general in the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood of Texas has received a life sentence for the 2008 murder of a gang dissident in Southeast Texas.
A Justice Department statement says Steven Walter Cooke was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Beaumont. The 48-year-old Tomball man pleaded guilty in November to committing a racketeering-related violent crime and admitted to murdering 37-year-old Scott Freeman.
The federal statement says Freeman was in a rival faction to the one led by Cooke and was recruiting members to join that faction.
Freeman said he shot Freeman six times as Freeman sat behind the wheel of his truck.

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