Vernon Schillinger - Season 1

Season 1

Schillinger is the head of the Aryan Brotherhood, a gang of white supremacists. Their main goal is to instill fear in darker-skinned inmates who wish to take advantage of any whites in the prison. Schillinger begins Season 1 as a cellmate of Tobias Beecher, a white lawyer imprisoned for vehicular manslaughter, who is also an educated family man unfit for prison life. After Beecher is harassed by his larger, threatening black cell-mate Simon Adebisi, Schillinger offers to let him move into his cell as long as he does not implicate Adebisi to Unit Manager Tim McManus. Beecher naively accepts the offer, unaware that Schillinger is a jail-house rapist and that the Aryans only pull moves like this to make sexual slaves, or "prags", out of the newer inmates. As a result, Schillinger takes advantage of Beecher's weakness once inside the cell and rapes him, then burns a swastika on his right buttock.

Throughout this season, Schillinger is wary of the high-profile leader of the Muslim prisoners, Minister Kareem Saïd, because of Saïd's ability to gain access to and sometimes influence McManus and other officials. He fears that Saïd could mobilize the black inmates in a takeover of the prison.

Schillinger frequently humiliates and rapes Beecher, once getting one of the drag queens to dress him like a woman. Beecher later sing in the prison talent show in drag. To cope with the rapes inflicted on him, and the degradation, Beecher begins using drugs, much to Schillinger's disgust. Schillinger forces him wear a shirt bearing a Confederate Flag, in hopes that Beecher will be harmed or murdered by prison black inmates. Beecher, however, after taking some PCP, flies into a rage and throws a chair at Schillinger, shattering the "pod" (cell) glass and hitting Schillinger in the eye, temporarily blinding him in one eye. Once out of the hospital, McManus transfers him to "gen pop" (general prison population).

Following the transfer, Schillinger threatens Beecher in the gym. Beecher, however, reacts fiercely, beating Schillinger unconscious with free weights before defecating on his face in front of some of Emerald City's most powerful inmates. This gains Beecher the respect of several inmates, such as Ryan O'Reily, Miguel Alvarez and even Adebisi, and harms the Brotherhood's reputation. Consequently, Beecher is sent to the hole. Meanwhile, Schillinger realizes how vulnerable he has become in "gen pop". He tells McManus how badly he wants to be paroled in his upcoming review so he can be with his family. McManus reluctantly allows him to move back into Emerald City.

In Emerald City, a riot breaks out, during which Schillinger lies low, allowing biker inmate Scott Ross to command his Aryan troops. During the riot, Schillinger sees Correctional Officer Diane Whittlesey shoot and murder Ross after the SORT team supplies her with a gun.