The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives successfully avoided justice and accountability last Wednesday. Four ATF agents named Gregory Giaoni, Paul D’Angelo, Darrin Kozlowski and John Ciccone avoided justice and accountability.

Two men named Richard Clayborne and Jose Gonzalez were found guilty of the murder of a Mongol named Manuel Vincent “Hitman” Martin in the wee small hours of October 8th, 2008. Clayborne and Gonzalez may have even pulled the trigger. But determining who pulled the trigger is only a fraction of the story.

Martin was killed after attending a party at a bar called The Mix at 2612 Honolulu Avenue in Montrose, California – part of the great sprawl of Los Angeles near the Glendale city line. At the time of Martin’s murder Giaoni, D’Angelo, Kozlowski and Ciccone were all participants in a three-year-long undercover, and still mostly secret, provocation that was intended to turn the Mongols Motorcycle Club into a blatantly criminal enterprise. The three undercover agents had all joined the Mongols Cypress Park chapter and quickly became full time Mongols. They were always everywhere. They never left a party early. They provoked fights and solicited crimes. Some of the crimes they solicited were blatant entrapments. The provocation, or investigation, was eventually christened Operation Black Rain. Ciccone was the case agent for Black Rain. Koslowski was the lead undercover.

Undercover Brothers

Giaoni, D’Angelo and Kozlowski all rode to the party at The Mix with Martin. Ciccone drove the chase car. All three men had been identified as possible ATF agents by club members. Kozlowski’s photograph had appeared in a book titled Under And Alone about an earlier ATF investigation of the Mongols. However, according to multiple sources, then Mongols president Ruben “Doc” Cavazos refused to believe the men were cops after they passed a lie detector test.

The three undercovers shared a safe house less than a mile from The Mix and less than three miles from the Los Angeles headquarters of the ATF in Glendale. The safe house was always well stocked with drugs. Numerous sources have said that both Giaoni and D’Angelo appeared to develop substance abuse problems during the course of the investigation. Both men carried nasal spray bottles putatively filled with methamphetamine and sniffed from them frequently. According to multiple sources, Giaoni took his motorcycle apart while intoxicated on methamphetamine and couldn’t put the bike back together.

All three undercovers feared and distrusted Hitman Martin. In one particularly lurid Report of Investigation, Kozlowski described Martin terrorizing a Hells Angel supporter for wearing the wrong tee shirt. All three undercovers were aware that several months before his death, Martin had stabbed a Hells Angel. And, numerous informed sources believe that Martin was suspicious of the three “Cypress Park brothers.”

Looking For Fights

After arriving at The Mix on the evening of October 7, the three undercovers immediately went looking for fights. “They were trying to say we were there to fight some Russian dudes, which was totally not the truth,” a Mongol who was there said. “They tried starting shit with the bouncers there, and a few other people until Hitman chilled them out.”

Claybourne and Gonzalez, both members of Glendale’s Toonerville Rifa 13 clique, were among the ATF agents victims.

The night of the Mongols party, there was also an ongoing federal investigation including extensive electronic surveillance of Toonerville Rifa 13. Activities of both the Mongols and Toonerville investigations were monitored by a single Los Angeles area fusion center – which at the time was widely described as “The War Room.” A principal function of The War Room was “deconfliction,” or warning undercover agents and their backups about possible dangers posed by chance encounters between undercover agents in unrelated cases.

“The War Room,” according to police documents, “provide(d) real time operational and tactical intelligence support by tracking, around-the-clock, all Federal, State and local law enforcement ‘high risk’ operations within the four county region.” The party at The Mix was being monitored by the Drug Enforcement Administration, ATF, FBI, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, the Glendale PD and the Los Angeles Police Department.

Martin Suspicious

According to one very informed source, “Hitman came to me and (another Mongol) and said he had to see us the next day because we ‘had to talk about the new dude that was hanging with the Cypress Park (ATF) brothers.’ Mind you, in this entire investigation those Cypress Park guys never left a party early once. They rode in with Hitman. Yet, that night they left an hour or an hour and a half before everyone else. Why would they leave early? Right after Hitman came to me and another brother? Why did they leave then?”

It is likely that the three undercover agents and the chase car left early because they had been warned that there would be retaliation for the trouble the agents had provoked. It is a common and ongoing practice in ATF undercover investigations to intentionally try to provoke violence in general and “wars” between competing groups. The Aging Rebel has long tried to substantiate exactly what happened that night. On multiple occasions and in violation of federal law the ATF has ignored multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for specific documents pertinent to both the Toonerville and Mongols investigations on October 7, 8 and 9, 2008.

The Murder

About three minutes after leaving The Mix at about two a.m. on October 8, Hitman Martin and a Mongols hang around named Ronald “Porno Ron” Hamburg were fired upon by assailants in a dark sedan as they entered the Glendale Freeway. Clayborne and Gonzalez have now been convicted of being the men in the dark sedan. The Aging Rebel believes eleven shots were fired in all. One of those shots struck the heel of Hamburg’s boot and was carried away from the crime scene. Martin was armed at the time of the attack but never got off a shot. He was shot once in the chest as he turned back to look at his attackers. He pulled over to the shoulder of the road, fell off his motorcycle and died. Attempts to resuscitate him by both Mongols and paramedics were unsuccessful. He was 30-years-old and the father of two small children.

The shooting received extensive publicity in Los Angeles because of the impact the crime scene had on local traffic. Most reporters tried to blame the Hells Angels for Martin’s death. The president of the Frisco charter of the Angels, Mark “Papa” Guardado had died after being shot and stabbed by a Mongol named Christopher Bryan “Stoney” Ablett about a month before. Abblett had turned himself into police in Oklahoma the previous day. The Los Angeles Times quoted a retired FBI agent and “biker gang” expert named Tim McKinley who said, “It is just game-on between the two groups (the Angels and the Mongols) and it has been for quite a while now. They’re in a gang war.”

Thirteen

But police were well aware of the circumstances of the shooting. Local and federal police searched The Mix shortly after Martin was pronounced dead. A Glendale Police spokesman disingenuously told the eager press, “We don’t know if he was specifically targeted, it’s a random situation or if this was some sort of road rage incident.” A subsequent press release added the interesting detail that “thirteen shots” had been fired at Martin. Not eleven shots, one of which was carried away in Hamburg’s boot but thirteen. It was the closest to the truth any official statement about the murder ever got. The idea was to associate the murder with the so-called Mexican Mafia. The thirteenth letter of the alphabet is M, or as it is pronounced in Spanish, eme. Toonerville, like virtually all Mexican cliques in Los Angeles is loosely affiliated with La Eme. In early October 2008 the Mongols, at least half of whom are Chicano, had only recently ended a five-years-long feud with the Eme.

It seems undeniable, nor has any attempt at denial ever been made, that Martin was murdered in retaliation for deliberate provocations made by on duty ATF agents; that those agents and numerous other police authorities in Los Angeles knew in advance that a shooting was about to occur; that none of the police who knew the shooting was about to occur bothered to warn or otherwise safeguard any of the Mongols the undercover agents had fatally endangered; and that the forewarned undercover agents fled the danger zone to prepare their alibis and plot how to best exploit the situation.

It is highly probable that Christopher Brunwin, the Assistant United States Attorney in charge of Operation Black Rain knew the details and circumstances of Martin’s murder. On October 9, as Martin’s body was being autopsied and without any logical conclusion to the undercover investigation having been reached, Brunwin asked a grand jury to return a racketeering indictment against 79 Mongols.

That same day Kozlowski, unaware than the investigation was ending without have reached a dramatically satisfying conclusion, was attempting to incite a war between the Mongols and the Toonerville clique. Kozlowski “tried as hard as he could to get me to cosign on the Toonerville dude as being the shooter,” a Mongol who had been at The Mix said. The Mongol refused because he had been standing outside the cocktail lounge when Porno Ron telephoned for help. And, as he stood there he thought he saw Claybourne just getting into his car. “When that didn’t happen he went to the National Sergeant at Arms and said that we were at the bar to start shit and he kept up his Toonerville hype. He even tried to get me and another Bro that was there that night in trouble over the shooting and thrown out bad.”

Case Closed

Local police announced that Martin’s murder had been solved at a meticulously orchestrated press event on July 9, 2009. Los Angeles Chief of Police William Bratton told his audience that 20 members of the Toonerville Rifa clique were in custody. Four people, the Chief explained, had been arrested for murder, four for attempted murder and twelve more had been arrested on suspicion of violating drug or gun laws. The implication was that the four murder suspects were involved in the Martin shooting. A Glendale police spokesman said, “Obviously since that shooting, it’s been nine months of a grueling investigation.”

In fact Claybourne, who is now the convicted shooter, was not arrested for the murder until 2:10 p.m. on August 12, 2009. Claybourn is neither Mexican nor a resident of Glendale. His eyes are blue and he lived in Chatsworth. He was arraigned at 8:30 a.m. on September 11.

The July 9 press conference was the last time any police official made any statement about Martin’s murder until Clayborne and Gonzalez were convicted last week. The two men will be sentenced April 16.

Two members of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Outlaws Association were sentenced last week in a case that has lingered since January 2013.

Federal district judge Petrese Tucker sentenced former chapter president Ronald L. “Bugs” Sells to 30 months in prison and five years of supervised probation. She sentenced Michael James “Maniac” Privett, a patched member of the club, to time served. Court documents describe Privett as the chapter “warlord.” Sells signed a sealed plea and sentencing agreement on May 3. Privett signed a sealed plea deal sometime before he was released from federal custody last April 3.

Privett was briefly locked up again four months later. Following a domestic dispute on August 3, a Baltimore woman named Maxine Radloff complained that Privett “stole her vehicle and assaulted her.” His pretrial services officer contended Privett had violated the terms of his release and he was back in custody August 13. Thirteen days later he was free again after a request by prosecutors. And a month after that Privett pleaded guilty in Baltimore to second-degree assault and was sentenced to a three-year suspended sentence and three years probation. He was also ordered to pay Radloff $3,000 restitution.

FBI

The Philadelphia Outlaws, who were once the Philadelphia Warlocks, became the target of an federal fishing expedition after the patch over. The FBI’s Organized Crime/Labor Racketeering Squad coerced or paid a Probationary Outlaw to solicit a one kilo methamphetamine deal at the beginning of 2013. The snitch told Sells he had a buyer for the meth in New York.

Sells agreed to sell the snitch the crank but told him he wanted the deal kept secret from both his wife and his motorcycle club. According to court documents, the informant took possession of the drugs at Sell’s home in Churchville, Maryland on January 17. Sells, the snitch and two other Outlaws then drove to the Philadelphia clubhouse.

According to public documents Sells then told the informant, “This shit can’t be in the clubhouse. If the bosses find out, I’m gonna be dead and so are you…We need money. We gotta get with your guy and move this stuff.” The informant left his motorcycle and motorcycle trailer at the clubhouse as collateral. The snitch agreed to pay off his drug debt two weeks later and Sells was arrested when he tried to collect his money on January 31.

Privett Talked On The Phone

That same day the informant got a phone call from Privett who demanded “come up with my money.” Later Privett called and said “You can believe one thing. You can fuck with me all you want to, but motherfucker trust me. Your whole family is in danger. Fuck you.” The third time he called Privett told the snitch, “I’ll have the address for your son’s house in Florida this week. I got the tag numbers. I got your bike. I got your trailer. I want my money. Your whole family is going to be in danger if not. You need to pick up the fucking phone. You’re supposed to meet (Sells) today. Now he’s not answering the phone either. As far a I’m concerned, both you all in the same boat.”

Privett was arrested the next day and charged with “collection of extensions of credit by extortionate means.”

Van Smith of the Baltimore City Paper has been following this story for the last thirteen months. You can read his latest coverage here.

Steve Ruiz, the former Hells Angel who shot and killed a club brother at a club funeral in October 2011, pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter yesterday and will be sentenced to 44 months in a California prison.

Current California law requires prisoners to serve two thirds of their sentence before being eligible for parole. However, due to prison overcrowding, current California policy makes prisoners eligible for parole after serving half of their sentences. Ruiz has been in custody since February 25, 2012 so he could be out of prison as early as January 2015.

Ruiz shot Santa Cruz Hells Angel Steve Tausan at the funeral for San Jose Angels president Jeffrey “Jethro” Pettigrew on October 15, 2011. Tausan was a former member of the San Jose charter and he and Pettigrew were close friends. Pettigrew died in a brawl with members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club at John Ascuaga’s Nugget Casino Resort in Sparks, Nevada on September 23, 2011. Stuart Gary “Jabbers” Rudnick, the Vago who baited Pettigrew and instigated the fight was sentenced to seven years in prison last August. Ernesto Gonzalez, the Vago convicted of shooting Pettigrew, was sentenced last October to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.

The Shooting

Before their final, fatal confrontation Tausan and Ruiz had two arguments about Pettigrew’s death and whether it could have been prevented. Shortly after the shooting in Sparks, Tausan chastised Ruiz for not attending the 2011 Street Vibrations run at which Pettigrew died. Tausan thought Ruiz might have been able to protect Pettigrew and Ruiz argued that he hadn’t attended because he was on club probation and he had to work. The two men wrangled again at a club party in San Jose. According to prosecutors, Tausan threatened to kill Ruiz at that party.

The two men met again at Pettigrew’s funeral and argued. The argument turned into a one sided fist fight in a driveway outside the funeral home. Tausan, a former middleweight boxer, was significantly bigger than Ruiz. The fight was recorded by cemetery surveillance cameras. After Tausan knocked down Ruiz, the smaller man pulled a small caliber pistol from inside his vest and fired two shots.

Ruiz was quickly subdued by mourners, stripped of his club colors and disappeared in the confusion that followed the shooting. In general, Hells Angels who use a weapon on another Hells Angel are expelled from the club. Tausan was carried out of the cemetery by his club brothers where, according to witnesses, police obstructed his access to an ambulance. He died within the hour and was buried in the same cemetery on October 29. According to police, mourners picked up the shell casings and dumped the contents of a cooler on the crime scene. Police also allege that some mourners tried to seize the surveillance video from cemetery employees.

Aftermath

After Pettigrew’s funeral, police assumed Ruiz had been murdered and his body concealed in Pettgrew’s coffin so Pettigrew was exhumed. Ruiz was publically named as a suspect the next day.

Ruiz was the subject of an often ludicrous, four-month-long manhunt that included a particularly destructive Swat raid on a private home in Stockton on October 22. He was eventually captured at a Days Inn in Fremont, California.

Trial dates have been set for the four men accused of killing three Florida Warlocks patch holders during a charity poker run on September 30, 2012.

The dead men were Harold “Lil Dave” Liddle, Peter “Hormone” Schlette and Dave “Dresser” Jakiela. Two other men, Brad Dyess and Ronnie “Whiteboy” Mitchell, were wounded during the incident.

Trial Dates

David “Tin Man” Maloney, Robert William “Willy” Eckert, Victor Manuel “Pancho” Amaro and Paul Wayne Smith are all accused of second degree murder and attempted murder. The four men will be tried separately. The four trials will all be held at the Seminole County Criminal Justice Center in Sanford, Florida.

Maloney will be tried by Judge Marlene Alva in Courtroom 5C beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, March 31. The courtroom is all his through Friday, April 4.

The other defendants will present their cases before Judge Jessica Recksiedler in Courtroom 5D. Amaro’s trial will begin on April 14; Eckert’s trial will begin on April 21; and Smith’s trial will begin May 5.

The Shooting

The dead men were all unarmed. They were killed as they rode into the parking lot of a VFW Post in Winter Springs, Florida. They were carrying an $800 contribution. According to a witness, the men understood the poker run was to help a “fallen brother.” The same witness said that Schlette was shot in the head while his motorcycle was still moving.

Both the victims and the accused were members of clubs that call themselves Warlocks.

The dead and wounded men belonged to the Warlocks Motorcycle Club based in Orlando, Florida. That club was founded in 1967 and its members wear a red and yellow Phoenix on their backs. Maloney, Amaro and Smith are all former members of that club.

But at the time of the shooting the accused men were members of a faction of a Warlocks Motorcycle Club founded in 1967 in Southwest Philadelphia. Its members wear a stylized Harpy patch. To further complicate matters, there are two factions within the Harpy Warlocks. The shooters were all aligned with the Chester, Pennsylvania chapter of the Harpy Warlocks. Members of that chapter trademarked the club patch. They identify themselves as the “Chester based and trademark registered original Warlocks” and they began to add chapters within the last three years.

In 2012, a spokesman for the original Philadelphia Warlocks told The Aging Rebel, “…the guys that killed the Florida Warlocks were not Philly Warlocks…. Guys that are wearing the Warlock colors with the Harpy from Virginia, Florida and South Carolina are not affiliated in any way with Pennsylvania or New Jersey Warlocks. Those guys had colors made and are running around Florida trying to bring the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Warlocks into shit that doesn’t concern us.”

Self Defense

The defendants were all heavily armed. According to police, Maloney was carrying three pistols. He also had “two Mossberg 12-gauge shotguns, a .38-caliber revolver and a.357-magnum revolver along with a bullet-proof vest and an undisclosed amount of ammunition” cached in his car.

All four defendants are expected to claim they acted in self defense. Maloney, either in testimony or through his attorney, will argue that the Chester Warlocks feared that as many as 40 Phoenix Warlocks would attack them at the starting point for the run after most other riders had left. He will argue that he stationed guards at the entrance to the parking lot with orders to keep members of the other club out.

According to multiple Chester Warlock sources, the accused men will argue that they were in fear for their lives after they told the five Phoenix Warlocks, “Get the fuck out. We don’t want you here.”

A jury will begin to decide how reasonable the use of deadly force was in that situation in about 11 days.

There was a small but possibly important victory for the Fourth Amendment earlier this month. A Federal Magistrate judge named John M. Facciola (photo above) denied an application for a federal warrant to rummage through a suspects email account. The issue of electronic searches, particularly email searches, has grown in importance during the Obama Administration.

The case involved the search of an apple email account held by a defense contractor. Search warrant applications are usually sealed. Facciola made public his memorandum denying the warrant. Attorneys and other interested parties may be interested to know that the memo is recorded as Magistrate Case. No. 14-228. You should be able to find the ruling here. The government’s response to the ruling will probably be sealed.

The Issue

The Fourth Amendment states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

To slightly oversimplify a complex issue for clarity, the Obama Justice Department has asserted that with electronic records like emails, companies like AT&T, Apple and Microsoft must disclose everything before the DOJ and other government departments can know what they will actually search. That is the logic the NSA has used to effectively seize email, telephone and other information from virtually all Americans. The government justifies its demands for these massive disclosures by arguing, to paraphrase Professor Orin Kerr, that a search does not occur until the data is exposed to possible human observation.

Judge Facciola ruled March 9 that whether the information is formally searched or merely stored, “the seizure of a potentially massive amount of data without probable cause has still occurred – and the end result is that the government has in its possession information to which it has no right.”

What’s Wrong With That

Responding to Facciola’s ruling, Nate Cardozo, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Matt Apuzzomarch of the New York Times last week, “The fact that our data is being held by third-party service providers is allowing the government to engage in fishing expeditions that they’ve never been able to conduct before.” You can read the Times story here.

Citing a ruling in a similar case last year, Facciola ruled that the government must follow five rules when conducting email searches.

Federal policemen must ask “the electronic communications service provider to provide specific limited information such as emails or faxes containing certain key words or emails sent to/from certain recipients.”

Federal police must appoint “a special master with authority to hire an independent vendor to use computerized search techniques to review the information for relevance and privilege.”

“If the segregation is to be done by government computer personnel, the government must agree in the warrant application that the computer personnel will not disclose to the investigators any information other than that which is the target of the warrant;”

“Magistrate judges should insist that the government waive reliance upon the plain view doctrine in digital evidence cases.”

And, “The government’s search protocol must be designed to uncover only the information for which it has probable cause, and only that information may be examined by the case agents.”

This is a dry story. It isn’t sexy which is why it has received so little news coverage. But it is still one of the most important news items in the last month.

Fred Waldron Phelps, the lay preacher who believed he could re-closet homosexuals by obstructing the funerals of American servicemen, died last week at a hospice in Topeka, Kansas. He was 84.

Phelps was born in Meridian, Mississippi on Nov. 13, 1929. He was raised Methodist, became an Eagle Scout, ran track and graduated from high school when he was 16. In 1951, at just 21, he was profiled in Time magazine for denouncing “promiscuous petting” at his alma mater, John Muir College in Pasadena, California.

He married Margie Marie Simms in 1952 and the couple moved to Topeka in 1954. The Phelps’ had 13 children, 54 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. He founded an independent church, call the Westboro Baptist Church in 1955. Most of the congregation was related to Phelps.

Phelps graduated from Washburn University School of Law in Topeka in 1964 and specialized in civil rights cases. “Most blacks…that’s who they went to,” Ben Scott of the Topeka chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. told CNN in 2010. “I don’t know if he was cheaper or if he had that stick-to-it-ness, but Fred didn’t lose many back then.” Phelps was disbarred in Kansas in 1979 and agreed to stop practicing federal law a decade later.

He began protesting the public tolerance of homosexuality in 1991 after learning that men were using a public park near his home for “indecent conduct.” That year he and his followers began spoiling the funerals of people who died of AIDS and he began protesting outside local churches he considered to be tolerant of homosexuality.

The Westboro congregation began disrupting the funerals of American soldiers in 2005. Phelps claimed that American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan were God’s retribution for America’s tolerance of homosexuals. His most famous slogan was “God hates fags.”

Those demonstrations at military funerals led to the formation of a well known motorcycle group called The Patriot Guard Riders. The Patriot Guard took on the mission of physically shielding mourners from the protesters and drowning out their insults by revving their engines and singing patriotic songs.

In his final years, Phelps’ family split into factions of relatives who could stand the protests and those who could not.

Phelps spent his life judging others. Now he will be judged.

Assume your cell phone is tapped.

There is growing concern over the use of devices called “Stingrays” by local, state and federal police departments to illegally wiretap all the cell phone calls at biker gatherings. Stingrays are bogus cell phone towers. They are about as large as a small suitcase and they are typically deployed in vans and sedans.

They are manufactured by a single vendor – the Harris Wireless Products Group, a division of the Harris Corporation. Harris WPG advertises itself as “a leading developer of state-of-the-art wireless technology for the Government and Law Enforcement communities.” Stingrays cost about $400,000. Most are purchased either by federal agencies with large budgets or by state and local agencies using federal grants. They should be illegal, as most of the tools and tactics of the global war on motorcycle clubs should be illegal. They are clearly unconstitutional, in that they are used to make a general, warrantless search. And they violate current federal law in that they “interfere with” electronic communications. Most of the information sponged up by Stingray deployments is stored as “intelligence.”

The federal grants that pay for Stingrays are typically described as supporting “terrorism investigations.” Typically, motorcycle clubs are described as “terrorist organizations” and “transnational gangs.”

Secret Evidence

The use of Stingrays to make criminal cases has never been challenged in court, in part because of clauses in the contracts between Harris WPG and its police customers. In an investigation of Stingray use by police in Northern California, Sacramento television station KXTV obtained a document that read, the “equipment is proprietary and used for surveillance missions…. Its capabilities can only be discussed with sworn law enforcement officers, the military or federal government. This equipment’s capabilities are not for public knowledge and are protected under non-disclosure agreements as well as Title 18 USC 2512.”

In an article last December, USA Today cited multiple instances in which Stingray deployments and so called “cell tower dumps” were used in investigations that had nothing to do with terrorism. For example:

When a ten-year-old girl disappeared in Colorado police gathered data from “at least several thousand people’s phones.” Police then chose “about 500 people who were asked to submit DNA samples.”

A South Carolina Sheriff gathered data from four cell towers to investigate “a rash of car break-ins near Columbia.”

“We were looking at someone who was breaking into a lot of vehicles and was not going to stop,” the Sheriff explained. “So, we had to find out as much information as we could.”

“When Miami-Dade police bought their Stingray device, they told the City Council the agency needed to monitor protesters at an upcoming world trade conference, according to purchasing records.”

Legal Searches

The collection of cell phone data is legal in most states: Because most legislators and judges are pathetically clueless there is a broad gap current technology and the laws they regulate technology.

Because of the secrecy with which they are used, the deployment of Stingrays is a difficult story to report. To date, most of the heavy lifting has been done by non-profit organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the First Amendment Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Consequently, most Americans remain unaware that their cell calls and text messages are not private.

The problem with the war on terror is that it is a war on the Constitution decorated with American flags. The real goal of this war seems to be to prohibit nonconformity and dissent. And nothing shouts nonconformity and dissent louder than a big, modified American motorcycle. So one theater of this war is the war on bikers.

The war on bikers, and particularly the war on motorcycle clubs, relies on a long list of shady tactics. Here is a short list of the most obvious ones.

RICO

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute epitomizes what has been called “The federalization of crime and the criminalization of everything.” The law, which was originally intended to prohibit “racketeer infiltration of legitimate business.” In other words it was designed to prevent “the mob” from going legitimate. But in 1981, in a case called United States v. Turkette, the Supreme Court broadened the law by redefining the phrase “enterprise.” While the authors of RICO intended “enterprise” to mean a legitimate bar or bowling alley that had been corrupted by “the mob,” Turkette reinterpreted “enterprise” to mean “the mob” itself.” So now the law has become a way to enforce de facto “Bills of Attainder,” which are specifically prohibited by Article One, Clause three of the Constitution.

Civil Forfeiture

Civil forfeiture lawsuits always accompany RICO prosecutions. Simply stated, the federal government uses civil forfeiture to steal everything from people policemen do not like. You do not have to be proven guilty of any crime to have the government steal your stuff. Rather, police simply steal what they want and in order to get it back you have to prove you are innocent. Civil forfeiture proceedings are always characterized by loathsome gamesmanship on the part of government attorneys.

Extra Judicial Punishment

Cops have always beat up “bad guys.” But in the last generation highly militarized police have perfected a form of punishment called the Swat raid. Typically, bullies carrying machine guns break into homes at dawn, terrorize and humiliate the residents, kill the pets and wreck everything they can break. The raids are carried out on the flimsiest of pretexts – like indicia searches. In an indicia search, police target the home of a motorcycle club member or sympathizer to search for proof of his membership, like club memorabilia and photographs. Because the point of these searches is to punish people who have a right to be presumed innocent, they violate the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

Surveillance

Police, particularly federal police, routinely commit all manner of searches and surveillance that violate the Fourth Amendment. That is the amendment which guarantees that Americans and all residents of the United States shall be free from unreasonable and general searches. But police justify searching computers and other electronic devices using flimsy and bogus pretences. And, police in disparate jurisdictions also surveil email, text messages and cell phone conversations.

Prohibiting Free Speech

In 2008, federal prosecutors began trying to outlaw motorcycle clubs by outlawing the symbols club members wear. The Mongols Motorcycle Club has been most burdened by this shredding of the First Amendment. Federal prosecutors have been trying to outlaw the Mongols by outlawing their patch. The goal is to eventually outlaw membership in all clubs that have not been approved by government officials, as the Night Wolves are approved in Russia. Australia, which has weaker constitutional protections than the United States, has recently gone so far as to formally forbid membership in about 25 motorcycle clubs and criminalize fraternization among club members, or more ominously, fraternization among people who have been secretly accused of club membership.

Justified public concern about RICO, civil forfeiture, extra judicial punishment, intrusive surveillance and attempts to limit free speech bisects racial, social and partisans lines. This war on the Constitution should concern the left wing and right wing, white, black, yellow and brown. All Americans should be concerned about the burgeoning American police state.

Save The Patch

The biker’s rights group that has formed to oppose all these police excesses and particularly the outlawing of motorcycle clubs is called “Save The Patch.”

Save The Patch is comprised of members and supporters of numerous motorcycle clubs. It was formed to protect the right to belong to a motorcycle club. The group is just getting off the ground but it has a real chance to bring some reason to the public discussion of the biker menace. And if riding a Harley is an important part of your life you should offer Save The Patch your support.

So you should be aware that Save The Patch is throwing a party this Saturday at The House Lounge, 3626 Fruitland Avenue in Maywood, California from noon until 6 p.m. The event will feature live bands, DJs, food and “Save The Patch” merchandise. It will provide an opportunity for people who might not usually speak to one another to unite around a common cause. And attending this event will be a relatively painless way to stand up for something that matters.

If you live in Southern California, particularly if you live in Los Angeles, and you care about the War on the Constitution you should try to attend.

At least a thousand members of saloon society attended the “Save the Patch” rally at a Mongols friendly bar called The House Lounge Saturday.

The rally was both a publicity event and a fundraiser. The proceeds will help the Mongols Motorcycle Club pay the cost of defending a landmark legal case. The points of that case, titled USA v. Mongol Nation, an Unincorporated Association, is to outlaw a lawful group with the aid of propaganda and to criminalize the previously legal act of belonging to a motorcycle club. Mongols Nation, which attorney Joe Yanny thinks is likely to be ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, has been almost completely ignored by the world’s press.

Two reporters made the trek to the House Lounge. One guy wore an Aging Rebel tee-shirt. The other, whose name is Brian Day, wore a press pass from the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, which is the only news outlet in Los Angeles that has even tried to report on the Mongols with any semblance of professionalism since Operation Black Rain was announced in October 2008. You can read Day’s take on the rally here.

Hanging Separately

The Hells Angels and the universe of clubs that support them were conspicuous by their absence. Los Angeles was unique in the world of motorcycle clubs for years. There are several one percenter clubs in the City of Angels. Three of them are big, tough clubs that would have been solely preeminent almost anywhere else in the world up until about a decade ago – the Mongols, the Vagos and the Hells Angels.

And it is hardly betraying a confidence to state in writing that the Vagos and Mongols have arranged a détente in the motorcycle world and that the Hells Angels remain proudly aloof from that. Nor is there a cop anywhere within ten thousand miles of Steve Cook, the biker authority in Kansas, who does not know that there was a bloody incident on the 15 Freeway south and west of El Lay on March 22, a week before the rally, that involved two well known Los Angeles area clubs. So neither the Angels nor any of the clubs that must get along with the Hells Angels made an appearance at the rally. Interestingly, the One Down MC, which is mostly African-American, was there.

Anyone who knows anything about outlaw clubs or how those clubs actually work or who understands the single, expressionless face that all clubs must show to outsiders can imagine that as many as four or five Angels out of ten sympathize and identify with the Mongols’ legal dilemma. But that is simply not how the Hells Angels as a whole relate to the outside world. So in the coming battles over what fraternal organizations Americans will be allowed to join the Angels will probably stand alone.

The Event

The House Lounge was packed with patches. There was just enough room for guys to hug. It was a daytime, friendly event attended by many women. At any time hundreds of Vagos, Mongols, Carnales, Silent Natives, Aztec Riders, Vietnam Vets and Pacific Savagez spilled out into the street.

The steak sandwiches were good, the music was loud, the beer was cold. Dave Santillan who is not afraid to be known as the President of the Mongols gave a pleasant speech about the importance of the cause.

Increasingly, there is only one biker party. What differentiates these events from one other is their subtext. The subtext of this party was a well known train of logic which goes like this: If faceless and mostly anonymous government employees can do this the Mongols they can do it to any motorcycle club including the Hells Angels. If this can happen to motorcycle clubs it can happen to the Ku Klux Klan, PETA and the Tea Party. And after that the government will find a way to impose its will on the Catholics, the Jews, the Methodists and the Boy Scouts.

The subtext was why the party at the House Lounge mattered. To belong to a motorcycle club is first and foremost a way of being a man. Men don’t have to stand tall but every once in a while they do have to stand up. And, every once in a while a man does have to draw or cross a line in the sand. The Mongols and the Vagos just drew a line.

The Mongols Nation case is on its way to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In the indictment on which the case rests, the government argues that the entire Mongols Motorcycle Club is a racketeering enterprise. The point of the accusation is to create a pretext that will allow the Department of Justice to seize the Mongols name and patch.

Club lawyer Joe Yanny filed a Writ of Mandamus with the appeals court last Friday. A Writ of Mandamus is a request for intervention by a superior court in the business of a lower court in the interests of justice. The Mongols are asking that Judge Otis D. Wright, who appears to be the most incompetent judge in the federal Central District of California, be recused from judging the Mongols.

It is the second time the motorcycle club has tried to get Wright booted off the case. In February the question of Wright’s impartiality was referred to yet another piece of work, Judge Manuel L. Real. Real, who is famous for his reprehensible courtroom manner and his unique ethical standards ruled “A reasonable person with knowledge of all the facts would not conclude that Judge Wright’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” It was an indefensibly stupid decision and Yanny wants the Ninth Circuit to reverse it.

The 38 page writ and more than one hundred pages of attached exhibits also suggests that the office of the United States Attorney for Los Angeles steered this case to these two clown judges in order to frustrate justice.

Yanny characterizes the Mongol Nation case as a “wasteful and repetitive duplication of legal proceedings (which) will irreparably erode the public’s confidence in the judicial system, will involve unnecessary expenditure of a criminal defendant’s resources, and will be wasteful of assets of U.S. taxpayers.”

The Infinite Prosecution

Two other district judges, Florence-Marie Cooper and David O. Carter have already ruled that the Department of Justice cannot seize the Mongols name and insignia. The current case was actually suggested to the prosecuting attorneys by Judge Wright as a way to punish the Mongols. Yanny writes, “the government’s entire theory of the instant case was Judge Wright’s brainchild.”

What the government proposes to do in U.S. v. Mongol Nation is expel all current members of the club because about 80 members were coerced into pleading guilty to racketeering during a case called U.S. v. Cavazos et al. As part of his plea deal, former club president Ruben “Doc” Cavazos both claimed ownership of the Mongols name and insignia and agreed to forfeit those to the government. Legally, Cavazos never owned the Mongols trademarks. By lying to the late Judge Cooper, prosecutors obtained an order from her that prevented the transfer or sale of those marks. Cooper later explained that the intent of her order was simply to freeze the assets of a racketeering defendant. But prosecutors interpreted Cooper’s order to authorize the seizure of Mongols items like bandannas, calendars and tee shirts from innocent people.

It may say something about even the best federal judges that Cooper remained ignorant of the government’s blatantly illegal actions for nine months. And when she realized how her order had been misconstrued she was furious.

Rivera

Cooper also presided over a related civil case filed by a San Diego Mongol named Ramon Rivera. Rivera, who was not indicted, objected to being punished because some of his club brothers had been. Rivera’s suit complained: “Plaintiff has often worn a jacket or shirt displaying the collective membership mark, both at Club activities and elsewhere. To Rivera, his display of the mark affirms his membership in the Club, and symbolizes unity and brotherhood with his friends and fellow Club members. Plaintiff has personal knowledge that if law enforcement officers saw him wearing items displaying the Mongols mark, the officers would confiscate those items. Due to the Government’s threat of seizing items displaying the mark, and its actual seizure of such items, Plaintiff is chilled and deterred from publicly wearing or displaying any item bearing the mark and is currently refraining from doing so.”

When she reviewed the Rivera suit, Cooper learned for the first time that the Mongols’ logo was a special kind of trademark called a “collective membership mark.” She wrote, “The Mongol Nation and Mongols Nation, Inc, by virtue of having used the collective membership mark since 1969, having registered the mark in 2005, and having continued to use of the mark to identify members of the club, have acquired and maintained exclusive ownership in the collective membership mark at issue…even if the Court were to assume that the collective membership mark is subject to forfeiture, the Court finds no statutory authority to seize property bearing the mark from third parties…. only defendants’ interests in the RICO enterprise and the proceeds from their racketeering activity are subject to forfeiture.”

What Cooper Ruled

In July 2009, Cooper wrote: “At the June 22 hearing the Government revealed for the first time that the mark it sought to forfeit was a collective membership mark. Previously, in its Ex Parte Application for Post-Indictment Restraining Order, the Government (in this case ATF Case Agent John Ciccone) referred to the mark simply as a trademark, which was ‘purportedly for use in commerce in connection with promoting the interests of persons interested in the recreation of riding motorcycles.’ In contrast to commercial trademarks, which are used in commerce and generally not entitled to full First Amendment protections, collective membership marks are used by members of an organization to ‘indicate membership in a union, an association, or other organization.’ The use and display of collective membership marks therefore directly implicate the First Amendment’s right to freedom of association. The Supreme Court has recognized that ‘implicit in the right to engage in activities protected by the First Amendment’ is ‘a corresponding right to associate with others in pursuit of a wide variety of political, social, economic, educational, religious, and cultural ends.’ This right is crucial in preventing the majority from imposing its views on groups that would rather express other, perhaps unpopular, ideas.’ Furthermore, clothing identifying one’s association with an organization is generally considered expressive conduct entitled to First Amendment protection…. If speech is noncommercial in nature, it is entitled to full First Amendment protection, which prohibits the prior restraint and seizure of speech-related materials without a judicial determination that the speech is harmful, unprotected, or otherwise illegal.

“Prohibiting speech of this nature constitutes an attack on a particular viewpoint. In Sammartano (v. First Judicial District Court, in and for the County of Carson City) the Carson City courthouse enacted a rule to prohibit admission of those with ‘clothing, attire or colors which have symbols, markings or words indicating an affiliation with street gangs, biker or similar organizations,’ because ‘such clothing or attire can be extremely disruptive and intimidating, especially when members of different groups are in the building at the same time.’ The Ninth Circuit reasoned that the rule singles out bikers and similar organizations for the message their clothing is presumed to convey, and held that the rule impermissibly discriminates against a particular point of view – the view of biker clubs as opposed to garden clubs and gun clubs. In this case, the Government targets an even narrower group of individuals, a single motorcycle club. In addition, the Government has been seizing property, which imposes a greater restriction on individual rights than the denial of access to a public facility. Accordingly, the seizure of property bearing a Mongols membership mark should be considered viewpoint-discriminatory. The Government’s ability to seize property bearing the trademark acts as a prior restraint and cannot stand without a judicial determination that the speech is harmful, unprotected, or otherwise illegal. No such determination was ever sought by the Government, and no such determination was ever made by the Court.”

Welk And Brunwin

After Judge Cooper died and the resultant celebration at the ATF’s Los Angeles headquarters finally died down, the Cavazos case was split between Judges Wright and Carter. Carter inherited the Rivera case. He ruled in Rivera that the government’s stance on the Mongols marks was “contrary to established First Amendment and trademark law” and not authorized by statute.

But prosecutors Steven Welk and Christopher Brunwin simply looked for another judge, which was how Wright became involved in the fight over the Mongols name and logo. The Mongols Motorcycle Club, which was never indicted in the Cavazos case, was forced to litigate the same forfeiture issues in an ancillary proceeding before Judge Wright. Wright ruled in the club’s favor but was openly disappointed that he had to follow the law. “Stated as succinctly as possible,” he wrote, “the court regrettably must conclude that it must grant the petition to Vacate or Amend the Preliminary Order of Forfeiture….”

Thirteen months ago, Welk and Brunwin indicted the entire Mongols Motorcycle Club for the same charges filed in the Cavazos case with the goal of pissing on the Constitution and seizing the Mongols’ collective marks. The government also filed a Notice To Court of Related Criminal Case which listed Wright as the sole judge in Cavazos and so the Mongols Nation case was assigned to him. The Notice was a cynical example of the games prosecutors play.

Wright Leads The Lynching

None of this litigation is cheap. The government has unlimited funds but the Mongols must hunt for the money to defend themselves. Mongols Nation epitomizes prosecution as a form on unconstitutional punishment.

The Mongols tried to stop this corruption of justice. The club filed a civil suit to dismiss the current racketeering indictment against the club but Wright dismissed that civil suit last October. In that motion hearing, Wright described Mongols club rules prohibiting illegal conduct among members as “laughable.”

“Those bylaws are a joke, and you know it,” Wright told the Mongols lawyer. “I am surprised you even mentioned it. This is a criminal enterprise as evidenced by the admissions of same by no fewer than 40 people who appeared before me. I can’t speak to the other 40 who appeared before Judge Carter. This is a dangerous enterprise.”

Wright went on to scold the attorney, “…you are saying that it is no different than them having perhaps having been Lutheran and they are of doing all these criminal things and it is just coincidental that some of them were Lutheran; right? It is not the same thing, is it? They are operating under the banner of the Mongols. It is that name, that reputation, that intimidation factor which enables them to do what they do, isn’t it?”

The writ Yanny filed last week argues that “If Judge Wright is not disqualified, petitioner will suffer irreparable damage that cannot be corrected on appeal.”

If the Ninth Circuit doesn’t remove Wright from this case it will send a clear message that there is no longer any justice in America.

Jury selection ended yesterday in Sanford, Florida in the trial of David “Tin Man” Maloney. Testimony began this morning. The trial is scheduled to continue throughout the week.

Maloney, a member of the “Chester based and trademark registered original Warlocks” Motorcycle Club is accused of second degree murder and attempted murder in the shootings deaths of three members of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club during a charity poker run at a VFW Post in Winter Springs, Florida on September 30, 2012. The dead men were Harold “Lil Dave” Liddle, Peter “Hormone” Schlette and Dave “Dresser” Jakiela. Two other Warlocks, Brad Dyess and Ronnie “Whiteboy” Mitchell, were wounded.

The Florida based Warlocks and the Chester Warlocks are completely separate clubs that share no common history. The Florida Warlocks wear a patch that depicts a Phoenix – sometimes patch holders refer to it as a “Warbird.” The Chester Warlocks are an off shoot of the Philadelphia Warlocks. Both the Chester and the Philadelphia Warlocks wear a patch that depicts a Harpy. Maloney is a former member of the Florida Warlocks who joined the Chester Warlocks after he was expelled from his old club.

Self Defense

Maloney has argued since he was arrested that he acted in self defense. Ironically his defense was bolstered by Florida Warlocks patch holder last Saturday, two days before Maloney’s trial was scheduled to begin.

According to police in Brevard County, Florida, a Warbird Warlock named John Charles Haskell drove his white Sport Utility Vehicle next to a three motorcyclists on Interstate 95 and shot at them. A Chester Warlock named Larry Spohn was wounded in his right arm. Spohn had been subpoenaed to testify as a defense witness in Maloney’s trial. Maloney’s lawyer, Michael LaFay, immediately began arguing that Saturday’s shooting bolstered his client’s claim of self defense.

“The defense witnesses in this case have been habitually threatened and harassed for months,” LaFay complained as he made sure reporters knew that the alleged shooter Saturday “was a Florida Warlock. It’s the same organization.”

In his opening statement this morning, LaFay told jurors Maloney was in fear for his life the day of the poker run. “There was a green light on him,” LaFay said. “That means he’s a marked man. He was marked for death.” LaFay told jurors Maloney never shot any of the dead men, that he was inside the VFW when the shootings began and that when he came outside he shot in self defense. LaFay said Maloney fired only one or two shots.

Prosecutors have characterized the shootings as an “ambush.” Prosecutor Lisa Haba told jurors that Maloney was guilty of murder. “You can hear that after that first shot. All four men participated in this shooting,” she said. “As the Florida Warlocks pulled in, they were ambushed by gunfire.”

Ironies And Coincidences

Maloney’s case overflows with ironies and coincidences. For example, there was a camera crew at a nearby Florida Warlocks clubhouse the morning of the shootings. The film crew was part of a reality television series called Warlocks Rising.

And the VFW hall was surveilled by police that morning. One of the watchers was a Winter Springs undercover cop named Matt Scovel. Scovel testified this morning that he watched and photographed the VFW parking lot for two hours before he decided to follow three bikers away from the scene about five minutes before the shooting began. Scovel testified this morning that he heard about the shootings on his police radio just as he turned around to return to the hall.

Coincidently, a second surveillance vehicle occupied by Winter Springs Police Sergeant Bradlea Heath made the same decision to leave the VFW and follow the same three bikers at the same time. Heath described the abandonment of the scene by police just before the shooting began as “a miscommunication.”

Testimony continued today in the trial of David “Tin Man” Maloney. Maloney is accused of killing and attempting to kill five members of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club in September 2012. Maloney is a member of an unrelated motorcycle club that shares a name with the Warlocks. Maloney’s club describes itself as the “Chester (Pennsylvania) based and trademark registered original Warlocks Motorcycle Club.”

Today’s witnesses included Ronnie “Whiteboy” Mitchell, who was wounded during the confrontation; William Tzivani, an employee of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post where the shooting occurred; and Thomas “Contender” McGarry (photo above) who was the President of the Orlando Chapter of the Warlocks the day of the shooting and who later had a prominent role in a reality television program titled Warlocks Rising.

Mitchell

Mitchell began his testimony yesterday afternoon. He said that he and four other Warlocks were just pulling into a VFW parking lot when a defendant named Paul Wayne Smith shot a Warlock named Peter “Hormone” Schlette in the arm. According to police reports, Schlette cried out, “You just shot me, motherfucker!” Allegedly, Smith then shot Schlette in the left eye.

Mitchell testified that he ran for cover as two other Warlocks, Harold “Lil Dave” Liddle and Dave “Dresser” Jakiela were gunned down. Schlette, Liddle and Jakiela were killed. Mitchell and a fifth Warlock, Brad Dyess, were wounded.

During cross examination, defense attorney Michael LaFay showed jurors weapons that Mitchell and Schlette were carrying when they were attacked. According to LaFay, Schlette possessed four knives, a baseball bat, a get back whip and a collapsible baton when he was shot and Mitchell possessed a 5-shot revolver that fires shotgun shells, two knives, an ax and an ASP style tactical baton.

The five Warlocks were carrying $800 in cash to contribute to the event.

Tzivani

William Tzivani, the VFW employee, testified that he heard the two shots that killed Schlette from inside the building and then saw Maloney and two other men run outside.

He said he saw Maloney and another man flat on the ground, shooting toward a wall where Mitchell had taken cover and he estimated that the shooting continued for between three and five minutes.

The VFW in Winter Springs, Florida was the starting point for a charity poker run. At least two police officers in two cars surveilled the event. They could have testified to what happened that day or possibly mitigated the violence but both cops left minutes before the shooting started. One of them characterized their exits as a “miscommunication.”

McGarry

Thomas “Contender” McGarry was in the Warlock’s nearby Orlando clubhouse when his three club brothers were killed. He said he was unaware that the poker run was sponsored by the Chester based Warlocks and that when he learned who was sponsoring the event he told his club brothers not to go. He testified that “Once I saw what was going on there, we ain’t going nowhere. Shut up and sit down,”

“I didn’t want a confrontation at the VFW,” McGarry said. “I respect them. I’m not going to go there and cause problems, get them in harm’s way or anything.” He testified that Schlette, Liddle, Jakiela, Mitchell and Dyess had already left the Orlando clubhouse with the cash contribution before he knew the other Warlocks club was sponsoring the event.

Various sources within the Chester Warlocks have made much of the fact that McGarry’s wife was at the VFW post and had telephoned McGarry from there before the shooting. During cross examination, LaFay tried to get McGarry to say that Mrs. McGarry was a spy who was sending him phone photos of Maloney and other Chester Warlocks. But, McGarry insisted his wife was just letting him know how many bikers were attending the event.

The trial will resume tomorrow.

There was more prosecution testimony today in the trial of David Maloney. Maloney was accused of murder and attempted murder after a three minute gun fight in the parking lot of a Veteran’s of Foreign Wars Hall in Winter Springs, Florida in September 2012. At the end of the day, Maloney himself took the stand to speak in his own defense.

The murders seem to be incomprehensible to anyone who does not have some knowledge of the prideful, violent, honor and testosterone driven, sometimes Faulknerian and frequently stupid world of motorcycle outlaws: Which is to say the murders are obviously incomprehensible to the Florida reporters covering the trial who keep reporting over and over that Maloney started an offshoot of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club called the Philly Warlocks. And, if the reporters don’t get it the jurors don’t get it either. So, it is impossible to handicap a verdict.

It is incontrovertible that five members of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club rode into the VFW lot carrying a donation of $800 and members of another club with the same name lit them up without any immediate provocation. Maloney is arguing that he acted in self-defense, by which he and his lawyer mean that Maloney and his club brothers were driven by paranoia. They have attempted to convince jurors that it isn’t paranoia if you really do have enemies who are out to get you. Maloney is being tried in the same courthouse where a grown man named George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering a black teenager named Trayvon Martin on account of Zimmerman’s paranoia.

Dyess And Dula

Three men named Harold “Lil Dave” Liddle, Peter “Hormone” Schlette and Dave “Dresser” Jakiela were mortally wounded within seconds of entering the VFW driveway. None of the three were carrying firearms although they all do seem to have been armed with sticks and blades, as motorcycle outlaws are always armed with something. Two other men named Brad Dyess and Ronnie “Whiteboy” Mitchell were carrying guns and they survived.

Dyess testified today that he survived by shooting back. After seeing Schlette (photo above) executed Dyess testified he pulled out a gun of his own. “I fired two more shots to keep me from being shot at and give me a chance to get over the wall,” he told jurors. Dyess quickly came under fire from Maloney and two other members of the other Warlocks who hid behind a truck. “I saw him (Maloney) come out the door (of the VFW Hall) and pull a pistol and he dove behind a truck over there,” Dyess testified.

Maloney’s defender, a guy named Michael LaFay wanted jurors to know that Dyess put bullet holes in the truck behind which his client hid. He showed the jury photos and compelled Dyess to answer the incredibly fatuous question, “That is the S-10 truck that you identified Mr. Maloney, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Ekard at, is that correct?.”

Another witness, an undercover police sergeant named Bradley Dula testified that Maloney, had indeed avoided being shot by hiding behind the truck, and confirmed the prosecution’s contention that Maloney was wearing a bullet proof vest. “You could see through the shirt that he had a bullet-proof vest on,” Dula testified. The prosecution implied that Maloney could not have been acting in self defense because he was wearing the vest. The jury was then shown the vest.

There are two kinds of news stories – dog bites man and man bites dog. Modern journalism is partial to man bites dog but every once in a while it is worth paying attention to an ordinary story, a story that happens over and over because the ordinary stories tend to become invisible.

There was an ordinary, little patch pulling at the corner of Twelfth and Hampshire Streets in Quincy, Illinois on May 20, 2012. It is a dismal street corner bounded by parking lots in a Mississippi River town of 40,000 north of Hannibal and about equidistant from the places you have heard of like Des Moines, Davenport, St. Louis and Kansas City. The big club in little Quincy is the Midwest Percenters Motorcycle Club.

Intimidate

And when a couple of bikers flying Tunnel Rats MC patches (the name is an homage to some guys in a long ago war in a far away place – non gratum anus rodentum) rode into Quincy they were greeted by four Midwest Percenters who chased the oputsiders down and finally caught them at the corner bounded by asphalt. The Percenters names were Zane E. Liggett, Timothy Jackson, Gerald Utterback and Joseph Teel Jr. They were all grown men. Teel was the young one of the four. He was 38. Utterback was 43 and Jackson and Liggett were both 54.

The four demanded that the Tunnel Rats give up their cuts. “This isn’t a fucking game,” Jackson allegedly told the two strangers. “We’ll fucking kill you. Give us your fucking cuts.”

Allegedly Teel, the chapter president, pulled a handgun and told the Tunnel Rats, “Take them off or I’ll blow your fucking heads off.”

The local prosecutor, Adams County State’s Attorney Jon Barnard, would later say “This crime was all about intimidation…(the) Percenters wanted to intimidate the victims. They wanted to instill fear into them. They wanted them to fear for their lives. That was their goal and they did that by pursuit…. This was an ugly armed robbery in the middle of an intersection. All for what? To establish, I suppose, their dominance, their control. They showed contempt for all of us. They might have well have brought a sign with them that read, ‘We rule the streets.’ I would say to the…Percenters, wrong. The law rules the streets.”

Write It Yourself

This is an ordinary story, a banal story, so you can probably write the rest of it yourself.

The two Tunnel Rats let the police handle their business for them. The four desperados were quickly located and put in chains. Everybody seems to have stood tall for awhile.

Teel went to trial first. The two Tunnel Rats testified against him. He lost his case and was sentenced to serve 25 years in the state penitentiary in May 2013. That jolt sent a message. That was when Liggett (photo above) flipped. In return his charge was reduced to an Illinois crime called “Mob Action.” Included in the plea agreement was Liggett’s promise to testify against his former club brothers Utterback and Jackson. He kept his word about that.

Utterback was sentenced to five years in prison on March 25 and Jackson was given six years two days later. Liggett learned his fate two days ago. He was sentenced to 120 days in county jail, 24 months probation and he was ordered to pay a $500 fine.

Be careful out there. Watch your six.

These words are written in Los Angeles, well within the Thirty Mile Zone, or the TMZ, which is an area that roughly encircles the intersection of West Beverly Boulevard and North La Cienega Boulevard just outside the Beverly Hills city line. So of course, from time to time, The Aging Rebel goes Hollywood. That usually happens when somebody in Hollywood gets a hankering to make something up or even try to tell the truth about motorcycle outlaws.

“Going Hollywood” doesn’t mean that Rebel gets paid. It means that sometimes a beautiful woman buys me a beer and says “Gee thanks, for helping.” Sometimes it means an old, thick, balding guy buys me a glass of wine and cheerfully asks “Want another, then? Let’s talk some more.”

“Keep ‘em coming, Pal. I get thirsty when I talk.”

The Film

One Percenters, which the film maker spells in the biker manner, as 1%ERS, is one of those projects where a beautiful woman named Francesca de Sola talked to me after she got a hankering to make a very short – 17 minute – movie about motorcycle outlaws. The film stars another couple of beautiful women named Rie Rasmussen and Michelle Rodriguez and some guys who are less conventionally beautiful who ride with the Mongols Motorcycle Club. It was shot in Palm Springs and at a now defunct bar in Monrovia, California called the Brass Elephant about 15 or 16 months ago and it is now finally being shown at film festivals in the United States and Europe.

It is not a realistic portrayal of the biker lifestyle and it doesn’t try to be. A famous actress named Olivia, played by Rodriguez, and her co-star Tatiana, played by Rasmussen, get bored at the Palm Springs Film Festival and “break away from their Hollywood bubble and head to a locals’ dive bar in pursuit of something ‘real.’ Things take a dark and violent turn when they clash with a group of outlaw bikers over a poker game.”

Not to ruin the suspense, but the women kick the Mongols’ asses. And, the film is still about a dozen times more insightful about bikers than the last three seasons The Devils Ride. In fact, if you get the chance you should try to see 1%ERS if for no other reason than that this take on motorcycle outlaws punctuates how completely ghastly and amateurish The Devils Ride is on almost every level.

Where

The film will debut at the Nashville Film Festival on April 19th and it will screen again in Nashville on April 22nd. You can get times for the screenings here.  The film be shown at the Beverly Hills Film Festival and will screen at the old Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard the week of April 22nd. You can get more details on that screening here.  And, if you are one of the Hollywood types who lurks here you might be interested to know that 1%ERS will also be screening at the St. Tropez Film Festival in May.

If you want to know more about the movie or you want to see a few dozen production stills you can surf over to the film’s Facebook page by clicking here.

1

The prosecution rested today in the murder trial of David “Tin Man” Maloney in Sanford, Florida and the defense began with a victory.

Maloney had been charged with three counts of second degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. The three murdered men were Harold “Lil Dave” Liddle, Peter “Hormone” Schlette and Dave “Dresser” Jakiela. The two men Maloney is accused of trying to murder are Brad Dyess and Ronnie “Whiteboy” Mitchell. The dead men were killed on September 30, 2012 and on that date all five of the victims were members of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club.

Today Judge Marlene Alva acquitted Maloney of second degree murder in Schlette’s death because she believed the evidence proved that Maloney was inside a nearby building when Schlette was shot in the arm and the face.

The five Warlocks were attacked as they rode into the parking lot of a Veteran’s of Foreign Wars Hall in Winter Springs, Florida carrying an $800 donation for a charity poker run. Aerial photographs taken immediately after the shooting show that none of the Warlocks made it more than 50 feet into the parking lot. The shooting continued for at least three minutes.

Warlocks Versus Warlocks

The shootout, in which the two surviving Warlocks returned fire, culminated a dispute between unrelated clubs called the Warlocks. The victims were all members of a Warlocks Motorcycle Club founded during the Vietnam War that has its mother chapter in Orlando, Florida. Those Warlocks wear a patch that represents a phoenix or “Warbird.” The assailants were all members of a Warlocks Motorcycle Club founded in Southwest Philadelphia in either 1965 or 1967. Members of that club wear a patch that represents a stylized harpy.

The Philadelphia based Warlocks club split into two factions with the Chester, Pennsylvania chapter registering the club’s collective membership marks as it became estranged from other chapters. The Chester chapter, which describes itself as the “Chester based and trademark registered original Warlocks,” the “True and Original Warlocks” and the “Red and White Warlocks,” began founding new chapters within the last three years. Maloney and the other Harpy Warlocks charged in the September 2012 shootings were members of one of those chapters.

To further complicate understanding of the tragedy, Maloney and other members of his Harpy Warlocks chapter were former members of the Warbird Warlocks. Edward “Nightmare” Glowitz (photo above), who has repeatedly described himself as the “Boss of the Southeastern Region” for the Harpy Warlocks at the time of the shooting, is also a former Warbird Warlock. According to Glowitz, the Harpy Warlock’s Southeastern Region encompasses the Eastern Seaboard from the South Carolina-North Carolina state line to Key West.

Nightmare Testifies

Maloney is claiming a curious flavor of self defense. Although there was no immediate threat to Maloney or any of the other Harpy Warlocks, Maloney has and will claim that he knew the Warbird Warlocks were out to get him.

Maloney was voted out of the Warbird Warlocks in bad standing and prosecutors ruled that he acted in self defense in a previous incident when he shot a Warbird Warlock. Maloney certainly was prepared as if had something to fear. According to police, he was carrying three pistols and wearing a bullet proof vest that day and he had “two Mossberg 12-gauge shotguns, a .38-caliber revolver and a.357-magnum revolver along with a bullet-proof vest and an undisclosed amount of ammunition” a few yards away. Maloney, will argue in his defense that he feared as many as 40 Warbird Warlocks would attack him and his club brothers after most other riders had left that parking lot.

Glowitz is also particularly bitter about his former club. He does not to believe the Warbird Warlocks are tough enough to represent themselves as a one percenter club – which may be at odds with Maloney’s claims about the dangerousness of his former club. After the shooting, Glowitz commented on this page that one of the dead men, Peter Schlette, “was a Poser now he’s worm dirt.”

Glowitz was the first defense witness called today. He testified that he warned Maloney that the Warbird Warlocks intended to harm him.

Glowitz’ testimony contradicted that of one of the final prosecution witnesses, Dan Thomas, who told jurors he had heard Maloney say about the Warbird Warlocks, “I’m taking over. I’ll kill every one of them.”

There is a proposed law in New York that would create “the crime of aggravated harassment of a police officer or peace officer.” Really. The new crime would be a Class E felony.

This absolutely essential tool for the perfection of humanity by expanding police power is the invention of Republican State Senator Joe Griffo who explains, “Police officers who risk their lives every day in our cities and on our highways deserve every possible protection, and those who treat them with disrespect, harass them and create situations that can lead to injuries deserve to pay a price for their actions.”

Griffo continues: “At a time when shocking incidents of disrespect and outright confrontation are at an all-time high, the men and women who patrol the streets of our cities deserve every possible protection we can offer them. My bill would make it a crime to take any type of physical action to try to intimidate a police officer. This is a necessary action because we can see from the rise in incidents that too many people in our society have lost the respect they need to have for a police officer. We need to make it very clear that when a police officer is performing his duty, every citizen needs to comply and that refusal to comply carries a penalty.”

Passed State Senate

Cynics may note that generally all that is needed to be convicted of touching a police officer is for two policemen, one of who doesn’t even to be there at the time, to swear on their sacred honor that the convict to be touched one of them. The new crime would be punishable by four years in a penitentiary.

This astounding idea was designated Bill S2402 and it passed the New York Senate last Wednesday. To become law it must next be passed by the New York State Assembly. The Bill contains the statement: “Police officers all across this state put their lives on the line every day to protect the people of New York. New York State must establish laws and toughen existing laws that protect the police from becoming victims of criminals. Far too many law enforcement officers are being harassed, injured, even killed while honoring their commitment to protect and serve this state. The Legislature has a responsibility to do everything we can to protect our brave heroes, our police officers, from violent criminals. This legislation contributes to that premise.”

The proposed law would take effect “on the first of November next succeeding the date on which it shall have become a law.”

Cops Love It

The actual language of the proposed law states: “A person is guilty of aggravated harassment of a police officer or peace officer when, with the intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm a person whom he or she knows or reasonably should know to be a police officer or peace officer engaged in the course of performing his or her official duties, he or she strikes, shoves, kicks or otherwise subjects such person to physical contact.” You know, like striking his fist with your face.

Cops love the idea. Utica Police Chief Mark Williams issued a press release that read: “Our police officers have a very dangerous job and need the support of our government leaders to help make them safe. All too often persons are physically challenging police officers in the line of duty. Currently in those instances where an officer is physically attacked (short of sustaining a physical injury) the lawful charge is only a violation. The consequences are way too low for the offender and it sends the wrong message to the public. Police officers are the public’s first line of defense to restore order in dangerous/chaotic situations. Citizens do not have the legal right to physically challenge the authority of an officer lawfully performing their duties. Threats, intimidation and physical force used upon our police officers not only erode respect for our criminal justice system, but also endanger the public as well.”

David “Tin Man” Maloney took the stand in his own defense today in his murder trial in Sanford, Florida. Maloney is charged with two counts of second degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. The charges result from a shoot out in Winter Springs, Florida on September 30, 2012. A third count of second degree murder filed against Maloney was dropped yesterday.

The gun battle erupted as five members of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club attempted to join a charity poker run as it assembled in the parking lot of a Veterans of Foreign Wars Post parking lot. The poker run was sponsored by a separate and distinct Warlocks Motorcycle Club. The clubs can be differentiated by their patches. Members of Maloney’s Warlocks Motorcycle Club wear a harpy on their backs and that club is headquartered in Chester, Pennsylvania. The victims were all members of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club that wears a phoenix patch and is headquartered in Orlando.

The Scene

As the five men rode into the VFW parking lot carrying an $800 donation, a Harpy Warlock named Paul Wayne Smith shot a Florida Warlock named Peter “Hormone” Schlette in the arm. When Schlette protested, Smith shot him again in the face. Within seconds two more Florida Warlocks named Harold “Lil Dave” Liddle and Dave “Dresser” Jakiela lay mortally wounded within feet of their motorcycles. Two more Florida Warlocks named Ronnie “Whiteboy” Mitchell and Brad Dyess were wounded but survived by taking cover and returning fire.

Smith and two other Harpy Warlocks, Robert William Eckert and Victor Manuel Amaro are also charged with second degree murder and attempted murder. Maloney, a chapter president, had ordered the three other men to not let any Florida Warlocks attend the poker run. Maloney was inside the VFW Post when Smith gunned down Schlette. He has testified that he immediately ran outside after he heard the second shot and also fired at the surviving Warlocks.

Maloney testified today that he had acted in self defense.

Testimony

In direct examination LaFay asked Maloney, “When you ran out of that building and heard all the gunfire what did you think was happening?”

Maloney replied, “I figured they were there to kill me…all of us…. They’ve told us numerous times they wanted us dead. They told me I had to leave the state of Florida. Shutting us down meant they were going to kill us…. My office was about a mile from my house. So, whenever I would leave my house, I would never leave in the same direction. I would never come home the same way. I never went to work the same time. I varied my routes all the time.”

Maloney said that morning “Someone yelled in the door, ‘Warlocks are here.’ As I got to the door I heard one or two rounds go off.”

He testified that he only fired one or two rounds that day. None of Maloney’s rounds hit any of the Florida Warlocks.

LaFay asked, “Did you fire that round or two rounds for any other reason than to protect yourself and people with you?”

“It was all in self-defense,” Maloney replied.

Under cross examination prosecutor Stewart Stone wondered why Maloney didn’t stay inside and call authorities. He asked “You didn’t have to go out there, correct?”

Maloney replied, “I didn’t have to go out there, but I did. When I heard someone come to the door and say, ‘The Warlocks are here,’ I figured they’d come to kill me. That’s why I walked outside. To see what was going on.”

Stand Your Ground

After Maloney testified his attorney, Michael LaFay moved that Maloney be granted immunity from prosecution under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. That law allows citizens to use deadly force rather than running away when they have a reasonable fear of imminent death or great bodily injury. In most jurisdictions in the United States the law requires citizens faced with imminent danger to avoid confrontation before they can use deadly force in self defense. Judge Marlene Alva denied the motion.

The defense and prosecution will deliver their closing arguments tomorrow morning. Maloney’s fate should be in the hands of the jury by mid-afternoon.

All David “Tin Man” Maloney can do now is wait. A Florida jury began deliberating his fate about 2 p.m. Eastern Time today. If convicted, Maloney faces life in prison.

Maloney is accused of second degree murder and attempted murder in the deaths of two Warlocks Motorcycle Club patch holders named Harold “Lil Dave” Liddle and Dave “Dresser” Jakiela. Liddle died during a shootout between members of two unrelated motorcycle clubs that both call themselves the Warlocks. Jakiela, an Orlando architect, was mortally wounded in the same battle and died two days later. A third Warlock, Peter Schlette of Denham Springs, Louisiana also died at the scene. Two other men were wounded during the encounter.

The better known of the Warlocks Motorcycle Clubs is the Orlando, Florida based fraternal organization which has chapters throughout the Southeast. The other Warlocks club is affiliated with the Chester, Pennsylvania based Warlocks. The Chester Warlocks in turn are former members of a Warlocks club that historically rode and partied in Eastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey.

A Chester Warlock named Paul Wayne Smith actually fired the shots that killed Schlette. A Chester Warlock named Victor Amaro fired the shots that killed Liddle and Jakiela. Maloney participated in the shootings in the parking lot of a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Winter Springs, Florida on September 30, 2012 but appears not to have hit anybody. Maloney was the president of a Chester Warlocks chapter in Florida. Smith and Amaro fired on the dead men after Maloney told them not to let Florida Warlocks attend a poker run that began at the VFW post.

Maloney was a former member of the Florida Warlocks. A year before the VFW gun battle Maloney shot and wounded one of his former club brothers outside a Sanford biker bar named Jonny Rotton’s Bar Out Back. Maloney avoided charges in that shooting after prosecutors decided he had acted in self defense. He also claimed self defense after the VFW shootings.

The Prosecution

In his closing statement to the jury this morning, prosecutor Stewart Stone told the panel to use “common sense.”

“The three men who were killed didn’t have guns with them or on their motorcycles,” Stone said. “This isn’t a stand your ground case. He (Maloney) didn’t stand his ground. What he did is he advanced his ground.” Stone said Maloney should have called the police instead of opening fire. “Call 911, like everyone in the bar was doing,” He said. “I’m going to talk about that, because that’s a concept foreign to Mr. Maloney. You hear gunshots, call 911…and have his gun in his hand, ready for someone to come inside the VFW hall area, and then defend himself if he needed to. That would have been ‘Stand Your Ground.’”

The prosecutor told the jury that Maloney was an accessory to the murders whether his bullets actually killed anyone or not. “To be principal, the defendant doesn’t even have to be present when the crime was committed,” he said. “Were Mr. Maloney’s actions reasonable that morning? No they were not.”

The Defense

Maloney’s defender, Michael LaFay demonized the Florida Warlocks throughout the trial and tried to convince jurors that members of that club were dangerous and that they posed an ongoing, credible threat to Maloney and his new club brothers.

“We heard the testimony of John Glazier,” LaFay said. “He told you what that man was like. They had one purpose, and that was to go over there and violently shut them down. These are euphemisms. ‘Shut ‘em down.’ That means to beat ‘em. Hurt ‘em. Kill ‘em. It’s just a question of when.” He said the men who died in the shootout were “not followers of the Gandhi non-violent mantra.”

LaFay painted the circumstances of the shootout in shades of gray. “Do you have any evidence that he shot anyone? The answer is no…. Did he or did he not act in self-defense? If you have reasonable doubt on that issue, the answer to that is no. No…. If you believe he did, you must find him not guilty.”

As of 6 p.m. Eastern time, it seemed unlikely the jury would reach a verdict before tomorrow.

A Jury in Sanford, Florida found David “Tin Man’ Maloney not guilty of the murders of Warlock Motorcycle Club patch holders Harold “Lil Dave” Liddle and Dave “Dresser” Jakiela last night.

He was also acquitted of the attempted murder of Warlock Brad Dyess. The jury deadlocked on the charge that Maloney attempted to murder Warlock Ronnie “Whiteboy” Mitchell. Maloney will be retried on that charge beginning on May 14. Because of the remaining charge, Maloney was still in jail today. His lawyer, Michael LaFay, is seeking Maloney’s release on bail.

Four men were charged with second degree murder and attempted murder after three Warlocks were shot to death and two more were wounded as they rode into the parking lot of a VFW Post in Winter Springs, Florida on September 30, 2012 to attend a charity poker run. The men who died were Liddle, Jakiela and Peter “Hormone” Schlette. The wounded men were Mitchell and Dyess.

Other Defendants

The four accused men are Maloney, Victor Manuel “Pancho” Amaro, Robert William “Willy” Eckert and Paul Wayne Smith.

Amaro will stand trial before Judge Jessica Recksiedler beginning next Monday. Forensic evidence indicates he fired the bullets that killed Liddle and Jakiela.

Eckert will be tried by Recksiedler a week after Amaro.

Reckseidler will try Smith beginning May 5. Forensic evidence indicates that Smith fired the shots that killed Schlette.

The Back Story

The poker run during which the shootings occurred was sponsored by a Warlocks Motorcycle Club that has traditionally asserted its presence within a 50 mile radius of Philadelphia. Members of that club wear a stylized harpy back patch and members of that club are frequently described as “the Philly Warlocks.” The accused men all wear a Harpy patch on their backs.

The victims were all members of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club that has traditionally asserted its presence in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Members of that club wear a stylized phoenix back patch and are commonly described as “the Florida Warlocks.”

In this millennium, the Philly Warlocks fractured into two parallel clubs claiming the right to wear the same insignia.

For a period of about 20 years, beginning during the Vietnam War, the Harpy Warlocks were widely and respectfully regarded as one of the least compromising and most assertive of all the motorcycle clubs in the United States. The Chester, Pennsylvania chapter of that club was among the most aggressive and several of its most respectfully regarded members ended up in prison. After those men paid their debts to society and returned home they found that the world had changed and that the Philly Warlocks had become a significantly less assertive club than it once was.

Briefly stated. those old timers had incorporated the Warlocks, were shareholders in that corporation, were the registered owners of the Harpy Warlocks insignia and they decided to ignore the changes the years had brought and recreate their old club. They largely ignored the contemporary hierarchy of the Warlocks MC and began sanctioning new charters and issuing patches to new members.

When some of those Warlocks moved to Florida they started a new chapter there and their ranks were bolstered by former members of other Florida clubs including members of the Florida Warlocks. Many of those former Florida Warlocks were bitter about their old club.

Maloney was one of those former Florida Warlocks.