Jonathan McFadden of the Rock Hill, South Carolina Herald reported Friday morning that five defendants in the “Hells Angels biker gang” racketeering case were sentenced yesterday in the federal court room of District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie. The Herald sites prosecutor Julius N. “Jay” Richardson as a source. You can read that story here.

The Herald reports:

“Richard “Rat” Thrower of Lancaster will serve 27 months in prison; Frank “Big Frank” Enriquez of Rock Hill will spend two years behind bars; and Johanna Looper of York was sentenced to 15 months, said Jay Richardson, the assistant U.S. attorney who handled the case. Also sentenced were James “Sonny” Rhodus, who will serve a five-month probation, and Bruce “Diesel” Wilson, whom a judge sentenced to 18 months in prison. Rhodus and Wilson are from Columbia.”

The paper reports that the five were sentenced yesterday. The sentencings were not posted in the official docket of the case accessed through the paid government website “Public Access to Court Electronic Records.” Throughout the case, Judge Currie and Richardson have made blatant attempts to control and manipulate information contained in the official court record. Their motives are unknown but seem, prima facie, to be unethical.

The Complete Official Record

The complete official public record for all activity in Judge Currie’s Court for May 9th is transcribed here:

1301 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Order on Motion to Depart from Guidelines Docket Text: Minute Entry for proceedings held before Honorable Cameron McGowan Currie: granting [1284] Motion to Depart from Guidelines as to Richard Thrower (5); denying [1287] Motion to Depart from Guidelines as to Richard Thrower (5); Sentencing held on 5/9/2013 as to Richard Thrower. No objections, court adopts PSR. Government motions to dismiss remaining counts and unseal Plea Agreement are granted. Defendant remanded to custody. Court Reporter Jenny Williams. CJA Time 9:30-10:12.

1302 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Order for Forfeiture of Property Docket Text: JUDGMENT AND PRELIMINARY ORDER DIRECTING FORFEITURE OF PROPERTY as to Richard Thrower. Signed by Honorable Cameron McGowan Currie on 5/9/2013.(ssam, )

1303 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Document Mailed Docket Text: ***DOCUMENT E-MAILED as to Richard Thrower re certified copy of [1302] Order for Forfeiture of Property placed in U.S. Mail to USA (ssam, ) Modified to edit text on 5/9/2013 (ssam, ).

1305 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Order on Motion to Depart from Guidelines Docket Text: Minute Entry for proceedings held before Honorable Cameron McGowan Currie: denying [1283] Motion to Depart from Guidelines as to Frank Enriquez Jr (8); Sentencing held on 5/9/2013 as to Frank Enriquez, Jr. No objections, court adopts PSR. Court grants Government motions to dismiss remaining counts and unseal Plea Agreement. Defendant remanded to custody. Court Reporter Jenny Williams. CJA Time 10:00-10:33. (ssam, )

1306 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Order for Forfeiture of Property Docket Text: JUDGMENT AND PRELIMINARY ORDER DIRECTING FORFEITURE OF PROPERTY as to Frank Enriquez, Jr. Signed by Honorable Cameron McGowan Currie on 5/9/2013.(ssam, )

1307 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Document E-Mailed Docket Text: ***DOCUMENT E-MAILED as to Frank Enriquez, Jr re certified copy of [1306] Order for Forfeiture of Property to USA (ssam, )

1310 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Entry Deletion Docket Text: DELETION OF DOCKET ENTRY NUMBER 1309 as to James Rhodus Reason: Duplicate filing by Probation Office. Corrected Filing Document Number [1308] (ssam, )

1311 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Order on Motion for Miscellaneous Relief Docket Text: Minute Entry for proceedings held before Honorable Cameron McGowan Currie: granting [1290] Motion and Memorandum in Support of a Probationary Sentence as to James Rhodus (16); Sentencing held on 5/9/2013 as to James Rhodus. No objections, court adopts PSR. Defendant placed on probation. Court warned Defendant about not associating with felons while on supervision. Court Reporter Jenny Williams. CJA Time 10:30-11:00. (ssam, )

1312 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Order for Forfeiture of Property Docket Text: JUDGMENT AND PRELIMINARY ORDER DIRECTING FORFEITURE OF PROPERTY as to James Rhodus. Signed by Honorable Cameron McGowan Currie on 5/9/2013.(ssam, )

1313 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Document E-Mailed Docket Text: ***DOCUMENT E-MAILED as to James Rhodus re certified copy of [1312] Order for Forfeiture of Property to USA (ssam, )

1315 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Order on Motion to Depart from Guidelines Docket Text: Minute Entry for proceedings held before Honorable Cameron McGowan Currie: denying [1288] Motion to Depart from Guidelines as to Johanna Looper (11); Sentencing held on 5/9/2013 as to Johanna Looper. Defense objection overruled, court adopts PSR. Defendant permitted to remain on bond pending sentencing. Her reporting date shall be delayed until after June 15, 2013. Court Reporter Jenny Williams. CJA Time 11:00-11:50. (ssam, )

1316 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Order for Forfeiture of Property Docket Text: JUDGMENT AND PRELIMINARY ORDER DIRECTING FORFEITURE OF PROPERTY as to Johanna Looper. Signed by Honorable Cameron McGowan Currie on 5/9/2013.(ssam, )

1317 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Document E-Mailed Docket Text: ***DOCUMENT E-MAILED as to Johanna Looper re certified copy of [1316] Order for Forfeiture of Property to Johanna Looper (ssam, )

1318 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Court Exhibit Docket Text: COURT EXHIBIT #1 as to Johanna Looper. (ssam, )

1319 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Sentencing Docket Text: Minute Entry for proceedings held before Honorable Cameron McGowan Currie: Sentencing held on 5/9/2013 as to Bruce Ranson Wilson. Court rules on objections and adopts PSR. Court grants Government motion for departure and grants in part defense motion for variance. Defendant permitted to remain on bond pending designation. Court Reporter Jenny Williams. CJA Time Retained. (ssam, )

1320 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Order for Forfeiture of Property Docket Text: PRELIMINARY ORDER DIRECTING FORFEITURE OF PROPERTY as to Bruce Ranson Wilson. Signed by Honorable Cameron McGowan Currie on 5/9/2013.(ssam, )

1321 Filed & Entered: 05/09/2013 Document E-Mailed Docket Text: ***DOCUMENT E-MAILED as to Bruce Ranson Wilson re certified copy of [1320] Order for Forfeiture of Property to USA (ssam, )

1324 Filed: 05/09/2013 Entered: 05/10/2013 Court Exhibit Docket Text: COURT EXHIBIT #1 as to Bruce Ranson Wilson. (ssam, )

A Normal Docket Entry

The apparently incomplete docket for this case on this date is unprecedented in the federal courts. Citizens do have a right to know the judiciary’s official business.

A typical docket entry related to a sentencing, with the names redacted by The Aging Rebel looks like this:

1111 Filed: 09/24/2012 Entered: 09/25/2012 Sentencing Docket Text: MINUTES OF SENTENCING Hearing held before Judge NAME REDACTED as to Defendant NAME REDACTED. Defendant NAME REDACTED (3), Count(s) 1, 63 months imprisonment. Pay $100 special assessment. All fines are waived. 4 years supervised release under terms and conditions of US Probation Office and General Order 05-02. Count(s) 2, 14, 63, 66, 67-84, 85, 86, Government’s motion, all remaining counts ordered dismissed. Defendant advised of right to appeal. Bond exonerated upon surrender. Defendant to surrender not later than 12 noon on 12/3/2012. Court RECOMMENDS that the defendant participate in the 500-Hour/RDAP Program within the Bureau of Prisons. The Court recommends that the defendant be housed in the REDACTED area due to close family ties. Court Reporter: REDACTED.

Guerilla Street Theater

It is also unusual and unethical for a federal prosecutor to control the dissemination of public information in any federal case – particularly a high profile case. Richardson’s conduct throughout this case begs for review by the South Carolina Bar. Among other things, he has unnecessarily dramatized facets of the case in order to gain a prosecutorial advantage. For example, the federal court in Columbia was surrounded by federal guards during the trial because Richardson claimed jurors were endangered by the, presumably innocent, defendants. Richardson also made the entirely baseless claim that members of the prosecution had been “threatened” by “Hells Angels.”

Any normal person, using just his nose, would discern that this information was released exclusively to the Rock Hill Herald. Andrew Dys, a columnist for the Herald, has acted as a propagandist for the prosecution during the trial.

There was a gunfight early Sunday morning between members of the Loose Cannons and the Devils Diciples Motorcycle Clubs.

The fight erupted about 1:30 a.m. during a party at the Loose Cannons’ clubhouse on North Apache Trail near North Safari Place in Apache Junction. Apache Junction is east of Phoenix. According to Tamra Ingersoll of the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, about 75 people were inside the clubhouse and one of them called 911.

Three Hospitalized

“When deputies arrived on scene, there were signs of a shootout, with spent casings littering the ground,” Ingersoll told Tucson News Now.

Two men remain hospitalized in Phoenix. A man shot in the head is listed in stable condition. Another man shot in the shoulder and stomach is in critical condition. A woman grazed in the back was treated and released.

Police kept potential witnesses at the scene for hours for what Ingersoll called “forensic interviews.” During those interviews a fourth gunshot victim was discovered to have been shot in the buttocks. He was treated at the scene by paramedics and released.

Police Stumped

Ingersoll said the fight started after an unknown number of Devils Diciples arrived at the party after one a.m. She said police do not know whether the Devils Diciples had been invited to the party or who fired first because “At this time, witnesses at the party are not cooperating with detectives as they investigate this crime.”

As of 1:30 p.m. local time Monday, no arrests or further developments in the case had been announced.

CBS 5 – KPHO

The crusade against the Rock Hell City Nomads charter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club claimed another victim two and a half weeks ago. Jason Brian “Trouble” Fogle, a former prospect with the charter was sentenced in state court by Judge Clifton Newman to six years in prison for selling two tenths of a gram of methamphetamine to a confidential informant named Marty “Cowboy” Deloach.

Fogle is a former member of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club who prospected with the Rock Hill charter. He avoided federal charges because he left the Hells Angels on good terms with the intention of returning before a federal indictment charged 22 people with racketeering. Fogle was arrested on June 6, 2012. The federal indictees were arrested the next day.

M.S. Merckle

Fogle was originally charged by a cop named M.S. Merckle with four counts of distribution/manufacturing methamphetamine and one count of common law conspiracy. The Aging Rebel has not yet determined what part Merckle played in the federal investigation.

Deloach had agreed to testify at the federal trial but did not.

Fogle was represented by an attorney named Emily Howard. On her advice, he pled guilty to the single narcotics charge and the four redundant charges were dropped. Since the amount of actual methamphetamine he sold Deloach was minuscule, Fogle anticipated a maximum sentence of one year.

Collateral Damage

Fogle’s is a sad and familiar tale of American justice.

“We waited all day for the sentencing,” Fogle’s wife Sheri said. “At four-thirty we were told the judge wouldn’t get to our case that day so we asked the lawyer if we should get a room to stay over. She told us the case would be transferred to another judge upstairs. It only took him a couple minutes to sentence Jason to six years.”

“I’m still in shock,” she said. “Six years this man has to be away from his family, miss his son’s high school graduation and miss his daughter’s graduation from kindergarten. There isn’t a day that goes by that she doesn’t ask ‘Can I call my Daddy? Is my Daddy okay?’ She sat at the kitchen table the other night with pen and paper writing her Dad a letter. This was devastating to my family. It’s unreal. Six years for two tenths of a gram of dope.”

The Aging Rebel was offline for about eight hours yesterday due to what was described at the time as “an extremely advanced botnet attack that is targeting WordPress logins. The nature and rate of the attacks make it hard to block, and it can cause host servers to run out of available resources rather quickly.”

It was the third major botnet attack in the last two months and the attacks are probably related. A “botnet” is a malicious network of thousands of “zombie” computers with thousands of separate Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses. Briefly stated, botnets overpower their targets by demanding that the target computer respond to more internet requests than the target can handle.

An attack in the middle of March was aimed at a service called Spamhaus and was probably initiated by spammers in Russia. Spamhaus identifies the IP addresses of known spammers.

An attack on April 15 specifically targeted WordPress sites. WordPress is a content management program that is used by about 16 percent of all websites including UPS, eBay, the New York Times and The Aging Rebel. The April attack was conducted by a botnet comprising about 90,000 computers. In April there was widespread speculation that the botnet used in that attack was intended to find vulnerabilities that would allow the assembly of an even larger botnet.

That larger and improved botnet seems to be what caused yesterday’s shutdown.

Back in February, Mike Koepke, the Vice-President of the Hells Angels Arizona Nomads charter, sent an open letter to the local Iron Brotherhood Motorcycle Club’s Whiskey Row chapter in Prescott. Koepke’s letter began:

“I am very concerned with the recent events pertaining to the Iron Brotherhood Motorcycle Gang. I am very displeased with the ‘bully’ nature of said law enforcement officers. I belong to a real motorcycle club that holds events in Yavapai County periodically. Most notably, the ‘Chino Valley Shootout Boxing Smoker.’”

Koepke went on to invite any member of Whiskey Row chapter to go three rounds in a boxing ring with him on March 31st. Koepke promised to “donate $1,000.00 to a charity of their choosing. If I win, the Iron Brotherhood Motorcycle Gang will officially disband in the state of Arizona.”

To no one’s surprise the Iron Brotherhood ignored the challenge although every member of the club knew about it. Arizona Department of Public Safety detectives who were investigating the Whiskey Row chapter knew about it. As it turned out, Koepke didn’t have to thump anybody.

Mother Speaks

After the results of Arizona DPS were made public late last month, the national Iron Brotherhood website issued the following statement on its front page:

“The Iron Brotherhood Nation is a professional Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club, who’s (sic) members are dedicated to our profession and our Brotherhood. The IBMC does not condone or promote any behavior by its members that would reflect negatively on our club or our profession as Law Enforcement Officers. Should members of our club be involved in any incident that would put them in bad standing with their respected Law Enforcement Agency or this club that member will be terminated as a member of this club. While recent reports in the Arizona news media report on a (sic) incident involving members of our club, not all the facts surrounding this incident have been covered by the media. A number of reports from the media include innacurate (sic) information which include information about our members and their reported involvement in this incident. All the while the media failed to report on the background and associations on the other party involved in this incident. The recently released Arizona DPS report covers this information.

“The Whiskey Row Chapter of the Iron Brotherhood Nation from this point on no longer exist. (sic)

“Iron Brotherhood National Board”

Out Bad

The 2196 page DPS report says a Phoenix cop named Eric “Guido” Amato and an Ajo, Arizona paramedic named Greg “Top Gun” Kaufmann assaulted Justin Stafford of Glendale, Arizona at a club party in downtown Prescott last December so presumably Amato and Kaufmann no longer wear a patch. The report also says that former Prescott Valley Police Chief Bill “Tarzan” Fessler and former Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office Sergeant Bill “Mongo” Suttle obstructed justice so presumably they are also out of the club.

The report also said that Yavapai County Sheriff’s Captain Marc “Loki” Schmidt was “deceitful” and that his integrity was questionable. Schmidt told detectives he never saw the fight and doubted that a fight had actually occurred. He also said:

“…we understand that being a club that flies – flies a three piece patch there’s always suspicion of our behavior. And we’ve always talked about that from the time I joined the – initially joined the club. I mean when your – your agency, um, in – in gang classes – our guys go down to gang classes – and we get lumped into, you know, uh, outlaw motorcycle groups. So we understand that and that’s why we try to police up and we try not to cause any problems. Um, so, um, that would surprise me if it happened. And I would say that it’s probably a fabrication. But, um, that’s my opinion. I don’t see anybody doing that that’s in our club.”

It’s anybody’s guess whether Schmidt still flies a patch or not.

The Victim

The IBMC National Board’s innuendo that “the media failed to report on the background and associations on the other party involved in this incident” apparently refers to an incident in November 2009 when Stafford was cited for underage drinking. At the time he was accompanied by a man named Andrew Goodall who was arrested for having an “improvised explosive device” in his car.

The report does not state whether the “improvised explosive device” was a homemade cherry bomb or a homemade anti-tank mine. The use of the term “improvised explosive device” instead of, say, “homemade bomb” is apparently intended, like virtually every other official police statement, to obfuscate the truth and dramatically equate civilian cops with soldiers in a foreign war.

According to official reports, Fessler was there when Goodall was arrested and Stafford was cited. Although The Aging Rebel has not previously reported this incident it was reported in the Prescott Daily Courier.

And, the following is buried in the very long DPS report.

“Stafford described when he was arrested in 2009 for the alcohol violation. He had just met (Andrew Goodall) that night and used his car to take another person home. Stafford said following the incident he saw (Goodall) one time about a year later but did not keep in touch with him and did not want anything to do with him after that. Stafford said he was out at the scene (of the vehicle with the IED) for approximately ten minutes before he was taken to the PVPD. Stafford said there were “three or four” officers who came into the PVPD to ask him questions; some were in uniform, some were not. Stafford said he did not recognize anyone from the IBMC as having been involved in his arrest in 2009. Stafford said he had never encountered any of the IBMC members before.”

Just so everybody knows:

9:00 a.m. Pacific

“As many of you have already heard, we are experiencing issues with a number of hosts across all of our datacenters. If you are writing because you are experiencing problems with your site being down or exceptionally slow today, you are likely affected.”

10:02 a.m. Pacific

“Some of our customer in our US-West Data Center (Los Angeles, CA) may be having some connectivity issues at the moment. This includes web, mysql services, and specifically the homiemail-sub5 mail services.”

10:08 a.m. Pacific

“We are currently experiencing network issues in our Los Angeles (US-West) datacenter. We are aware and working on the issue at this time.”

11:20 a.m. Pacific

“Update May 15th 11:10am PDT: We are continuing to see web, mysql and mail services recover in the Los Angeles (US-West) datacenter. We are continuing our tests and checks of our monitoring system to get any remaining services up and running. Thank you for your patience. We hope to have all services restored soon.”

Melissa Summerson, a long-time employee of Kingman, Arizona who was fired three days after Christmas in 2012 because her husband belonged to the Desert Road Riders Motorcycle Club filed a federal civil rights suit against the city last week alleging that she was wrongly terminated.

The 16-page suit presents a compelling description of a loony witch hunt instigated by Arizona’s new Gestapo, the Gang And Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission State Gang Task Force. This new Gestapo prefers to be known by the ridiculous acronym “GIITEM” – which is supposed to be pronounced “Git ‘em.”

GIITEM rolled into Kingman after an overblown fist fight between members of the Hells Angels and Vagos in June 2009 and encouraged local police to harass every motorcyclist they saw including members of the Patriot Guard Riders and HOG. Summerson may be the most innocent victim of the Arizona crusade against the biker menace so far.

The Faithful Employee

Summerson went to work for Kingman as a police dispatcher in 1996. She excelled and transferred to another city job in October 1998. When she married her husband William in December 1999 the City Manager and the boss who eventually fired her came to her wedding. She became Human Resources Administrator in April 2002. Two years later her husband joined the Desert Road Riders.

According to the suit, “From that point forward, Summerson regularly and openly showed her support for the DRRMC by wearing DRRMC colors and apparel to work and openly discussing her participating in DRRMC events with her co-workers.”

She moved to Pennsylvania in June 2006 to be closer to her terminally ill father-in-law but she stayed in touch with her former boss, Human Resources Director Jackie Walker and other Kingman employees. After William Summerson’s father died in 2011, Walker recruited Melissa Summerson to come back to work for Kingman. When the Summersons moved back west, members of the Desert Road Riders helped them move and gave them a temporary place to live.

Summerson did such a good job that the City manager and the Police Chief offered her the job of Dispatch Director in February 2012 but she turned the promotion down because she wanted to stay in Human Resources. The next month she got another glowing performance evaluation.

No Colors In Kingman

At the instigation of GIITEM, Kingman had begun to enforce a “no colors policy” wherever possible throughout the city. According to the suit, “In October 2012, Summerson told another City employee that her husband would not be welcome to ride in a law enforcement-sponsored toy run due to his membership in the DRRMC because the sponsors did not allow “colors” on their run. Subsequently, on October 25, 2012, Police Chief DeVries emailed Captain Scott Wright a copy of a webpage from the ACMC (Arizona Confederation of Clubs) website, indicating the member clubs, associates, and friends/guests/supporters. On November 17, 2012, Summerson, her husband and another member of the DRRMC were pulled over by Kingman Police Officer Joe Weber for allegedly speeding on their motorcycles while returning from a funeral. After discussing the incident with the three of them, Officer Weber gave them each a warning for excessive speed.”

“After the November 17, 2012 incident, Sergeant Shay Weber sent a memo to Captain Rusty Cooper regarding the traffic stop and regarding Summerson’s association with her husband and the DRRMC and her husband’s membership in the DRRMC.”

Memo

On November 19, a Kingman cop named Donald A. Doughty sent another memo to a police lieutenant named Mark Chastain. Doughty had done an “investigation” of Summerson for Kingman Police Captain Scott Wright. The long memo reported that William Summerson was friends with members of the Desert Low Riders, that Doughty had “witnessed Summerson selling DRRMC raffle tickets,” and stating that William Summerson had not ridden in the police toy run because of his association with his club.

Doughty’s memo also alleged that “outlaw motorcycle gang members” have “their wives, girlfriends, sisters, or other acquaintances obtain employment in positions where sensitive information may be found.” Doughty also “checked with the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s Access Integrity Unit and determined that Summerson did not have a Terminal Operator Certification and therefore was limited in her access to sensitive information.” But, Doughty warned, Summerson “may…have access to background and criminal history information if her position involves the hiring of new employees.” Doughty also told Chastain that “there is no known DPS Policy which restricts the employment of family members related to members of motorcycle and/or street gangs…” and he had been “advised that in some situations, the activity of employees has been monitored to check for possible privacy violations.” Doughty also wrote that Summerson had been seen wearing DRRMC support clothing on the DRRMC website and on the social media site Facebook.

Dealing With The Outlaw Problem

On November 27, Summerson’s friend and boss, Jackie Walker, met with the Kingman Police Chief about Summerson and her associations. According to the suit, the chief then sent Walker “an email indicating that Captain Wright obtained information from the GIITEM Task Force. On December 3, 2012, Walker discussed Summerson with City Attorney Carl Cooper. On December 13, 2012, Walker emailed herself draft language stating ‘You are an associate of a documented Criminal Street Gang, Desert Road Riders a documented support club of the Hell’s (sic) Angels, under A.R.S. 13-105. As such, your association with Criminal Street Gangs causes us great concern. Because Criminal Street Gangs are known to have strict rules which controls (sic) the behavior and functions of its members, your access to confidential information is in direct conflict with the role of Human Resources.’”

The day after Christmas, Summerson was placed on paid administrative leave until December 28. The same day Walker gave Summerson Notice of Intent to Terminate effective December 28. The sole reason for the termination was that Summerson was associated with the Desert Road Riders which was a “documented criminal Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (OMG)” and “a support club of the Hell’s (sic) Angels, which is a criminal street gang as defined by ARS 13-105.”

The suit states, “Summerson asked Walker if Summerson could keep her job if her husband resigned from the DRRMC. Walker said no.”

The next day Walker, who had known William Summerson was a Desert Road Rider for eight years and who had recruited Summerson to move back to Kingman, “emailed (City Attorney) Cooper an attachment from the FBI’s website regarding gang sophistication and gang infiltration of corrections, law enforcement, and government in various parts of the country. The attachment reported that gang members in at least 57 jurisdictions have applied for or gained employment within judicial, police or correctional agencies. Likewise, the attachment reported that gang members in at least 75 jurisdictions have compromised or corrupted judicial, law enforcement, or correctional staff within the past three years.”

According to the suit, “Nothing in the report implicated Summerson, her husband, the DRRMC or anyone in Arizona of any of the alleged conduct. At 5:35 p.m. on December 27, 2012, Walker emailed Summerson a letter notifying her that the City was upholding the decision to terminate Summerson’s employment effective at 5:00 p.m. on December 28, 2012. Walker copied Kramer and Cooper on the letter.”

“In that letter, Walker stated that ‘My decision is supported by the fact that employees of the City’s law enforcement, legal, dispatch, and court system are apprehensive in continuing their work relationship with the human resources/risk management department. The association with a documented OMG severely jeopardizes the security of confidential employee information and the safety of this large segment of our workforce. The loss of a close and trusting relationship with these employees is a significant disruption to the efficiency of the services human resources/risk management provides.”

The suit asks for a jury trial and does not specify damages sought. Summerson is represented by Attorney David C. Kresin of Phoenix.

The hot air balloon called Operation Red Harvest finally started deflating today, a mere thirteen months after the self-congratulatory press conference.

Red Harvest was the secret investigation that began in December 2010 and resulted in a grand jury voting out 226 separate criminal indictments in April 2012. Saundra Rhodes, the blowhard who runs the Horry County Police Department bragged, “We believe this will have a significant impact on the Hell’s Angels. In my 18 years with the department I’ve never seen a grand jury investigation that netted 226 indictments. This is a pretty big deal.”

Today Jimmy Richardson, the Solicitor for the 15th Circuit of South Carolina dropped 103 of those indictments. The charges included numerous counts of conspiracy, assault and battery, kidnapping, tattooing and lynching. They were all trumped up. “What we did was we went through…we looked at each charge individually, and the stuff that we couldn’t prove, we dismissed it” Richardson said.

The Victims

The Horry County case is a straightforward example of using prosecution as a means to inflict extra-judicial punishment. It is redundantly unconstitutional and is itself probably a crime of malice. The victims were singled out because they were Hells Angels. Although many people find the very notion of the Hells Angels offensive the same Constitutional provision that protects the Baptist church also protects them.

The previous 15th Circuit Solicitor, a man named Greg Hembree, who initiated the case virtually admitted the wildly run charges were a kind of bureaucratic punishment. “It’s going to take up a lot of their time and energy and resources to defend these charges,” he bragged at the news conference.

Most of the charges that were dismissed today were the fruit of a single dispute between neighbors. A group of Hells Angels was having a backyard barbecue on the other side of a fence from a barbecue hosted by an off-duty cop. The cop told the Angels to watch their language. When they did not, a fist fight between two men ensued. Presumably the cop lost. The tattooing charges criminalized two separate incidents in which non-club members were allegedly compelled to remove club only tattoos.

The victims who had charges against them dropped today are: Michael V. Parent, Thomas Allen Doucette, Sr., John Marshall Volosin, Ellis Howard Schindler, Joshua Burnette, Storm Anthony M. Bain, Bradley Joseph Trinceri, Steven Marion Brinsfield, Kevin George Schmidt, John R. Bain, David Tennant Graham, Carl Matthew Murdock, Jr., Jeffrey Carl Lozier, Scott Richard Rowan, John Carlton Dyar, Scott Alan Hoy, Jesse Elmer Dietz, Glenn Matthew O’Brien, Joshua Joseph Johnson and Joseph R. Trombino, Jr.

Moving On

Defendants in the case still face 123 charges which are mostly related to the growth and distribution of marijuana. Marijuana is legal to possess and use, usually with medical restrictions, in 18 states and the District of Columbia.

John Hilliard, an attorney who represents several of the accused, told Myrtle Beach television WBTW, “We ‘re certainly happy that those cases are dismissed, but we still have the other cases to deal with and we’re moving through that process. We’re certainly anxious to have it done because the negative impact on their lives has been enormous.”

Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican Congressman from Wisconsin, has introduced a bill called the Stop Motorcycle Checkpoint Funding Act. The Bill, H.R. 1861, would prohibit the Department of Transportation Department from providing funds to state and local authorities for motorcycle-only checkpoints.

The Bill currently has 13 Republican co-sponsors and is being considered by House the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. It must be approved by that committee before it is considered by the full House.

About the proposed bill Sensenbrenner said, “Current law states that highway safety plans must prevent accidents and reduce injuries. The Stop Motorcycle Checkpoint Funding Act would require highway safety plans to include programs that prevent accidents in order to reduce injuries and deaths resulting from accidents involving motor vehicles and motorcycles. This small change will make a significant impact because it highlights that preventing accidents is the best way to save motorcyclists’ lives,”

Over-Criminalization Task Force

Sensenbrenner introduced the checkpoint bill on May 7th, the same day he was named co-chair, with Virginia Democrat Bobby Scott, of the bi-partisan Over-Criminalization Task Force.

In a formal statement about the task force, Sensenbrenner said:

“As former chairman and long-serving member of the Judiciary Committee, I’ve seen first-hand just how muddled the criminal code is. It’s time to scrub it clean. The Over-Criminalization Task Force will review federal laws in Title 18, and laws outside of Title 18 that have not gone through the Judiciary Committee, to modernize our criminal code.

“In addition, I reintroduced the Criminal Code Modernization and Simplification Act today, which would reform Title 18 of the U.S. Code, reduce the existing criminal code by more than one-third and update the code to make it more comprehensible.”

Bête Noire

The checkpoint bill probably has a slim chance of passage by the complete House at least partly because Sensenbrenner is considered a rude radical by many liberal and moderate politicians.

He was particularly vilified after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported a remark me made about Michelle Obama and her campaign for a healthy diet and exercise. “She lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself,” Sensenbrenner said. He later called the First Lady to apologize.

Maybe it will happen like this.

I’ll catch a long parade of impossibly slow trucks on a secondary, two lane road. I dream those roads. They float and dance in my imagination like bingo balls – the 95 between Needles and Blythe, the 89 between Ash Fork and Chino Valley, the 85 from Buckeye to Gila Bend, the 54 between Tucumcari and Dalhart, the 49 from Kansas City to Carthage. I know them. I see myself on them.

I’m alone. One guy. No pack. One bike. An hour later some cop I’ll never meet will carefully note that the sky is pale blue and the pavement is dry except for my blood.

I drop down into fifth then fourth. Little packs of cars fly by on my left going the opposite way. The wind pushes my sleeves up to my shoulders. The trucks shelter me from the bugs. They hide me from the police. They hide the road from me. All I see in front of me is a sign that says “Interstate.”

I bide my time, crowding the double yellow line until the line shatters and a truck in the middle of the parade pulls out to pass. I pull right up behind him and stare at a sign that says “UPS.” Maybe this driver is chatting with one of the trucks I just passed. Probably he has no idea I am even there.

A hybrid that looks like a prop from The Jetsons tailgates me. The truck behind me on my right wears a sign that says “England.” He drops back a little to give the hybrid and me an out. As soon as the UPS truck signals he is rejoining the parade the Spark or Prius or Soul or Scion quickly veers to the right. I let him pass me and I pull in behind him.

He thinks nothing of this favor I have just done him. He thinks he is better than me. He thinks he is more evolved than me. He thinks we are all born bad but we all might hope to be redeemed by decades of schooling and psychotherapy, and by our sincere surrender to social orthodoxy, and when necessary by preventative policing and enlightened penology. I don’t give a fuck what he thinks. I’d shove that hybrid up his ass if I could figure out how to lift it with one hand. And so my attitude proves his point. It is an argument I used to have in the seventies when I still wanted people like him to like me. Now I just want to be free and for people like him to let me be.

My tires kiss the yellow lines. Now the hybrid is also blind so he starts to drop back and he kisses the lines in front of me. The England trucker gives us both room.

A pair of cars in the opposite lane warn me that another parade is following them. The hybrid lurches left and then hurries back to the right when he sees what is coming. He brakes hard. I shift down into third. The two parades pass. I pull all the way to the right and see nothing.

The England trucker grows impatient. His lights begin to blink. He knows something I can’t see. He sits so much higher than me. He is talking to somebody.

I pull back over to the center line and as soon as I do a very old song starts to pound in my ears – a song from the seventies. The riff is an endless fortissimo warbling of the same five or six notes over and over and over. It is all I hear. I don’t hear the engine growling or the road singing. All of the great outdoors is my listening room.

I swerve left then right. I see two cars coming in the opposite direction. I wait for them to reach the first of the trucks I can see ahead of me before I open the throttle and aim straight for the hybrid’s left side.

The hybrid never hears me and he never sees me coming. He’s listening to his life’s soundtrack. He’s listening to NPR so he’ll know what to think and I’m halfway through fourth when I fly past him and pull into the middle of the left lane. I’m past four of the trucks with one to go before I make it into sixth. When I glance in my mirrors I see the England trucker has turned off his signal but the hybrid is following me. Up ahead the first semi is trying to pull away. He’s a truck without a name. He can’t outrun me, even in his dreams.

But then six hundred yards ahead of him a white dot appears. It is aimed at me. I could pull back in behind the truck with no name but I know he is going to slow down again when we find the next hill. So I keep searching for my top end while the same five or six notes play in my un-evolved mind. Bip-bip-bip-brrripp-bip! Yahoo! Maybe I have eight seconds. Maybe only six.

Three of them burn. The center line becomes a double stripe again and the dot becomes a car. We are headed straight for each other. I pull a little right, a little tighter to the very un-aerodynamic truck with no name. I’m buffeted by his wash. I only need another two seconds. I wonder if the white car sees me yet. He is probably going ninety. We’re five hundred feet apart.

I feel a little adrenaline hit but I’m not afraid. I’m calculating. I do this all the time. All the white car has to do is pull a couple feet to his right. Usually I hear them honking about a second before we meet. Once when I was playing chicken like this the oncoming driver pulled completely off the road. Sometimes I’m past the front bumper of the truck before I meet what’s coming at me. Sometimes I’m not. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of the driver’s eyes – wide with terror or fury – and I know that when he eats dinner that night he will talk about me: About the uneducated, un-therapized, unenlightened, unevolved, unregulated brute he almost killed that day. I always hear the same five or six notes. I always assume the driver is sober and that he is afraid to hit me.

So, I am probably not the most appropriate person to tell you that May is motorcycle safety awareness month. As if you didn’t already know. I don’t know how you can not know.

I’ve been ducking the story for three weeks because I don’t care about safety. But, then most of the people in charge of May, the motorcycle safety awareness month don’t care either. They care about fixing what has been wrong with me since I was born bad – because, I understand, there is some money in that.

Newz Noise

The newz noise started two months ago. In March the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that motorcyclists were about 30 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a crash. Apparently, motorcycles don’t have crumple zones.

The same month, Chanyoung Lee, a scholar at the University of South Florida’s Center for Urban Transportation Research, produced his own study that proved motorcycles are dangerous to their riders. That got some press, too.

In April, something called the Governors Highway Safety Association announced “that motorcyclist deaths increased approximately 9 percent in 2012, to more than 5,000 lives lost. This is greater than the overall traffic fatality increase projected by the federal government and would be the 14th out of the last 15 years in which motorcyclist deaths increased. Notably, this level of deaths closes in on an all-time high, and motorcyclists remain one of the few roadway user groups where no progress can be shown over the last decade.”

Every newspaper and every television station in America downloaded a copy of that last report. It was a microwavable story reporters in any state could prepare in minutes. All they had to do was rewrite the press release and insert their location. The report had data for every state and reported that motorcycle fatalities were up in thirty-four of them.

Writing Newz In A Nutshell

Most of the stories followed the same, simple, three part format. First a retelling of the most gruesome motorcycle crash in that local area in the previous month. You know, like, “Little Billy Bob and Miley never guessed their Daddy was about to be decapitated when he climbed on his motorcycle that fateful April morning.”

Second, reporters found a local angle in one of the reports. For example, a Pennsylvania story said, “Last year in Pennsylvania there were 854,493 licensed motorcyclists, a 13 percent increase from a decade ago, and 409,017 registered motorcycles, 54 percent higher than a decade ago. PennDOT data shows there were nearly 4,000 crashes involving motorcycles statewide last year, resulting in 210 fatalities. This marks an increase from 2011 when there were more than 3,600 crashes involving motorcycles and 199 fatalities in those crashes.”

Or, “According to agency statistics, there are more than 194,000 motorcycles registered in North Carolina. In 2012, there were 4,157 motorcycle crashes that resulted in 162 fatalities and 3,970 injuries.”

Or, “An Alabama press release lists preliminary data showing 1,830 motorcycle crashes with 81 fatalities and 1,428 injuries statewide in 2012.”

Or, “In 2012, there were nearly 800 deaths on Wisconsin’s roadways. Approximately one in seven involved a motorcycle.”

Finally, add some quotes from a local politician. The Pennsylvania story went on to add, “The deadly crashes came as Governor Tom Corbett announced a proclamation designating the month of May as ‘Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month.’ Corbett said in a statement that the decision was made due to the increased popularity of motorcycling in the state. ‘More people are traveling Pennsylvania roadways on their motorcycles, but it’s important that riders and motorists alike are sharing the road safely,’ Corbett said. ‘If car, truck and motorcycle operators follow simple steps like looking out for each other and obeying speed limits, we can work together to reduce the number of crashes and highway deaths we see each year.’ The first recommendation in the Governor’s Association study, ‘Increase helmet use: Helmets are proven to be 37 percent effective at preventing fatal injuries to motorcycle operators and 41 percent effective for passengers. NHTSA estimates that 706 of the un-helmeted motorcyclists who died in crashes in 2010 would have lived had they worn helmets.’”

On Guam, “Acting Governor Ray Tenorio signed a proclamation Friday recognizing for the first time on Guam that May is National Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month. The signing ceremony took place at RPM Yamaha in Hagatna. The proclamation seeks to spread motorcycle safety awareness on the island of Guam. This proclamation ties in with Senator Tommy Morrisson’s helmet bill or bill 87 which is up for public hearing on the 28th. The measure would require that anyone riding on a motorcycle or scooter wear a helmet.”

A Brotherhood About Trying To Evolve

The news noise really picked up around May Day when ABATE joined the act. The organization was founded to fight helmet laws and the acronym once meant A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments but sometime after I stopped paying them dues it came to mean American Bikers Aimed Toward Education. Of course. The more time you spend in a classroom the safer you will be.

Stories bloomed like dandelions. ABATE “presenters” shared podiums with policemen. Reporters with stories to get learned that “Motorcycles are at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to a collision with a car or truck.”

“From 2010 – 2012 motorcycle-involved crashes resulted in 509 fatalities and more than 11,480 injuries in the state of Ohio. In 2012 alone there were 165 motorcycle-related fatalities. Of the 165 fatalities, the motorcyclist was at fault 71 percent of the time. Taking a training class and riding with proper endorsements as a motorcycle rider can help protect yourself and others from injury or even death.”

“May is National Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month. In an effort to encourage safe riding this summer, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, along with State Patrol, invited motorcycle owners to take part in a safety crash course at the Rock County fair grounds in Janesville.”

“State University of New York at Oswego Police Lieutenant Kevin Velzy welcomed ABATE Vice President Bruce Le Porte and President Jim Waterman to present a moving and informative program on motorcycle safety.”

Most of these stories were aimed at motorists who learned that motorcycles tend to engine brake and move around in lanes and are not self-balancing.

Our Protectors

The dominant safety story this May has been about the police. Sometimes local policemen carry the educational load when a spokesman from ABATE can’t make it. Sometimes the cops enlist a stand-in. “New Hampshire State Police, along with the help of Randy the CPR dummy, are recreating motorcycle crashes as part of a week-long reconstruction course in Concord.”

But the story usually read something like: “Police will conduct a Motorcycle Safety Enforcement Operation on Tuesday in (insert your town’s name here) with extra officers patrolling areas where motorcycle crashes occur. Deputies will look for drivers and riders who are under the influence of drugs or alcohol and crack down on motorcyclists and vehicle drivers who commit traffic violations that can lead to collisions, injuries, and fatalities involving motorcycle riders.”

The story was the same throughout the Northern Hemisphere of the English speaking world. In Canada on May 7th, police stopped a pack of 150 Hells Angels. “Police had information that the bikers would be riding today,” a police propagandist in British Columbia said. “And with May being Motorcycle Safety Month, police wanted to take this opportunity to conduct road safety checks on the bikers.”

The Stornoway Gazette, published in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis fifty miles off the North Atlantic coast of Scotland, reported that police there “are keen to raise awareness to all road users of the increased risk of road traffic collisions involving motorcyclists over the spring and summer months, in order to make our roads safer for everyone.”

Road Policing Inspector Neil Lumsden told the Gazette, “Our aim is to stop and speak to as many motorcyclists as possible with a view to encouraging and educating riders on positive actions that will help to keep them safe. This highly visible and proactive approach will deter and divert inappropriate riding, whilst detecting and appropriately dealing with any offences. One death is one too many and by adopting this educational and interactive approach, we hope to reduce the number of collisions and keep all road users safe.”

In a news brief slugged “Motorcycle safety crackdown Friday,” television station KERO in Bakersfield reported “Extra California Highway Patrol officers will be on patrol Friday in an effort to increase the safety of motorcyclists. Officers will be on duty patrolling areas frequented by motorcyclists and where motorcycle crashes occur.”

Other news outlets reported other “motorcycle safety crackdowns” throughout the state. So, “Additional police patrols begin Friday in Marysville, targeting motorcyclists as part of the National Highway Safety Administration’s Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month.”

In New York, “The state police will be focusing this summer on motorcycle safety, utilizing motorcycle safety checkpoints and roving details that not only focus on motorcycle operators driving habits, but also on vehicular traffic around those motorcycles.”

Meanwhile In Wausau

Meanwhile the Wausau Daily Herald, noting that May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month ran a long editorial last Thursday calling on Wisconsin law makers to pass a helmet law.

“Wisconsin does not require helmets for licensed motorcyclists,” the paper steamed. “This despite the fact that unhelmeted riders are 40 percent more likely to die from a head injury than someone wearing a helmet, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

“In the real world, there are real public costs to irresponsible behavior. Ambulances, medical care, disability; all these things come from the public coffers. According to the CDC report, the estimated economic burden of injuries and deaths from motorcycle-related crashes was $12 billion in 2010 alone – much more if higher insurance rates and lost tax revenue are considered.”

The first thing I want to know is, does the Wausau editorialist drive a hybrid? Does he drive it rudely?

Then after I think about this lecture I start to wonder what else all these busybodies don’t get. They get what is wrong with me but do they get poetry? Do they get art? Do they get Shakespeare, who died of pneumonia after getting drunk with two of his hoodlum friends – the towering literary immortals Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton – and passing out in a field? Would Shakespeare have lived had he been forced to attend drunk school? Should he have been sentenced to psychotherapy?

Do these meddlers get drugs. Do they get sex? Do they get rock n’ roll. Do they understand they are going to die? Do they understand that this is all there is? Do they understand that each life is little more than a quilt of moments: Of this moment and that on the 95 between Needles and Blythe, the 89 between Ash Fork and Chino Valley, the 85 between Buckeye and Gila Bend, the 54 between Tucumcari and Dalhart, the 49 from Kansas City to Carthage? Do they think they are better than me? Do they really think they know something that I do not?

Be careful out there for the next two weeks. May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month so the police are everywhere. And they are afraid of you because they understand that you are not afraid.

After fifty-four months, there is still one defendant in the Mongols federal racketeering case U.S. v. Cavazos et al. awaiting his day in court. He is Peter “Bouncer” Soto.

Another defendant named Horacio “Scorpio” Ponce was sentenced yesterday by Judge David O. Carter to a term of 84 months in prison and five years of supervised release. Ponce was defendant number 22 of 79 original defendants in the case. Ponce was originally charged with six federal counts. Five of those counts were dismissed yesterday and Ponce pled guilty to Count One of the original indictment.

Ponce admitted he was, “…employed by and associated with the Mongols criminal enterprise, which enterprise engaged in and the activities of which affected interstate and foreign commerce, unlawfully and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated, and agreed together and with each other to violate Title 18, United States Code, Section 1962, that is, to conduct and participate, directly and indirectly, in the conduct of the affairs of the enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity….”

Virtually all of Ponce’s court records have been sealed throughout the case. Judge Carter ordered the transcript of yesterday’s sentencing sealed. Ponce’s plea deal is sealed.

David Rivera, whose case was officially closed on August 27, 2010 has still not be sentenced. His sentencing hearing is now scheduled for July 8.

Bouncer Soto

Soto was scheduled to be sentenced this morning but that sentencing was put off until July 22nd in order to accommodate a conflict with prosecutor Christopher Brunwin’s schedule. Soto was the last defendant in the case to be apprehended. He was arrested by Mexican police in Tijuana on July 26, 2011. Soto pled guilty on November 28, 2012 to being a large and affable man who sold comparatively small amounts of recreational drugs and sometimes carried a gun.

In his plea deal, Soto formally confessed that he made seven drug deals in the summer of 2006. The deals were for amounts of drugs between six grams and 13.5 grams. Five of the deals were with undercover policemen. Soto also confessed to simple assault.

The federal sentencing guidelines range for Soto, who has no previous convictions, is 87 to 108 months imprisonment. Soto has asked for a maximum sentence of 76 months. Brunwin, thinks Soto deserves a sentence of 87 months because he was a Mongol.

“This defendant long participated in an organization that rewarded and promoted violence, intimidation and sexual exploitation among its members,” Brunwin wrote Judge Carter in April. “This defendant participated in those crimes on numerous occasions over an extended period of time and demonstrated a significant disregard for the lawful order of our communities and antagonism to the suffering inflicted by the organization on the lives and well-being of law abiding persons.”

Decoration Day, which became Memorial Day, spontaneously began during the American Civil War – a war fought mostly by conscripts – as a day set aside to tend and decorate the graves of that war’s dead. By 1867 Memorial Day had its own poignant hymn, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping.” And, the next year General John Logan, the head of the Grand Army of the Republic – which was probably the largest veterans organization in history – asked his members to decorate the graves of both Union and Confederate dead at Arlington National Cemetery.

The day to tend the memorials was observed on different dates from state to state under slightly different names. There was a pronounced disagreement about the holiday between the North and the South. To this day most of the states in the old Confederacy have a separate day to honor their Confederate dead. Texas remembers in January. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi remember in April. Louisiana and Tennessee honor their Confederate dead on Jefferson Davis’ birthday in June.

Memorial Day became a national holiday and the culmination of a three day weekend in 1971, two years before the United States pulled combat troops out of Vietnam and four years before that war’s brutal and tragic finale. The motorcycle ride called Rolling Thunder began a dozen years after that, which was five years after the dedication of a black chevron carved into a corner of the National Mall. The half buried chevron is officially called the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Most Vietnam veterans simply call it “The Wall.”

The Wall

The Wall was controversial from the start for all the reasons anything can be controversial in a narcissistic society obsessed with its reflection in the fun house mirrors of the mass media. Three veterans named Ray Manzo, John Holland and Walt Sides rode their motorcycles to The Wall for Memorial Day in 1987 with the same intentions the first celebrants of Decoration Day had.

At the time, the Vietnam War and the men who had fought for America there were still the punch lines of many bitter jokes. (How many Vietnam Vets does it take to screw in a light bulb? Pause. You can’t know man! You can’t know! You weren’t there! Ha! Ha! Ha!)

The Wall had been defaced. Many veterans thought The Wall needed protecting, tending and appreciation and in 1988 Manzo, Holland, Sides and a Vietnam veteran named Artie Muller returned with about 2,000 of their dirty and dangerous biker friends. They came, as a biker from Pittsburgh named Robert Wagner told a reporter that day, as “a show of strength.”

Mueller went on to make a career out of the final leg of the Run To The Wall, which is called “Rolling Thunder.” He is good at what he does. This year some uncounted number of motorcycles, maybe as many as 750,000, rode from Arlington, Virginia to The Wall.

Obama

Mueller is now 67 and most of the original meaning of Rolling Thunder has been submerged under a rising tide of phony patriotism. As the Civil War was the first war fought mostly by men who had no choice in the matter, Vietnam was the last war fought mostly by conscripts. Congress ended the draft in 1973 and the gulf between soldier and citizen has been widening ever since. Twelve percent of the nation was in uniform in World War II. About one half of a percent wears a uniform today. When the draft ended, 70 percent of Congress had worn a uniform. Today, fewer than 20 percent of Congress has gone through Basic Combat Training. As a result, most of the people responsible for America’s current string of low intensity and micro wars judge them dispassionately – as Adolph Eichmann was dispassionate about the blood on his hands.

As recently as the turn of the millennium, most Americans understood that Rolling Thunder had some valid connection to Vietnam and the profound alienation of many of that war’s veterans from bourgeois America. The best way to repeat history’s mistakes, an old saw claimed, is to forget about them. Even a decade ago, America was not ready to forget. Mueller and his coterie were welcome guests in the George W. Bush White House because, whatever his other deficiencies, Bush at least had the decency to be ashamed for what he did and did not do during Vietnam.

President Obama, on the other hand, is he among us who is without shame. He thinks Vietnam was a movie and he is a shameless supporter of the professional military. He has an accountant’s view of America’s wars. He is an obviously self-satisfied and hollow man who seems personally unacquainted with rage, shock, violence and blood. And, he has given Rolling Thunder and Artie Mueller the cold shoulder for his entire term. That was the case again this year. He seems to think Mueller has nothing to teach him.

Mueller still remembers how Rolling Thunder started. In an interview with the Washington Times last week, Mueller said, “Everything about this rally still affects me, no matter how many years we’ve been doing it. And everything we do is meant to remember and honor our POWs, MIAs and all of our veterans. I lost a whole lot of guys in that war. I never forget that I made it back but they didn’t.”

Tards

Presently, most Americans are convinced that wars should be subcontracted to professionals rather than fought by their sons and fellow citizens as a common cause. So it is not surprising that Memorial Day is now conflated with Veteran’s Day and Independence Day. And, the old veterans’ show of strength is increasingly regarded as a public nuisance. Rolling Thunder got significantly less play from the top, national news outlets this morning than the big car race in Indianapolis,

And many Washington area residents are frank about their contempt for the event.

“Yes, I’ll take the day away from my orthodontics practice, pull on my leathers, skip shaving for a day for that ‘tough’ look, and disrupt traffic all over the region with a bunch of accountants and middle managers riding overpriced loud scooters for morons,” a poster commented last week on Fairfax Underground, a community news site and bulletin board in Suburban Virginia.

“The only thing dumber than the tards riding their noisy little bikes and fucking up traffic are the tards who camp out by the side of the road in lawn chairs to watch them all go by. Who the fuck has never seen a motorcycle before, and wants to stand around for hours watching a bunch of organ donors putt-putt by on their loud attention-whore-mobiles,” another suburbanite commented.

Another said: “Wow, it’s time for Monkeyfest 2013 already? Time flies! Get ready for the parade of hairy, greasy, stinky, disgusting, fat-ass ‘riders’ clogging up the roads to fill their endless cravings for attention.”

And another: “Why do they continue to have this? How many years has this been going on? What have they accomplished? I have nothing against a bunch of old guys trying to be cool for a weekend, but what’s the point? If they are trying to change things it ain’t working!”

In response the Mueller’s persistent argument that his rally raises awareness of soldiers being held prisoner and those missing in action a sarcastic commenter said: “Don’t you guys get it? Rolling Douchery is all about the MIAs and POWs. It has nothing to do with ‘riders’ wanting attention. Not at all. This has been going on for 25 years, and so far Rolling Douchery has been responsible for approximately zero (give or take zero) recovered MIAs and POWs. So it’s a huge success, and will undoubtedly continue to be so – because it’s all about the MIAs and POWs.”

A commenter on a Washington blog called POPville wrote: “I hate Rolling Thunder (a big party to show off bikes disguised as concern) so much that I go on vacation around Memorial Day.” Which is what President Obama does.

And another wrote: “Gathering in one place to show respect for those who served their country is thoughtful. Gathering across a huge swath of territory on intentionally loud noisemaking machines that disrupt other people’s lives is just a selfish festival. It’s analogous to going out to throw up in public on St. Patrick’s Day.”

President Speaks

The President was back in Washington this morning in time to laud the newly professionalized military. After laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier this morning, he delivered his annual Memorial Day speech. It wasn’t exactly The Gettysburg Address.

In his remarks the President praised the “one percent of the American people (who) bear the burden of our defense” but he did not question that perverse statistic. He called the volunteers “heroes, each and every one. They gave America the most precious thing they had, the last full measure of devotion. And because they did, we are who we are today: a free and prosperous nation, the greatest in the world.”

He continued, “They risk their lives, and many give their lives, for something larger than themselves or any of us: The ideals of liberty and justice that make America a beacon of hope for the world. That’s been true throughout our history – from our earliest days, when a tiny band of revolutionaries stood up to an empire, to our 9/11 generation, which continues to serve and sacrifice today.”

“Over the last decade, we’ve seen the character of our country again,” the President boasted.

Obama is so calculating that it is often hard to know what he is talking about. The war in Afghanistan, which “is larger than…any of us,” is after all his war. And, it is clearly Congress’ war. And so are all the micro-wars in places like Yemen, the Sudan, the Phillipines and Columbia. So it is difficult to tell whether Obama is a liar on the subject of war or simply blind to it. Neither of those possibilities is comforting.

Desecration

An obvious example of this fatuousness or mendacity broke into the news last September when Marines in Afghanistan were widely described as “inhuman” for urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban. All combat veterans, and virtually every man who has lived in the last 200,000 years, would have found the conduct of those Marines to be completely human. The President, who is fussy about pronouncing “Taliban” forgot how to pronounce “Marines.” But other members of his administration and party did speak about the incident. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who served in the peacetime Army before Vietnam, called the Marines “utterly despicable.”

And Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, also condemned the Marines for not fighting her war correctly. The same week a Marine Staff Sergeant was being court-martialed for “desecration of human remains,” “posing for unofficial photographs with human casualties,” “failing to properly supervise junior Marines” and not reporting misconduct, Shultz said this on Bill Maher’s show on HBO: “Let’s remember that this is the United States of America. The greatest country in the world that is the country that we hold ourselves up as a shining example. That conduct, and I represent a lot of wonderful 18-year-old kids in the Twentieth District in South Florida, and I wouldn’t expect that conduct out of any of them no matter what their level of maturity is and it’s unacceptable in any way shape or form.”

After Wasserman Shultz self-righteous and self-serving little speech, the in-studio audience, which might not have contained a single combat veteran, enthusiastically cheered.

Next year Obama should set aside a couple hours for a little chat with Artie Mueller about war. He might learn something. Wasserman Schultz should sit in on that meeting, too.

Dan Bifield, the lead defendant in the recent federal racketeering case in Columbia, South Carolina will be sentenced tomorrow. He is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison. His sentencing statement was filed this morning. Readers who have followed the case for the last eleven months may find Bifield’s words interesting.

Bifield’s statement is reproduced in full below.

Sentencing Letter / Statement

My name is Diamond Dan Bifield and I would like to make a statement for the record.

I am a member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and I have been for 38 years. The two things I love the most in my life are my wife, Lisa Bifield, and my club. I would never do anything to hurt or betray either one of them. I am a man of honor and respect, and I would give my life for what I love and believe in.

I am making this statement on behalf of my wife, club and myself. I want to try and set the record straight. I am guilty of some things but I am not guilty of a lot of the things that I am being accused of. I will accept whatever punishment the court gives me, but I would like the record to refleet what I have to say because it will be the truth and from my heart.

The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club is not a criminal enterprise nor have they ever been. As a Hells Angels member and a president, I know this club better than anybody. This club is not about drugs or crimes. Whatever crimes I have done or am guilty of have nothing to do with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. They were of my own choice.

As a president of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, I had no authority or right to ask or order someone to commit a crime. I would never do that. We do not discuss crimes or sanction them. And no member could tell or order anyone to commit a crime.

What we discuss are events like anniversary parties, runs, funerals, meetings and other personal situations that we may have. You will never see or hear of a Hells Angel going to a school and murdering small and innocent children or would ever be involved in a terrorist act against our country. We are Americans, we are proud of our country, and we will fight and die for our country. We are brothers, friends and family. We take care of our own. Yes, we have problems and faults; we are not perfect.

For the record, I have never discussed or talked about crimes, drug or guns among any of my Hells Angels brothers. I have not asked any of them to sell guns or drugs, and they have never asked me to, nor have I given any of them money concerning crimes. Any crimes I have committed had nothing to do with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. I take full responsibility for what I have done. I know there are many recordings that were set up and done by the confidential informant, Joe Dillulio, talking about drugs and guns but they are mostly lies and stories to get money out of him. Just like Joe Dillulio was telling us lies and stories to make us think he was doing this and that. We never believed most of what he said because he was a liar. I did ask my wife, Lisa, if she wanted to sell her legal gun to Robert Pantori which she did and gave him a bill of sale. I also told her, if she wanted to, she could sell him some more guns since I could not do it because I was a felon. We did not know or believe that Joe Dillulio was a felon. I told Lisa that myself. I took his name and other information and the paperwork came back three times saying “no record found” and only three precious metal violations and some fines. The main reason I had him checked out was because he asked me to invest and go into the jewelry business with him.

Joe Dillulio told me he was in a certain federal prison for a year for terrorist threats, that he was in maximum security, and that he had weapon and fraud charges. Well, I have many friends in prison that I know personally, that call and write me. I asked them if they knew or heard of Joe Dillulio. There was even a jeweler guy who has been at that prison for over 15 years and he said they never heard of Joe Dillulio.

Joe Dillulio also told me he was a made-man in the mafia. Lisa and I did not believe that for one second. But to make sure he was not, I made three trips to New York and Connecticut to speak to some people of the Italian community who would know and nobody ever heard of him. They said, “he was a nobody.”

Joe Dillulio told me on several occasions that he was going to rob drug dealers, but we did not believe him.

I would also like the record to show that there are a lot of recordings and discovery that is either wrong, missing, held back, erased or a lie, and some of the words have been changed. Joe Dillulio had two recorders and could choose what he wanted or did not want to record.

When I sold legal bathsalts to Joe Dillulio, I told him I did not want to mess with drugs and not to cut the bathsalts with other drugs. I also told him that he did not need to do that because the bathsalts were legal and you could make good money with it. Joe kept trying to get me to mix it with drugs but I would not do it. I also never believed him when he did say he mixed it with drugs. Why would you spend $3,000.00 to cut some drugs with it? Also, we never believed Joe was going to use any guns Lisa sold him to do a robbery, especially since they were legal. When Joe Dillulio first told me he made $70,000.00 from the platinum gold from the muffers and he said he made a lot of money off the gold and silver ad that Lisa and I did for him, he asked me to invest the money in gold and silver, and to get checks for the jewelry business. He never said a word about drugs or a robbery, but then he later changed up his story to drugs. I myself bought him several blank money orders and gave them to him at the front door of his store. Where is this recording and all the other ones? It got to the point where I did not trust Joe Dillulio anymore, especially when my wife told me all the bad stuff Joe Dillulio was saying about me. She even had him on the phone one time and let me listen to Joe Dillulio bad mouth me and tell lies about me. We told him anything he wanted to hear. Then, when he brought Matt around, I knew he was a cop. Joe Dillulio kept telling me he was going to give me $50,000.00 but he never did. I knew he was lying and telling me stories, I asked him what was all this talk about guns, silencers and a robbery with Matt. Joe told me that Matt was trying to impress me. Because of all this, I was just trying to get the $50,000.00 he promised me. When he did give me $15,000.00 on March 1, 2012, I kept it. I also told him that my money came from gold and silver, but when you listen to the recording you can tell I said it but the words don’t seem right and Joe Dillulio is trying to talk over me so you cannot hear me. The words have been changed. I also knew Matt was a cop on November 30, 2011 when Joe Dillulio and Matt ran away from Charlie’s Bar. There is a lot of the recording that is missing, and my phone call to him is missing.

I would also like the record to show that before the C.I. Joe Dillulio and F.B.I. Agent Devon Mahoney came around, there were no crimes being committed and that F.B.I. Agent Devon Mahoney lied and made up stories to start this whole investigation. They both lied and did illegal stuff to set us up and to get us.

During our plea agreement discussion, they left F.B.I. Agent Devon Mahoney in the room with Lisa and myself. When I said something to my lawyers about this, I was told that whatever was said in this room had to stay there and couldn’t be repeated. Well, not only did F.B.l. Agent Devon Mahoney make a statement, he lied about what was said in that room.

I never told or sanctioned my wife Lisa Bifield to testify against anybody or would I ever. And nobody ever told us that Lisa had to testify. All that was said was that Lisa had to be truthful about what she and I did, and that if she did give up information or would testify she could get time off of her sentence. Lisa told me she would not tell on anybody nor would she testify against anybody, and that she didn’t know anything to testify about, so I took the plea agreement.

F.B.I. Agent Devon Mahoney lied about what was said in that room, and I will take a polygraph test to prove it. What the government and F.B.I Agent Devon Mahoney wanted was Lisa to lie and to testify that somebody passed and brought her drugs, and that was a lie. Because she wouldn’t do it, they took her plea deal of five years and added two more years onto her sentence. They gave her two more years for telling the truth.

We were lied about and made to look like we were doing crimes we weren’t. We were charged with fake and imaginary crimes. We are being held responsible for a fake Hobbs Act Robbery and we’re being held accountable for fake drugs and their amounts! They used and lied about the bathsalts being mixed with drugs to give us more time. And we are being held accountable for drugs we didn’t even know about. We are being punished over and over for the same things and for things that never happened.

We knew Joe Dillulio lied and was never a made-man in the mafia, that he never robbed any drug dealers, that the legal gun he was sold was not used in a robbery, and that he never mixed any bathsalts with drugs. That was all a set up.

We’re being charged because we lied and didn’t believe Joe and we used him for all the money we could get, But yet Joe lied and did illegal stuff and, because he worked for the Federal government, it was alright. And on top of that, the F.B.I. Agent Devon Mahoney lied and broke the law to get us and this is all legal.

All this started over a legal gun my wife Lisa Bifield sold to Robert Pantori with a bill of sale. Which by the way the gun was still at the store a week later! Why wasn’t Robert Pantori interviewed? Where is the discovery on this? Where is the paperwork on C.I. Joe Dillulio that I gave him when I had him checked out? It seems this isn’t the first time the government has withheld discovery from us that would show we are innocent of some crimes.

I have also seen statements in the P.S.I. Report that on, June 7, 2012, Fred Keach denied buying from or selling guns for Bifield (Page 37, Paragraph 142). Keach denied any money he made from selling guns to CS-RH went back to the club (Page 37, Paragraph 141).  Bruce Wilson further denied having any direct connection with Bifield concerning guns or gun sales (Page 39, Paragraph 148). According toWlson, Bifield never asked Wilson to sell him or Lisa a gun. Wilson did not give Bifield or the club any part of the money made off selling the firearms.

I would like the court to be aware that a lot of this case isn’t what it seems to be. It was built on a lot of lies and stories, and of crimes that didn’t or were never going to happen. It’s a shame and dishonest to have someone like Joe Dillulio who only did this for money, to make up and cause crimes to get an organization that the government hates and wants to destroy.

I am very sorry for all the pain and suffering I have caused everybody. Especially my wife, my club, and all our families. I never meant to hurt anybody by my actions.

I ask the court to please have mercy on my wife, club brothers and friends! I ask no mercy for myself!

I am a proud member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and, if I am to be punished for it and die in prison, then let it be! I know in my heart that God will give me justice and that he knows the truth.

Thank you for your time.

With respect,

Diamond Dan Bifield

What may have been Dave Burgess’ last best chance at vindication was denied last Friday by United States District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson. Burgess had argued that his trial lawyer, a court appointed federal defender named James Barrett, was so inept that his conduct violated Burgess’ Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. Johnson presided over the subsequent trial.

A jury found Burgess guilty of possession of child pornography and interstate transportation of child pornography after deliberating for less than four hours on April 21, 2008. On July 18, 2008 Johnson sentenced Burgess to 15 years in prison, ten years of supervision upon release, lifetime registration as a sex offender and a fine of $20,000. Burgess is currently incarcerated in a federal prison in Texas.

Dave Burgess is the former President of the Nevada Nomads Charter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. He is the nephew of Sally Burgess and Joe Conforte who opened and operated a brothel in Story County, Nevada named the Mustang Ranch. Burgess, whose lifetime ambition from age 12 had always been to belong to the Hells Angels, inherited a part of the original Mustang called the Old Bridge Ranch.

Burgess was arrested for possession of marijuana and cocaine in a game-planned traffic stop in Wyoming on July 24, 2007. At the time Burgess and a fellow member of the club were driving the chase truck behind a pack of Hells Angels travelling to the club’s national run in Arkansas. Using the legal theory that Burgess must be a drug dealer because he was a Hells Angel in possession of drugs, local police seized computer equipment in the chase truck and sent it to the offices of the Wyoming Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Team in Cheyenne. Forty-four days later an investigator found evidence of “child exploitation” on the equipment and Burgess was subsequently indicted for the child pornography.

Child Porn

There were two distinct categories of pornography on Burgess’ computer equipment. One was a vast library of pornographic images. The number of images exceeded the number of images in the Cheyenne ICAC library of pornographic images. A cursory examination of Burgess equipment indicated that none of the well organized image files had ever been opened.

The equipment also contained images of a 14-year-old girl referred to in most court filings as “RC.”

RC was Burgess’ ward. Her father was an incarcerated Hells Angel. Her mother had a substance abuse problem and was unable to care for the girl. So Burgess, as chapter President, took her in. The images depicted RC naked, in a motel room in Winnemucca, Nevada that was known to have been occupied by Burgess and his household. The photos were embellished with lewd captions and the possibility that Burgess had molested the daughter of a club member enraged many Hells Angels both in and out of the United States. It is very unlikely that the captions were written by Burgess. They were, as a matter of fact, not created with any software Burgess owned.

After his arrest and before his trial Burgess was given an ultimatum by a government official. Burgess was told to renounce his interest in the Old Bridge Ranch, agree to be extensively debriefed about the Hells Angels, accept a sentence of five years in prison and enter the United States Marshall’s witness relocation program. If he did not, Burgess was told, his own club brothers would kill him. Burgess, believing he was safe because he was innocent, declined the offer.

Lawyers

RC was interviewed, on videotape, by the FBI and very vigorously protested that Burgess had never photographed or exploited her. RC later travelled to Cheyenne during Burgess’ trial. She offered to testify in Burgess’ defense but she was never called by James Barrett. It was hardly the only misstep Barrett made in Burgess defense. Burgess was assigned a public defender because throughout his indictment and arrest he was impoverished by a $2 million IRS lien. And he was forbidden to leave his home. Burgess later stated that his house arrest hindered his attempts to borrow money to hire a lawyer. Barrett is now the branch chief of the Cheyenne Branch of the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Districts of Colorado and Wyoming.

Burgess tried before his trial to fire Barrett and hire an attorney named David Chesnoff. San Francisco attorney Tony Serra now represents Burgess. Burgess, according to a habeas corpus petition filed by Serra in 2010, “was prevented by his pre-trial detention arrangement from raising funds for the legal fees of a private attorney.” Burgess was finally freed from home detention days before his trial.

Most of the substantive “public” documents related to the Burgess case remain unavailable to the public. Apparently those documents are sealed to protect the identity of RC. The Aging Rebel has legally obtained most of those documents, including a transcript of the trial, anyway.

Appeals

Burgess has appealed his conviction before. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled that the search that uncovered the evidence against Burgess was legal and denied Burgess’ appeal on the grounds that the search was unconstitutional. The Tenth Circuit’s rules governing computer searches are in conflict with rules established by the Ninth Circuit in the BALCO case but the Supreme Court declined to review Burgess’ conviction. Judge Johnson’s review of the case has been ongoing for 29 months. He held a hearing on the matter last month. The Aging Rebel has intentionally limited this page’s coverage of the case during the last 16 months in order to avoid either informing prosecutors or prejudicing the Judge’s ruling on this appeal.

There appear to be numerous, obvious, blatant deficiencies in Burgess’ defense beyond James Barrett’s failure to call RC to testify or to enter her videotaped statements into evidence.

Barrett urged Burgess to take the government’s proffered plea deal then had virtually no contact with Burgess until the trial. Barrett went on vacation for two weeks immediately before the trial and was unavailable to his client or the court until the Friday before the beginning of trial. Barrett investigated no leads and interviewed no witnesses before the trial. And his handling of the computer forensics investigation was cursory and obviously flawed.

Defense Expert

A professional and experienced computer forensics technician might have found an alternative explanation for how the vast and unopened catalog of pornography appeared on Burgess’ hardware, how and when the offensive captions were superimposed over the photos of RC and how hardware Burgess had thrown away appeared in the crash truck more than a year later. Burgess wanted Barrett to hire an independent computer forensics technician and, on the advice of friend who had actually maintained a website for Burgess, he told Barrett what to look for.

Instead of a professional examiner Barrett employed the services of Gene Jone, a part-time disc jockey whose day job was as the IT Administrator at the Federal Defenders office in Denver. At trial Jone testified about his non-entertainment jobs, “I do the network administration. I do litigation support, which is trial prep and trial presentation. I also do digital forensics….”

Jone did not examine any of Burgess hardware until the week before trial. He appears to have been largely guided through his cursory forensic examination by the police. He found little that was exculpatory and his testimony at trial was confused and weak. The Aging Rebel believes that most of that computer evidence has now been destroyed.

Pre-Trial Hearing

Burgess attempted to fire Barrett and hire Chesnoff the Friday before his trial began. Because Chesnoff was not licensed to practice in Wyoming, he would partner – as is usually the case – with a local attorney named Dion Custis. The two new attorneys needed a week’s continuance to prepare for the trial. The hearing on the motion to change counsel began at 3:30 in the afternoon and Barrett did not arrive until 4:21. Barrett’s first comments to Judge Johnson dripped contempt for his client:

“In a nutshell,” Barrett began, “Mr. Burgess wants to fire our office. He’s unhappy. He’s lost confidence. We’re railroading him. We’re doing any number of terrible things, neglecting him, haven’t kept him advised. He hasn’t seen all the discovery, he hasn’t been taken to ICAC and other, other and various failings and deficiencies on our part that have been communicated to him, I understand, although I haven’t heard it from Mr. Burgess or these other lawyers, by other attorneys.” Barrett went on to tell Judge Johnson that a change in attorneys would delay the trial by 45 days.

The hearing transcript reads like a farce. The least funny part of it is Burgess obvious, rising desperation. Because of the conditions of his home confinement Burgess told the judge, he was unable raise money for a new lawyer until those conditions were modified two days before.

Burgess’ Hearing Testimony

“As a matter of fact, in the last two days I have noticed that my condition was changed to where I was – I could get out during the day and in one day I’ve got two promissory notes, one for ten thousand, one for thirty-five thousand….”

“I’m going to court here in three days, and I mean, who’s…I mean, I don’t know, it’s…I don’t know who to blame here but the bottom line is, is I should have been out looking for an attorney and doing what I needed to do…. I had a problem with Mr. Barrett when Mr. Barrett told me he dropped the ball. Okay?”

“Now I know you are reading what you are reading there. Mr. Barrett told me he dropped the ball, and he did say that to me. And you can ask him yourself…. I mean heck, it’s my whole life here.”

“How come I haven’t seen any…I mean, every one of these documents has my name on it.”

“You know, and I’m telling you, I don’t think I’m getting a fair shake here. If I have to go to trial on Monday, I don’t think I’m gonna be represented the way I should be represented….”

“Your honor I need to get myself another attorney and I have another attorney, David Chesnoff, in the state of Nevada that I would like to go forward with and using the local counsel here, Mr., um, Mr. Custis. But I don’t see how I can go to trial – I mean I want to be prepared to go to trial. This is my whole Life. I’m looking at 20 years in prison for something I didn’t do. You know I need to be able to defend myself. I need experts. Who…I don’t have any…I don’t even…I don’t know if I have any experts, you know. I’ve talked to Mr. Brinkerhoff. He says, Well they have an expert. To me it almost seems like the experts are the experts the government has. I need my own experts. I need my own people to look at each and every one of these things to see what they are.”

“I’ll tell you Your Honor, I don’t know what to do at this point. I’ve lost confidence in my counsel. And, you know I’m not a public speaker.”

“Your Honor, I need to get…have myself counsel that can represent me in this case or I’m finished.”

“And, I don’t know what else to tell you, you know. I mean, I’m not stalling. I’m not doing any of those things.”

“You know, I sure would like the chance to be able to defend myself, Your Honor. I don’t know what else to say. I don’t. I guess I don’t have anything else to say. I’ll sit down, if you want me to.”

No Delay

After listening to Burgess plead for a “fair shake,” Judge Johnson ruled the trial couldn’t be delayed because a delay would inconvenience too many people. Sixty hours latter Barrett was so ill-prepared for Burgess trial that he had not even written an opening statement.

Among the people Barrett refused to call to testify was Steven Byars, Burgess’ older cousin who had helped Burgess with his website, titled Daves World81. Byars was prepared to testify that Burgess was not adept enough with computers to have constructed the pornographic database Burgess had been charged with making. Byars was not called because “he was a Vietnam War veteran who had suffered severe physical injury that left him disabled and dependent on a wheelchair for mobility, and because he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Mr. Barrett was concerned that he would lose his temper on the stand and hurt someone.”

Barrett also refused to call Burgess to testify in his own defense.

Justice

Prima facie, Dave Burgess was framed and then he was railroaded. Last Friday the conductor of the railroad, Judge Johnson, took 149 pages to explain why he thought Burgess’ demand for a new trial was meritless. “The file, records, and all submissions by the parties conclusively show he is not entitled to the relief he seeks,” Johnson wrote.

Serra may find some grounds in those 149 pages to bring Burgess’ case back to the Tenth Circuit.

A book about the case, titled Framing Dave Burgess, will be published in paper this July and will be available as an e-book in August.

Daniel and Lisa Bifield, the South Carolina couple charged with racketeering after an elaborate and expensive two-year-long sting, were sentenced this afternoon by Judge Cameron McGowan Currie.

Daniel Bifield was sentenced to a term in prison of 204 months. Judge Currie could have sentenced him to 240 months. Bifield, who turned 61 last September may be eligible for early release when he is 75. If he serves his full sentence, he will next be free when he is 78. He pled guilty to racketeering conspiracy last December.

Lisa Bifield was sentenced to serve 84 months in a federal prison. Mrs. Bifield will be 57 when she is released. She pled guilty to a firearms charge the same day her husband pled guilty to conspiracy. She could have been sentenced to as few as 60 months in prison but she refused to testify against her fellow defendants.

The official record in Judge Currie’s court, as opposed to other federal courts in the United States, does not consider sentencings to be a matter of public record. The entire public record of the sentencings reads:

“Minute Entry for proceedings held before Honorable Cameron McGowan Currie: Sentencing held on 5/29/2013 as to Lisa Ellen Bifield. No objections, court adopts PSR. Government motion for upward variance granted. Defendant remanded to custody. Court Reporter Jenny Williams. CJA Time 2:00-2:30.”

Witnesses to the proceedings report that Judge Currie recommended that both Bifields be sent to prisons in Florida.

The tide may finally be turning against Gangland, the execrable, ATF enabled “reality” show that chronicled and justified the expensive and bogus federal crusade against “gangs.”

Next Saturday, June 8th, The Last American Outlaw, a documentary film about long time Hells Angel George Christie and his most recent court case, will be screened to potential buyers for the first time in a place called the Bell Arts Factory in Ventura. The Arts factory, which used to make mattresses, is a short walk from the old Angels clubhouse in Ventura. The screening is sold out and there is a waiting list.

At the least, the film will surprise people who only know the outlaw world from television. As Nikki Christie, George’s wife, says about two-thirds of the way through the film, “I didn’t know. I thought the police told the truth. I thought newspapers told the truth.”

The film was conceived as an homage to Easy Rider. The British film maker Nick Mead wanted to follow Christie around as he traversed the continent on his motorcycle and chatted with like-minded souls. Christie’s indictment on July 29, 2011 crushed that premise.

The Christie Case

Christie was charged with “conspiring” to “interfere with commerce and the movement of articles and commodities in commerce;” extortion and conspiracy to commit arson. There were six redundant counts. They all said the same thing but they gave prosecutors multiple chances to win and Christie multiple chances to lose. The presumably innocent man was locked up for three weeks and then confined to his home.

Christie, who had retired from the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club the previous April was offered the usual deal: Become a federal asset and help us get Hells Angels or we will lock you up for the rest of your life. You can’t fight us. We will make you look like a rat anyway.

A superseding indictment returned five days before Christmas in 2011 added two counts that both said Christie “knowingly used and carried, and counseled, commanded, induced, and procured, and willfully caused the use and carrying of a destructive device, namely a “Molotov Cocktail,’ during and in relation to, and possessed, and counseled, commanded, induced, and procured, and willfully caused the possession of, that destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence, namely, Use of Fire or Explosive to Damage Property….” The additional counts carried mandatory penalties of life in prison.

Christie, who owned a tattoo parlor in Ventura, was accused of telling other men to firebomb his competition out of business. Some of those men, who the government said would prove the accusations, were themselves government assets. The same assets claimed Christie controlled tattooing in Ventura and collected payoffs from his competitors in neighboring cities.

Christie took the case to trial and eventually pled guilty to two counts of conspiracy in order to end his ordeal. Like most federal indictees, the only way Christie could guarantee his freedom was to confess to something that would allow prosecutors to save face.

The Film

Mead stuck around, camera in hand, for all of this and was by turns baffled, confused and outraged by what he saw. The result is a beautifully photographed chronicle of what it’s like to be the target of the Department of Justice.

Mead gets out of the way of his subject and mostly just listens while Christie and others talk about Christie’s case and the federal war on the biker menace. The film will probably surprise most viewers as much as Mead was surprised. At the least, a broad audience will find an informative and moving story about somebody interesting. Motorcycle outlaws will find much truth in it.

About the film, Mead said “the most important thing to me is that it means something to the people who lead the life.”

Christie and Mead produced the film and Mead directed it. It features interviews with Academy Award winner Michael Blake, Defense attorneys Mariah Christie and Jeffrey Lustick, former Mongol Al Cavazos and former Bandidos President George Wegers.

The author of this page also appears briefly in the movie and is credited with writing the voice over narration. For the record, he has zero financial interest in the success of the film and was not compensated for his participation in it.

You can watch a snippet from the beginning of the film below.

The Outlaws case in Philadelphia is starting to look like a George V. Higgins novel – overflowing with colorful cynics caught between the feds and a hard place.

The Philadelphia Outlaws, who used to be the Philadelphia Warlocks, became the target of the FBI’s Organized Crime/Labor Racketeering Squad. The Bureau successfully used an informant – a Confidential Human Source in FBI-speak – to initiate a dealer sized methamphetamine deal last January. The informant, who has not yet been named, was a probationary Outlaw. There is no reliable indication whether the FBI turned the snitch before or after he became a probate. The case agent in charge of the investigation is Kathleen A. O’Hanlon

Two Outlaws were arrested in the case last February. Ronald L. “Bugs” Sells, the President of the Philadelphia chapter of the Outlaws, was charged with selling more than a kilo of methamphetamine to the probate informer. Michael James “Maniac” Privett, a patched member of the club, was charged with “collection of extensions of credit by extortionate means.”

Sells agreed to plead guilty on March 28. He agreed to a sealed plea deal on May 3. Privett agreed to a plea and sentencing agreement sometime before April 3. That agreement is also sealed. Privett was released from jail on April 3. Sells is still locked up. Both Sells and Privett will be sentenced on August 6.

Coincidentally

Meanwhile two entirely different guys were indicted on April 17 for crimes that are identical to the crimes with which Privett and Sells were charged – which boil down to selling a package of crank and using threats of violence when the buyer did not pay. It is a familiar plot in numerous dramas from Miami Vice to Magic Mike.

Those two men are Joseph “Timber” Malcolm and Robert “Rob” Mansfield. Their connection to the American Outlaws Association, if any, is unclear although a participant named “Rob” is mentioned in the case against Sells and Privett.

The April indictment accuses the two defendants of distributing 821.9 grams of “a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine, a Schedule II controlled substance” and conspiring “together and with others known and unknown to the grand to knowingly use extortionate means to collect and attempt to collect extensions of credit.”

The two men are accused of enlisting “the services of Michael Privett, charged elsewhere, to threaten Ronald Sells and Person #1 (the Confidential Human Source) and attempt(ing) to collect payment of this debt by extortionate means. At the time, Privett was the Warlord of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.”

Coverage

Van Smith of the Baltimore City Paper has been covering this drama since February. You can read his latest story here.

Smith has been trying to establish a connection between Privett and a certain Michael Privett who patched into the Chosen Sons Motorcycle Club in 2008. The Chosen Sons is a widely known cop club with chapters in Maryland. A fictionalized version of the club was featured in a January 1995 episode of the television series Homicide: Life on the Street. (See the video below.) That series was inspired by a book written by David Simon, who has his own fascination with the underside of police work and went on the create the HBO series The Wire.

Norman Stamp, a senior member of the Chosen Sons, died at that patching in ceremony at a strip club after he was shot by a uniformed Baltimore cop named John Torres.

The City Paper’s Smith believes the two Privetts are the same man. The Aging Rebel has been unable to substantiate that connection but in this case anything is possible.

The Mongols fiasco a year ago may have had less to do with the firing of Boulder City, Nevada Police Chief Thomas Finn’s firing than first appeared. The City Council may have known that Finn was a jealous lover who couldn’t handle his own business.

According to informed sources, multiple Boulder City police officers have complained that Chief Finn assigned local cops to follow Finn’s ex-girlfriend and the woman’s new boyfriend. On-duty Boulder City police were ordered to investigate the man and give him the Mongol treatment – which is to say they were ordered to manufacture reasons to stop and harass him.

Termination

Finn left his job as Boulder City Police Chief on January 16 and went on paid medical leave. He was fired April 15 when he attempted to return to work. His replacement, former Las Vegas Deputy Chief Bill Conger had assumed the role of acting chief on March 13.

Finn issued a press release when he was fired that stated that Boulder City Manager David Fraser “offered me the opportunity to resign my position, which I immediately declined. I was then advised that my employment with the City of Boulder City as Chief of Police was terminated….. I have, for the most part, enjoyed a rewarding 32-year career, fourteen of those years as a chief of police,” Finn wrote. He also said he had tried “to make Boulder City a better place to live and work.”

City Attorney Dave Olsen, who Finn had sued, then watched as Finn cleaned out his desk.

Long Year

Finn’s fortunes began to plummet in June 2012 after he decided to harass members of the Mongols Motorcycle Club during the club’s national run to Boulder City. The harassment infuriated the Mongols’ lawyer, Stephen Stubbs.

Stubbs and Finn got into a legal dustup. Stubbs accused Finn of numerous improprieties including some felonies. Finn retaliated with a nuisance lawsuit intended to silence Stubbs and a growing chorus of critics. Finn quickly lost that suit.

On November 29, the Boulder City Council voted to have Finn’s tenure as Chief investigated by the Nevada Attorney General. The findings of that investigation were then forwarded to the Clark County District Attorney and remain a closely guarded secret.

In December, the Council ordered an audit of the Police Department by the International City/County Management Association’s Center for Public Safety Management. The audit, which was completed in March, discovered numerous problems including a missing M-16. Finn has described the audit as a “hack job.”

Jay Dobyns, the self-dramatizing Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Agent who semi-successfully infiltrated a Hells Angels charter in Prescott, Arizona, sort of wrote a book about it, sold his life story to Tony Scott, claimed he had done so much damage to the Angels that they wanted to kill him and rape his family, suffered a house fire, claimed the Angels did it then said they didn’t, found Jesus and created a new persona as an ATF whistleblower and Fox News darling will allegedly be in federal court in Tucson Monday to pursue his long running lawsuit against the ATF at trial.

Dobyns will be there all week. Then the trial will adjourn and resume during the week of July 22, 2013, at the United States Court of Federal Claims in the National Courts Building in Washington.

Secret Trial

The Public is forbidden to attend this burlesque. The government wanted a public trial but Dobyns objected. An email exchange two weeks ago between Dobyns’ lawyer Jim Reed and David Harrington, the lawyer representing the government, informs readers about both the issue of sealing this trial and the hysterical nature of Dobyns case in general.

From Reed to Harrington:

The trial will be sealed because we cannot anticipate what matters discussed by any particular witness will be considered confidential under the protective order ahead of time. Most witnesses are going to testify to both the plaintiff’s case in chief and the counterclaims. Some things will be confidential under the protective order, and some things will not be. But as Judge Allegra said on May 17 and on previous status conferences, there are logistical challenges with respect to questions and testimony raising matters considered confidential under the protective order. Frankly, after the November 4, 2012 status conference (I believe that was the date), I believed it was a logistical impossibility to keep any portion of the trial open for that reason, and I believe I said as much.

Given the reach-outs by the press, I thought about it further to see if there was any possibility, but there are just too many testimonial rabbits that may need to be chased that can go into too many topics considered confidential under the protective order. And I do not want to be inhibited in my questioning just because there are members of the public or the media in the gallery.

From Harrington to Reed:

Since this is your position, and since Judge Allegra has made clear that both parties must agree to opening the trial, there is nothing more to discuss. This has obvious implications for the ability discuss trial proceedings, Please make sure that your client is aware that all matters raised, discussed, or addressed at trial are subject to the protective order, which means that they cannot be described or disclosed to anyone not admitted to the protective order. I will do the same.

From Reed to Harrington:

David, I have talked with my client, and each witness we question has either obvious or potential testimony regarding confidential information as defined by the amended protective order. Every single law enforcement witness will be speaking about law enforcement sensitive information or technology. The medical providers and family members will also be discussing confidential information. The only witness who might not discuss confidential information would be Edward Ackerley of U of A and in our opinion it is not worth opening up the courtroom for one or two witnesses – it is too disruptive to the process. And even with Dr. Ackerley, we are not certain if we might have to put some unorthodox question to him that might be considered confidential under the amended protective order.

Opening statements are going to discuss the ROIs (ATF Reports of Investigation), the 2008 SIR and will also refer to current and former ATF employees with respect to their conduct described in those ROIs and the SIR. Plaintiff’s opening will also discuss confidential medical information. The only way I was going to step around those issues would be to not talk about those issues, and that would compromise the plaintiff’s case and my advocacy for my client by my not doing so. And so we cannot agree to open any portion of the trial to the public or media.

I have other specifics, but I am not going into those because it is not necessary. For the reasons I have stated, the plaintiff cannot agree to any portion of the trial being open to the public.

The Suit

Most of the case is now sealed including the witness and exhibits lists and most of the motions. An earlier witness list included ATF Agents John Ciccone, Darrin Kozlowski and Jenna Malone. The only confirmed name on next week’s list is District of Arizona Assistant United States Attorney Beverly Anderson.

Dobyns complained that the ATF violated the terms of a September 2007 settlement of an earlier lawsuit. Dobyns was paid $373,000 to settle that case. The first of two complaints in this suit was filed October 2, 2008.

Dobyns alleges the government breached paragraphs two and 10 of the settlement agreement.

Paragraph two states: “The Agency will reassign the Employee to a NIBIN Coordinator position in Tucson, Arizona. Should any threat assessment indicate that the threat to the Employee and his family has increased from the assessment completed in June 2007, the Agency agrees to fully review the findings with the Employee and get input from the Employee if a transfer is necessitated.”

And, paragraph 10 says: “This Agreement does not constitute an admission by the Agency or Employee of any violation of law, rule or regulation or any wrongful acts or omissions. The Agency agrees that it will comply with all laws regarding or otherwise affecting the Employee’s employment by the Agency.”

Making Agent Jay Whole

Dobyns seeks four categories of damages: Mental and emotional distress, financial, consortium and hedonic.

Consortium is a legal term that refers to “the conjugal fellowship of husband and wife, and the right of each to the company, cooperation and aid of the other in every conjugal relation.” Dobyns use of the term “hedonic” is peculiar to this case. The term usually refers to damages that are due to survivors after a death. Dobyns claims he is entitled to “hedonic damages for the loss of life’s enjoyment.”

In a recent joint stipulation, both Dobyns and the ATF agreed to the following six facts.

On June 9, 2006, Jay Dobyns executed a contract with Fox 2000 Pictures (Fox) concerning rights to his ‘life story.’

Mr. Dobyns entered into a second contract with Fox, also on June 9, 2006, in which he ‘agreed to render consultant services in connection with the development and possible production of the theatrical motion picture currently entitled Hell’s Angel.

On May 18, 2007, Jay Dobyns executed a contract with The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, concerning an as-yet unwritten book, provisionally titled Almost Angels.

On September 20, 2007, Jay Dobyns and ATF executed a settlement agreement.

On Sunday, August 10, 2008, at about 3:30 a.m., a fire occurred at Mr. Dobyns’ house.

On February 10, 2009, the book No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels by Jay Dobyns and Nils Johnson-Shelton was released for sale to the public.

Everything else, apparently, is open to debate.

Nine-Year War

A recent entry on Dobyns’ blog (which you can read here) presented Dobyns version of the lawsuit. The entry read in part:

“Beginning on Monday, June 10, 2013, at 10:00 a.m., my nine-year war becomes official in a United States Courthouse. It has been a long, hard, brutal and bloody fight to get to the point where the truth can be told.”

“I have never strayed from my respect and admiration for every ATF agent or supervisor who places themselves in the path of danger or makes the tough, real-time decisions on how we attack violent criminals.”

“My disgust is with those who are corrupted by the power of their titles and then use their influence to damage my ATF and hurt those who try to do it right.”

“I do not enjoy the position I am in. In a time when it is very easy to hate ATF, I love ATF, always have. Those who think that all of ATF is dirty are entitled to their opinions but I will never fully agree and will openly defend my position. In our purest sense we don’t go after guns. We go after violent criminals who use guns, bombs, and arson to commit crimes like murder, rape, drug dealing, home invasion, murder-for-hire and intimidation.”

“From 2004 to 2008 I was subjected to years of death and violence threats from criminals and crime organizations that I worked undercover on trying to expose and prosecute on behalf of the American people.”

“In return for having murder contracts issued and threats against my family, ATF removed every mechanism I had to protect myself, told me I was on my own and left me there to defend us against several international crime syndicates the criminals who thrive in them.”

“I blew the whistle on corruption; the Office of Special Counsel told the President exactly that about me. Chairman Issa did the same to Eric Holder. I did it again related to this lawsuit; my line in the sand had been crossed. I did it for me and my family but I also did so that no law enforcement officer would ever have to endure what I had to. If you tell the truth at ATF and DOJ and if the truth is not flattering of those in power you will pay a very heavy price.”

“Win or lose this trial, succeed or fail in my attempt at justice, I will have persevered against government corruption and restored my view of myself. The government will know that they messed with the wrong Cat on this.”

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office told Stephen Baxter of the Santa Cruz Sentinel last Friday that the murder of Mongol Eric Dean “Pee-Ka” Garcia has become a cold case. Deputy April Skalland told the paper, “Our case, as it stands, is a cold case because we don’t have any new leads.”

On March 14, the Sheriff’s Office distributed a press release that stated, “Investigation has determined that Garcia was last seen alive at the Park Lane Lounge, 5152 Moorpark Ave, San Jose, on September 19 at 2:00 a.m. in the company of persons associated with the Ghost Mountain Riders Motorcycle Club.”

The Sentinel reported that Garcia was last seen talking “to a man who wore a Ghost Mountain Riders Motorcycle Club jacket.” The Ghost Mountain Riders have denied that any of their members had any connection to the murder. In September police said that his disappearance was not connected to his membership in the Mongols.

Vanished

Garcia vanished from the Park Lane Lounge. His family reported him missing on September 20 and his body was discovered by a hiker in a remote, wooded area near Mount Bache Road south of Los Gatos, California on October 14. He was 32. His motorcycle, a black, 1985, Harley FLT with California license number 18W5272 is still missing

Garcia was one of four Mongols who pled no contest, to charges resulting from the shooting a Hells Angel named Robert Daniel Thompson outside a bar called The Shanty in Eureka, California in November 2008. Garcia and Dustin Liebes pled no contest to a charge of “participation in a criminal street gang.” Eric Gunner Lundin pled no contest to felony assault with a firearm and being a member of a criminal street gang. Brad Miller pled no contest to being an accessory after the fact to felony assault. Thompson survived and did not implicate any of the four men.

Family

Christina Johnson, Garcia’s sister-in-law, told the Sentinel she doesn’t know if Garcia’s membership in the Mongols had anything to do with his murder. “We just want to figure out why this happened. Why was he murdered? What was so important to take his life?” Johnson told the paper. “You can’t have full closure until you understand why.”

Since the police are stumped, Garcia’s family has hired a private detective to investigate the case. The family also hopes to raise a reward for information leading to the solution of the case.

The family still has a Facebook page dedicated to Pee-Ka Garcia’s memory. You can view that page here.