Pagans MC, PMC versus the Man

[Peter]

Federal Grand Jury Indicts Fifty-Five Members and Associates of the Pagans Motorcycle Club

Charges Include Racketeering, Kidnapping and Conspiracy to Commit Murder

CHARLESTON, W.Va., Oct. 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Charles T. Miller, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, Paul J. Vido, Special Agent-in-Charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Louisville Field Division, and Michael Rodriguez, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI, Pittsburgh Field Division, announced today the unsealing of a 44-count indictment charging a total of 55 members and associates of the Pagans Motorcycle Club (PMC) with numerous violent crimes such as kidnapping, racketeering, robbery, extortion and conspiracy to commit murder.

As alleged in the indictment, PMC chapters operate in multiple states, including: West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Florida. The indictment charges five PMC officers, including the national president, David Keith Barbeito, also known as "Bart," of Myersville, Md., and the national vice president, Floyd B. Moore, also known as "Jesse" and "Diamond Jesse," of St. Albans, W.Va., with Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) violations, conspiracy to commit RICO, and other charges.

U.S. Attorney Miller praised the investigative work of the ATF, FBI, Putnam County, West Virginia Deputy Sheriffs assigned to the Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Network Team (MDENT), and the Huntington Drug and Violent Crime Task Force. "As alleged in the indictment, members and associates of this motorcycle gang have engaged in numerous violent crimes in an attempt to maintain control over other motorcycle gangs and clubs throughout the country," Miller stated. "Collaboration between the Federal, state and local agencies that resulted in today's indictment signals our shared, unrelenting commitment to combat organized crime."

The indictment, returned on Oct.1, 2009, was unsealed today by the court. The indictment alleges that PMC members and associates have engaged in racketeering activities since March 2003. According to the indictment, in March 2003, PMC members, at the direction of Moore, traveled to Huntington, W.Va., and restrained and beat a member of another motorcycle gang, the Road Disciples Motorcycle Club (RDMC), in an attempt to extract information from the victim in order to find the RDMC president. Moore ordered the PMC members to find the RDMC president to collect money and to threaten to shut down the RDMC if the president failed to comply with Moore's orders. The indictment also alleges that in September 2005, Moore and other PMC members and associates conspired with a prison guard to kill an inmate suspected of cooperating with law enforcement. Further, according to the indictment, Moore ordered another PMC member to commit a murder to help out the president of a local chapter of the Avengers Motorcycle Club.

If convicted, the defendants face years in prison.

"Today's law enforcement operation demonstrates what can be accomplished to insure the safety and security of our communities when we work together as one team," stated Special Agent in Charge Paul J. Vido. "We will continue to focus our joint enforcement efforts on identifying and eliminating criminal organization that use violent crime as a tool of their trade."

Special Agent in Charge Michael Rodriguez commented, "This multi-state operation was made possible because of the outstanding cooperation of Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. We stand together in our commitment to protect the community from violent gangs, and we look forward to even greater combined success in the future."

The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven I. Loew, Chief of the Violent Crime Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Blaire L. Malkin and Karen B. Schommer.

The charges contained in the indictment are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.


SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice

[Peter]

The inictment. Read all about it. 80 something pages.

http://www.wvgazette.com/mediafiles/docume...91006192311.pdf

[Much]

Is this trail going to be the death kneel for the pagans mc?

[Peter]

Of course not. They will get a new leadership and some new members. Pagans mc are interesting because they are still very old school. No sites on line. It is also important to remember that they are not a worldvide club like Bandidos, HA and Outlaws.

[Much]

I think there influence will shrink due to this bust.Does anybody have any hard evidence, to say if the Outlaws mc philly chapter is still around?

I think other 1%er mc clubs will come and eat away at regional influence.

[Peter]

Saturday October 17, 2009

Investigators say prosecution will hurt Pagans
by The Associated Press

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - By charging national leaders and more than 50 other Pagans Motorcycle Club members and associates with murder conspiracy, racketeering and a host of other crimes, federal prosecutors are attempting something even the Hells Angels have never managed: beat the Pagans badly enough to loosen their grip on the outlaw motorcycle world in the eastern U.S.

"That's going to devastate that organization," Bill Dulaney, an outlaw biker turned assistant professor at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C., said of the Oct. 6 indictments issued in Charleston.

"The Pagans are not a large organization."

Not too many years ago, the Pagans ranked among the outlaw motorcycle world's so-called big four. Then came a series of racketeering cases in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh that helped keep the club to about 400 full-fledged members.

While rivals such as the Hells Angels get credit for operating sophisticated rackets, investigators describe the Pagans more as a group of blue collar working stiffs. A string of recent court appearances tend to back that up: the club's top officer owns a construction company, while other members work as truck drivers, electricians, welders, even a school bus driver in West Virginia.

They have, however, retained their reputation as one of the toughest and most violent biker gangs.

The latest indictments in Charleston accuse club president David "Bart" Barbeito, vice president Floyd "Diamond Jesse" Moore and others of running a sprawling organization engaged in kidnapping, robbery, extortion, conspiracy to commit murder and other crimes in an effort to be the pre-eminent biker gang in the eastern United States. Barbeito and Moore have been deemed to dangerous to release until trial, along with several other members named in the indictment.

"They're a very old-school, intimidation-based motorcycle gang," said Steve Cook, executive director of the Midwest Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association. "They're ruthless. They're a violent, violent group."

The government certainly believes that. FBI agents arrived to search Barbeito's rural Maryland home in Blackhawk helicopters, according to his lawyer Stanley Needleman.

Once there, they found 18 firearms, including a handgun with the serial number removed, 2,000 rounds of ammunition and four bulletproof vests, U.S. Assistant Attorney Steve Loew said during Barbeito's recent detention hearing.

Loew rejected Needleman's contention that the bulletproof vests were used by Barbeito's children as a precaution during hunting, saying deer don't shoot back.

Loew has tried to show just how violent the club can be by airing recordings of Moore allegedly ordering subordinates to beat former club members who were behind on their annual club dues and, in one instance, cut off an ousted Pagan's finger.

Many of the charges against Moore and others center on alleged efforts to intimidate smaller motorcycle clubs. In one instance, Pagans are accused of invading the Portsmouth, Ohio, clubhouse of the Road Disciples, stripping them of their patches and ordering them to disband.

Dulaney dismisses the notion such disputes should be prosecuted as federal crimes.

"The beatings, the fights, all of this needs to be put into the context of the society in which they operate," he said. "A couple of bikers beat the hell out of each other, then all of a sudden it's an international gang conspiracy."

Dulaney contends most biker violence should be viewed as enforcing social norms in an outlaw society dominated by so-called 1 percenters. Outlaw bikers adopted the term decades ago after the American Motorcycle Association began defending the pastime by saying 99 percent of riders are upstanding citizens.

"In every region, there's a dominant club and that will be a 1 percent club and there are other outlaw clubs that are not 1 percent clubs," Dulaney said. "The local 1 percent club really does hold responsibility for keeping order.

"It actually keeps more peace than it causes violence ... It's how they enforce group norms."

And it can solidify a biker's position, said Terry Katz, a retired Maryland State Trooper and member of the International Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association.

For instance, 73 Pagans charged after a fatal 2002 brawl at a Hells Angels convention in New York boosted their positions.

"They became known as the 73," Katz said. "They actually got a higher status in the club."

Federal prosecutor Loew alleges one of the 73, Virginia resident William Grayson, has since been elevated to national vice president. Grayson refused to answer that question during testimony at Barbeito's detention hearing.

The West Virginia case also involves allegations of drug dealing and illegal gambling, with money passed up the chain to the leadership.

Katz, who reached associate status with the Pagans during an undercover operation, considers the group highly organized and fully criminal.

"They are an organized crime group and have been proven to be so," he said.

Dulaney, who grew up in West Virginia and knows Pagans members, says the amount of crime and organization varies wildly by chapter.

For instance, one chapter in Florida centered around partying, not racketeering.

"They just wanted their place to run, drink beer, get high, have a blast, look at naked women," he said. "There wasn't really any illegal activity going on."

Clubs in West Virginia and Pennsylvania were different: "It was all about making some illegal money," he said, "a little bit of prostitution, a lot of illegal guns."

Barbeito's lawyer, meanwhile, dismisses the idea the Pagans are a criminal organization and credits his client with putting a stop to drug dealing, among other things.

"At one point, maybe the Pagans were what they say they were," Needleman said. "But Mr. Barbeito, to my knowledge, straightened that club out.

"Ninety-five percent of these people were kids who never grew up.

[Peter]

Pagans gang member faces cocaine charges

Saturday, February 06, 2010
By Torsten Ove, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A high-ranking member of the Pagans motorcycle gang from Ross will appear before a city magistrate next week on state cocaine distribution charges that will almost certainly send him back to federal prison, where he spent 10 years for dealing cocaine in the 1990s.

On Jan. 29, the day after Richard J. Speciale, 48, was arrested by city police and state agents, a federal judge issued a bench warrant for him at the Allegheny County Jail for violating the terms of his probation.

The warrant will serve as a detainer while his state case proceeds and, because of the seriousness of his prior conviction, will probably send him back to prison for several years after his state court penalty is served.

Mr. Speciale, a member of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Pagans, will appear for a preliminary hearing in city court on Wednesday on charges of possession and possession with intent to deliver.

The case against him is part of an ongoing state grand jury investigation of drug dealing by the Pagans.

In an affidavit, narcotics agents with the attorney general's office said they supervised a controlled purchase of cocaine on Dec. 7 by an informant from Mr. Speciale at his house on Peoples Road in Ross.

On Jan. 28, Pittsburgh police and state agents detained him after a traffic stop on Evergreen Road, where he was driving with a female passenger.

Immediately after the traffic stop, agents and Ross police executed a search warrant on his house and said they found $146,000 in cash, powder cocaine, electronic surveillance equipment, packaging materials for narcotics and a drug scale.

Mr. Speciale was sentenced in 1998 to 10 years in federal prison following an investigation by Shaler police, the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Undercover agents said he sold them cocaine three times in 1997.

Since his release in 2007, he's been in trouble with the federal probation office and has run afoul of Senior U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch.

In 2007, the probation office said he violated the terms of his probation by getting arrested for assault in Moon, although the case was later withdrawn. He later asked to be released early from probation, citing a letter from his boss at B&R Construction Group lauding him for his "priceless" worth ethic. Judge Bloch refused.

The Pagans, one of four major outlaw cycle gangs in the U.S., have long had a presence in Western Pennsylvania.

But law enforcement has hurt them here repeatedly.

In the 1980s, the Pittsburgh FBI disrupted the gang with two federal prosecutions using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

In 2002, at least 12 local Pagans were among 73 indicted for their roles in an attack on the rival Hells Angels at a social club in Long Island, N.Y., that left one man dead and several injured.

Two significant cases are now wending their way through the courts. The first stems from a state grand jury presentment handed up last year in Allegheny County in which agents outlined the gang's drug distribution network supplied by Mexican dealers in Atlanta.

It also described four local chapters of the gang in Pittsburgh, McKeesport, Fayette City and Greensburg and identified the national "mother club" headquarters as a rundown house in rural Washington County.

The second case is a federal prosecution in Charleston, W.Va., charging members there with conspiracy, drug and gun offenses, murder and kidnapping.

[Much]

The Pagans are finished.I bet a lot of the full patch members are wanting to join the Hells Angels or the Outlaws.

[Junior]

LI Biker Gang Leader Pleads Guilty to Drug Charge
By Timothy Bolger, Long Island Press
September 13, 2011

Nearly a year after he was arrested, a vice president of the Long Island chapter of the Pagans has admitted to his role in the motorcycle gang’s drug dealing operations.

Kenneth Van Driver pleaded guilty Monday to using a handgun in commission of drug trafficking and conspiracy to distribute crack, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

The 51-year-old has been held at a Westchester County jail hospital ward in Valhalla since his arrest because of his poor health.

He was one of 17 members of the gang in five states were arrested in September 2010. Federal authorities alleged that members of the Pagans had plotted to use grenades against the rival Hells Angels.

Van Driver faces 15 to 18 years in prison.

[Peter]

Wed, Sep. 28, 2011
Badass Boys: Are the Pagan's roaring onto the comeback trail?

BY JASON NARK & WILLIAM BENDER
Philadelphia Daily News

THE PAGAN stationed on a corner of Atlantic Avenue in Wildwood stood with his burly arms crossed over his belly, guarding the infamous motorcycle club's hotel-turned-fortress like a living, breathing gargoyle. Behind him, yellow caution tape and blue tarps draped the Binns Motor Inn - a signal from the Pagan's Motorcycle Club for "citizens" and nosy cops to keep out during the 2011 Roar to the Shore biker rally this month. It's the same hotel where federal prosecutors say that leaders of the Pagan's Long Island chapter at last year's rally told their minions to prepare for death or prison as they plotted a hand-grenade attack on the rival Hells Angels.

The Pagan sentinel on the corner watched as a woman pushing a girl in a stroller passed the fluttering caution tape, heading straight toward him. Then he stepped in as crossing guard, walking into the street to block traffic for her as she and child headed toward the boardwalk.

Was it a public-relations ploy to impress the cops who were surveilling the denim-clad outlaws? Or is he, as so many locals insist about the Pagan's, just an average guy who likes to drink beer and ride Harleys?

"We're just here to have a good time," said one brawny, bald-headed Pagan, who, like every other member that the Daily News attempted to interview, would not give his name. "We've got to party somewhere."

Hobbled by federal indictments and state charges in recent years, the Pagan's Motorcycle Club is trying to replenish its ranks these days while avoiding the types of violent crimes with nonbikers that make headlines and draw heat from the cops.

They still go by names like "Cripple," "Knuckles" and "Slasher." They still label their women as "property" with patches. They're still selling drugs and shaking down strip clubs, police say.

But today's Pagan's are smarter, lawyered up and perhaps not as hard-core as their predecessors, according to law-enforcement officials and sources close to the club.

And, of course, they have a Facebook page for members, friends and family who support them.

"If there's 10 Pagans in a room, there's only three hard-core Pagans. The rest are there for the power, p---- and drugs," said Anthony "LT" Menginie, the son of a former Pagan's president and author of Prodigal Father, Pagan Son, a book about growing up in the club.

To many outside observers, the Pagan's are law-abiding outlaws. Not one arrest or altercation involving a Pagan was reported at this year's Roar to the Shore, according to the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office.

"They're a fun bunch of guys," said Ben Petrovic, owner of Atlantic County Harley-Davidson.

All weekend in Wildwood, day and night, Pagans guarded street corners near the Binns, eyeballing anyone who stared too long. Cops stood only feet away, their cruisers parked in the middle of Atlantic Avenue as loud cycles ripped up and down the strip.

Law-enforcement officials were conducting surveillance, with plainclothes officers and cameras with telephoto lenses shooting from hotel rooms. An estimated 250 Pagans attended, down slightly from past years, a source said.

But the Pagan's were joined by an increasing number of small support clubs, all with members wearing the feared and revered "P" patch on their vests.

Law-enforcement sources say that these so-called "duck" clubs are growing and may represent a proxy recruitment effort by the Pagan's as they attempt to rebuild.

They go by names like Brookers, True Brothers and Roadrunners, and they were out in force in Wildwood. Cops say that the Pagan's, seeking to avoid police scrutiny, have used the duck clubs for muscle, countersurveillance and high-risk, frontline work.

The Pagan's charge some of these clubs a "tax." Some duck club members are eventually "patched over" and become full-fledged Pagans.

"They're a bunch of knuckleheads," said a law-enforcement source who has worked undercover investigating the Pagans. "These guys end up joining these clubs because they want to emulate 'Sons of Anarchy' and the glamour part. Then the Pagan's come along and say, 'If you support us, we got your back.' "

It's rarely a choice.

Authorities say that the soaring popularity of the "Sons of Anarchy" TV show - the most-watched in FX's history - could be contributing to a disturbing trend: Weekend warriors, no longer content to simply ride together, are forming small motorcycle clubs and dabbling in the outlaw lifestyle.

In these parts, that usually means swearing allegiance to the Pagan's and stitching the "P" to the club's vests. Some cops consider them a Pagan's farm team.

"It looks to me like they're Pagan wannabes," said Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood Sr., referring to the Brookers Motorcycle Club, a new Pagan's duck club that is under police surveillance. "We monitor them closely and know where some of them live."

Now believed to have about 400 members, the Pagan's are striving for 1,000 members, a source said, always worried about their archenemy, the Hells Angels, in North Jersey and New York.

If the Wildwood bike rally was any indication, the Pagan's P.R. strategy is working. Every business owner, tourist and biker whom the Daily News interviewed gave a variation of the same line: Don't mess with the Pagan's and they won't mess with you.

"If you're gonna put your hand in the dog's cage, you're gonna get bit," said Dave "Cowboy" Moen, a U.S. Park Police K-9 officer and president of a New Jersey chapter of the Blue Knights, a law-enforcement motorcycle club that wears powder-blue vests.

"We're all on two wheels," chapter vice president Ron Gaffney said of the Pagan's and cops who belong to motorcycle clubs. "We'll be neighborly, but we're not going to invite them over for dinner."

'Nice people'

At the Binns, Pagans shuffled back and forth all weekend from the hotel to Garden State Liquors two blocks away, one hand holding onto their female "property," the other lugging a 30-pack of beer or a brown-bagged bottle of booze.

Inside, a customer approached a Pagan Friday night and said, "Ultimate respect," referring to the motorcycle club. "Thanks," the Pagan responded.

"Believe it or not, they come in here and they're very pleasant: 'Yes, sir/no, sir,' " said Bill Nelson, a longtime employee of the liquor store, located a block from where the Pagan's were allegedly plotting murders last year.

The feds dropped the hammer on that 21-month investigation just days after the 2010 Roar to the Shore, arresting 17 members from New York, New Jersey and Delaware on charges including conspiracy to commit murder, assault and drug distribution.

And the Pagan's have continued to make headlines: Dennis "Rooster" Katona, the club's national president, was busted in June near Pittsburgh on cocaine and methamphetamine charges, and one of the club's most colorful and violent past leaders, Steven "Gorilla" Mondevergine, was sent to prison last month for shooting and stabbing the chapter president in 2008.

Yet, people like Wally Lerro, who owns the Bolero Resort and started the Wildwood motorcycle rally 18 years ago, say that they don't see that side of the club. Several business owners said that they'd much rather deal with the Pagan's over the New Jersey firefighters who hold their annual convention there and tend to start more fights and stir up other trouble.

"They all work, they all have jobs," Lerro said of the Pagan's. "They're nice people."

That's what everyone would have said last year, too, while undercover ATF agents posing as Pagans partied with the club in Wildwood. One of those agents had become the Long Island chapter's sergeant-at-arms and, according to court documents, he once accompanied his Pagan brothers on a harrowing trip in New York to move what he thought was a dead body.

If it was a test to smoke him out, the agent passed, and the chapter essentially made him their bookkeeper.

Officials said that the bust "decimated" the Long Island chapter, but elsewhere it's easier than ever to become a Pagan, directly or as a supporter, sources say. Former Pagan James "Jimmy D" DiGregorio, who testified against PMC members, said that an undercover agent would have been turned-out quick in the club's heyday.

"In my day, you had to commit a crime," he said. "We made them live the life. We made them cross over."

'Last warning'

Over 16 months, the Daily News made several failed attempts at contacting members through the unlikeliest source: Facebook and MySpace. Though the club claims to value privacy, many members have profiles with their picture, club nickname and "PMC" in plain sight. One Pagan lifer responded with not-so-veiled threats: Stop asking questions about the Pagan's, period.
"Last warning motherf-----," he wrote.

In Wildwood, they were slightly more cordial, but still wouldn't talk. "You're in the wrong place," one member told a reporter outside the Binns. Another uttered a few words of frustration about a policy that bars enforce a ban on "colors" - the patched biker jackets each member wears - but he wouldn't open up. A high-ranking Pagan from South Jersey asked, "Are you Jason Nark?" - saying as he walked away that the Daily News wrote about him last year.

At a food stand, one old-school Warlocks Motorcycle Club member, his colors greasy and tattered from decades on the road, did chat with the Daily News while munching on a sausage sandwich. He said that the days of biker turf wars in Philly and South Jersey are over.

"No one wins that battle but the cops," said the Warlock, who wouldn't give his name.

When Pagans weren't at their hotels in Wildwood, they woke up early for coffee, ate breakfast in the Pink Cadillac Diner, shopped for vulgar or snarky patches and scoped tricked-out choppers.

Just like everyone else.

But with their colors on - with that top "rocker" patch, which has the word "Pagan's" stitched above an image of the Norse god Surtr - they were unlike everyone else there: they were like wolves walking among herds of sheep.

They may be endangered by the law, the Hells Angels and the changing nature of organized crime, but they still have sharp fangs and loyal followers. And they're looking to mount a comeback, not roar into the sunset.

"It ain't gonna be over until the guys that run it call everybody together and say throw it in the pile and have a big bonfire," said David "RC" Winkler, a former ranking Pagan now living in Delaware County. "It'll always go on until that day happens. And that ain't this year."

[Peter]

About Pagans mc anno 2002.

https://doc-0k-94-docsviewer.googleusercont...u6h8dakfmbhi9fp