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Showing posts with label Gypsy Jokers MC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gypsy Jokers MC. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Prez of Gypsy Jokers MC Wants Harley Returned

Portland, Oregon, USA (June 1, 2022) - The president of the Portland chapter of the Gypsy Joker Motorcycle Club, Mark Dencklau, went to trial and was convicted and sentenced to life for planning the kidnapping, torture and killing of ex club member Robert “Bagger” Huggins Jr. in 2015.

As he appeals his sentence, he’s urging a judge to order the government to give him Robert's 2011 Harley-Davidson motorcycle back. Robert was outbad in the club in 2014 and beaten after he stole money from the Portland clubhouse to support a heroin addiction, prosecutors said. Club members took Robert’ motorcycle and truck as well, and Mark eventually obtained the title for the Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
 
Inside Gypsy Jokers MC Portland Clubhouse - Photo: Court Exhibits

When police raided Marks’s home, they seized the bike. Mark argues he’s the lawful owner of the Harley and police unlawfully took it from his home. But prosecutors say Mark has it all wrong. He stole the motorcycle from Robert and doesn’t deserve to get it back, they argue. The government plans to return the bike to Robert’s family, prosecutors told the court.

Mark’s lawyer cites testimony from his co-defendant, Earl Fisher, who said at trial that Robert signed over the title as part of  “paying the debt for the money he had stolen” from the club. Fisher, who was treasurer of the Portland chapter, said he deposited the title into the club’s treasury.

Mark later approached the club about trading another bike for it, which he did, according to Erik Eklund, Mark’s lawyer. He submitted to the court a copy of the title in Mark’s name, dated June 6, 2014, with what appears to be Robert’s signature. The date of transfer shows June 6, 2014, when the bike’s odometer read 18,500 miles.

“This Court should issue an Order compelling the government to return Mr. Dencklau’s property to him or his designated representative,” Eklund wrote to U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman. According to prosecutors, Robert bought the Harley Davidson motorcycle on July 18, 2013, for $21,638 from Columbia Harley Davidson.
 
Inside Gypsy Jokers MC Portland Clubhouse - Photo: Court Exhibits

In June 2014, the Gypsy Joker club booted Robert out for stealing from the club. Mark testified he suspected Robert had taken about $18,000 from the club. In response, Mark and other club members beat Robert in the club basement for several hours, using batons, weight plates and fists. Members and associates also forced Robert to turn over his motorcycle and truck to the club, according to prosecutors.

“Even if Huggins owed the Club a debt, stealing property from Huggins by force is not a lawful form of recourse,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Leah Bolstad wrote to the court. “Dencklau stole this motorcycle. He was not then, and is not now, a lawful owner of this motorcycle.’’

As payback for getting kicked out of the club and forced to relinquish his bike and truck, Robert later robbed Marks’s Woodburn home in June 2015, prosecutors argued at trial. Later that month, club members kidnapped Robert, 56, from a home in Portland, drove him to a shed in Washington state and beat and killed him on June 30, 2015, before dumping his body in a remote field, prosecutors said.

According to Mark’s lawyer, however, co-defendants Tiler Pribbernow and Fisher both described how Robert signed over the title to his motorcycle to satisfy a debt to the club and Mark later exchanged another motorcycle for it with the support of other club members.

“Registering this motorcycle in defendant’s name does not change the facts about how it came into defendant’s possession – he and other club members forced Huggins, during a brutal hours-long beating in the clubhouse basement, to sign over title,” Bolstad responded in her filing.


Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Ex-Gypsy Joker MC member fears retaliation in custody

Portland, Oregon, USA  (September 10, 2019) BTN – A former member of the Gypsy Joker Motorcycle Club facing federal racketeering, kidnapping and murder charges argued Monday that he’s at more risk of retaliation behind bars than he would be outside while awaiting trial.

Joseph Duane Folkerts is a target, said his defense lawyer, Andrew Kohlmetz. “It’s easier to get to him in jail than out of custody,’’ Kohlmetz said.


U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones denied the request to release Folkerts, noting that he’s currently in protective custody and faces a potential life sentence if convicted. Folkerts, 62, is one of four co-defendants who face similar charges and remain behind bars pending an April trial. Two others have pleaded guilty.

Folkerts’ attorneys, by day’s end, filed a notice they plan to appeal Jones’ ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Prosecutors said Folkerts wasn’t involved in the initial abduction of former club member Robert “Bagger’’ Huggins, 56, who was taken from a home in Northeast Portland to a rural property in southwest Washington, where he was beaten, tortured and killed.

Related | Gypsy Joker MC murder trial continues
Related | Gypsy Joker MC national president released
Related | Gypsy Joker MC members face charges

But Folkerts did witness the 2015 beating in Washington, helped restrain Huggins with zip ties around his wrists during the assault and then drove Huggins’ body to a field near Ridgefield, Washington, where it was dumped, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Mygrant.

Huggins’ body was found by loggers on July 1, 2015 in the Clark County field. He had a fractured skull, a broken rib, a broken leg, a removed nipple, nails driven through his boots, slash wounds to his back and face and many blows to his face. Mygrant said Folkerts was a member of Road Brothers, a different motorcycle club at the time of Huggins’ death. After the killing, he got a patch to join the Gypsy Joker club as a reward, the prosecutor said.

Folkerts’ lawyer challenged that characterization. Kohlmetz said Folkerts was forced to join the Gypsy Jokers after the beating of Huggins. “It’s not a reward,’’ Kohlmetz said. “It’s a threat, purchasing his silence. … ‘Here’s you patch, sir. You’re in.’"

Sometime in the summer and fall of 2016, Folkerts was assaulted by a number of Gypsy Joker club members at the clubhouse and elsewhere and knocked unconscious by one of his current co-defendants, Kohlmetz told the court. Folkerts also had his motorcycle and identification stolen by Gypsy Jokers, his lawyer said.

He was basically “beat out’’ of the motorcycle club, Kohlmetz said.

When he arrived at the Multnomah County Detention Center in downtown Portland after his arrest, he learned from another inmate in his dorm that he had been “green lit,’’ meaning that word had come from co-defendant Earl Fisher that it would be OK to assault Folkerts, Kohlmetz said.

So he was moved to Inverness Jail in Northeast Portland, but once there, he came into contact with two of his co-defendants, Kohlmetz said. He was then shipped out to the Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Institution in The Dalles for his own protection. Somehow, he was housed in a dorm with the son of a Gypsy Joker member and told face-to-face to “shut up," Kohlmetz said. He’s now in protective custody at his own request, according to court testimony.

The prosecutor urged the judge to consider the severity of the allegations. Huggins was water-boarded and struck in the head with a baseball bat, Mygrant said, though he conceded that Folkerts wasn’t involved in the torture. Folkerts has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy, murder in aid of racketeering, kidnapping in aid of racketeering resulting in death, kidnapping resulting in death and conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death.

Fisher and Tiler Evan Pribbernow – two of the six charged in the kidnapping and murder - have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in racketeering. Pribbernow has been described as the government’s "star witness,’’ who delivered the fatal blow to Huggins with the bat.

A seventh defendant, Kenneth Earl Hause, the national president of the outlaw motorcycle club, was accused only in the racketeering conspiracy and released from custody in February pending trial.

SOURCE: Oregon Live

Monday, December 11, 2017

POLICE: Rival Motorcycle Clubs in Australia Join Forces

New South Wales, Australia (December 10, 2017) —  RIVAL bikie clubs engaged in bloody warfare for decades are burying the hatchet and merging into super clubs to chase millions in criminal profits. Police have seen an outbreak of co-operation as notorious bikie clubs headhunt the best money launderers and drug dealers from rival firms or share their skills and expertise.

In a recent report, the powerful NSW Crime Commission said the highly organised gangs are difficult to police because “much of the organisation is co-ordinated offshore”. Police have seen an outbreak of co-operation as notorious bikie clubs headhunt the best money launderers and drug dealers from rival firms.

Picture: NSW Police

The report found one-time fierce rivals such as the Hells Angels and Comanchero — the two clubs involved in an infamous fatal brawl at Sydney airport in 2009 — had decided it was more lucrative to be in bed together on “significant criminal enterprises”, including international drug shipments.

“Co-operation among organised crime groups is flourishing with traditional animosities between such members or associates as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, the Comanchero Motorcycle Club and the Lone Wolf Motorcycle Club diminishing,” the Crime Commission said.

Bikie clubs are joining forces to gain access to millions in criminal profits.

The NSW Police State Crime Command’s Criminal Groups Squad director Deborah Wallace said bikies remained enemies at low levels while their bosses did business together.

“At the upper level they are quite prepared to work together to progress their criminal activity and they’ll seek out facilitators — that could be accountants, anything at all,” Detective Superintendent Wallace said.

“At the bottom level they rely on that brotherhood, that romantic side, because they need to recruit people to do their dirty work. The whole ethos that you’re a particular chapter forever, is gone. (Bikie clubs) are certainly alive and well, they’re just morphing into a different look, more like organised crime than a group of bike riders.”

Picture: NSW Police

Police have cracked down on bikie gangs across Australia. 

A recent police restructure merged the Middle Eastern Organised Crime and the Gangs squads into the one Criminal Groups Squad, reflecting the merging of bikies with other organised criminals.

Australian Federal Police have discovered the same trend, arresting 12 men in May who they claim were running drug distribution for the Hells Angels, Gypsy Jokers, Descendants and Bandidos in South ­Australia. The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission also found rival gangs sharing drug distributors.

“Many groups that previously operated in isolation now work collaboratively to access broader distribution networks and ultimately maximise profits,” its ­August organised crime report said.
Police have merged the Middle Eastern Organised Crime and the Gangs squads into the one Criminal Groups Squad as bikies join other organised criminals.

Picture: NSW Police

But Western Sydney University organised crime lecturer and former detective Dr Michael Kennedy said police should be under no illusion that the bloodshed between bikie clubs was over.

“They’ll just come together on a business deal,” Dr Kennedy said. “They’re not friends, they’ve got nothing in common and they’ll kill in order to make money. They will walk over each other to get the result they want.”

“They will walk over each other to get the result they want.”

A fatal 2009 brawl in Sydney Airport between the Hells Angels and Comancheros was a turning point in the fight against out-of-control bikies, prompting immediate action from state and federal politicians.
Police have swooped on several bikie gangs this year.

Picture: NSW Police

Hells Angel Anthony Zervas was bludgeoned to death in front of stunned travellers and one-time Comanchero boss Mahmoud “Mick” Hawi was convicted of his murder.

There has not been an all-out bikie war since 2012, after forces such as the bikie-busting Strike Force Raptor smothered the club culture of guns, bikes, tattoos and grimy headquarters.

Raptor has closed more than 60 clubhouses, confiscated more than 1300 firearms and put more than 3700 bikies before the courts.

But bikies are determined to survive as they pursue profits in Sydney’s booming drug market, where there are astronomical mark-ups for drugs like cocaine, particularly in the affluent eastern suburbs.

Quarterly crime figures released yesterday showed cocaine use and possession up an average 160 per cent in each of the last two years in the Waverley LGA.

SOURCE: The Daily Telegraph 

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Gypsy Joker MC Member dies

Gypsy Joker MC Member dies in motorcycle crash in Spokane

SPOKANE, WA (August 29, 2016) – A member of the Gypsy Jokers Motorcycle Club identified as William C. Casteel, 47, was involved in a wreck pronounced dead at the scene.  

A post on a Facebook page associated with the Jokers identified Casteel as the Spokane chapter president. A source familiar with the club also said he was the president.

FBI Special Agent Christian Parker said he couldn’t confirm or deny that. No one could be reached for comment at the Jokers’ east Spokane clubhouse Monday afternoon.

Gypsy Jokers MC

The Spokane County Medical Examiner’s Office identified Casteel as the crash victim on Monday. According to the Sheriff’s Office, he was riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle east on Broadway Avenue when a truck turned in front of him near Havana Street.

Casteel is believed to have been speeding; he laid his bike down and slid a long distance before striking the truck, Deputy Mark Gregory said. The driver of the truck has not been cited, although the crash is still under investigation, Gregory said.