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Showing posts with label Vagos MC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vagos MC. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Vagos Motorcycle Club

 

Undated photo of unidentified members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club

Monday, October 24, 2022

Last co-defendant in Hells Angels Case Nabbed

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (October 24, 2022) - The last of eight men recently indicted in a Hells Angels Motorcycle Club racketeering case was recently booked into the Clark County Detention Center in connection with a highway shooting that injured members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club. Rayann, is an associate of the motorcycle group, also called a “hangaround,” according to a September grand jury indictment. He was booked into the detention center on Monday and is held on a $250,000 bail, jail records show.


Officials now have all eight co-defendants in the racketeering case since the grand jury returned a superseding indictment on September 23rd. Three of the men, local Hells Angels president Richard Devries, Russell Smith, and Stephen Alo were initially arrested shortly after the May 29 shooting on U.S. Highway 95, west of Wagon Wheel Drive in Henderson.

RELATED | Hells Angels and Vagos Shoot it Out on Highway


The shooting happened after a large Memorial Day weekend motorcycle ride from Hoover Dam to the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City, police have said. Six members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club were injured, and Mollasgo was hurt from “friendly fire” and was hospitalized, prosecutors have said. Prosecutors said Devries opened fire during the altercation but have not indicated if any of the other co-defendants shot at the Vagos club members.

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Hells Angels and Vagos Shoot it Out on Highway

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (May 31, 2022) - A group of Hells Angels motorcycle club members followed members of the Vagos motorcycle club before opening fire on the Vagos on U.S. Highway 95 in Henderson, Nevada.

In total, seven people were shot that shut down the highway for several hours on Sunday. Arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and other charges are Russell Smith, age 26, Stephen Alo, age 46, and Richard Devries, age 66. Henderson police identified Richard Devries as president of the Las Vegas chapter of the Hells Angels. Stephen Alo and Russell Smith are described as prospects for the Las Vegas chapter of the Hells Angels MC.

L-R: Russell Smith, Stephen Alo and Richard Devries 
Photo: Henderson Police Department

The conflict leading to the shooting started early Sunday as members of the Vagos were on a run for the “Flags over Dam” ride in Boulder City near Hoover Dam. “While setting up to start the ride, five Hell’s Angels prospect members were seen riding around,” police wrote.

The Vagos members then went to the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City, where the same Hells Angels prospects “drove through the cemetery and began to cause problems,” according to police.

Police said the Vagos members were then driving north on U.S. 95 near Wagon Wheel Drive when multiple Hells Angels members approached. Some of the Hells Angels members pulled up next to the Vagos members and tried to kick the Vagos members over.



One of the Hells Angels members then “stood up on their motorcycle and started shooting” on one of the Vagos members, identified by police as Alejandro Castillo. Five other Vagos members were also wounded. They were identified in the police report as Ricardo Velasquez, Carie Chapin, Michael Stasiewicz, Michael Lempart and Chad Merrill.

Police previously said a seventh person wounded in the shooting showed up at a local hospital later with survivable injuries, although it is not clear what club that person was affiliated with. That shooting victim was not named or mentioned in the Henderson police report.

There is no reference by the police that any Vagos members firing a weapon during the shooting. Police said they found multiple expended casings at the shooting scene stretching from the College Drive exit ramp to the Horizon Drive exit ramp. Henderson police also said some of the events on the highway leading to the shooting were captured on video.

Police received a phone call from an anonymous witness who said they were driving north on the highway from Boulder City to Henderson that morning when they saw multiple Hells Angels members “parked on the side of the freeway and it appeared that they were waiting.”

Police said they obtained a video from the anonymous witness showing a “patched Hells Angel” and three prospects riding around the Vagos members. One of the Hells Angels members is depicted on the video holding something in his hand, according to police.




Sunday, March 29, 2020

Charges Dropped Against Vagos Members

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (March 29, 2020) BTN — About a month after eight members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club were acquitted in a lengthy racketeering trial, federal prosecutors on Friday dropped all charges against each of their co-defendants awaiting trial, except one.


In a three-page court brief, prosecutors dismissed all charges against 11 more defendants.

Prosecutors still are pursuing two counts against one local biker, John Halgat. While a racketeering count against him was dismissed, he still faces charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance, and using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to the crime charged.

Related | Vagos MC Members Acquitted
Related | Long Vagos MC trial continues in Vegas 
Related | Judge rules Vagos MC members will face charges 
Related | Star witness in Vagos MC trial lied 
Related | Jury selection begins in Vagos MC case

Last month, after a trial that started in July, jurors acquitted eight members of the club, including its president on federal charges of conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise, murder and using a firearm to commit murder.

The Las Vegas trial centered around the fatal September 2011 shooting of a Hells Angels leader inside a Sparks casino during Street Vibrations, an annual motorcycle festival.

SOURCE: Las Vegas Review

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Vagos MC Members Acquitted

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (February 24, 2020) BTN — Eight accused Vagos motorcycle club members were acquitted Monday of all charges alleging they were part of a broad criminal racketeering enterprise that committed violent crimes for more than a decade, including the killing of a rival Hells Angels leader in a casino shootout in 2011.


Gasps erupted in the Las Vegas courtroom as U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro read the jury’s not guilty verdicts for each man.

“This is what happens when the government tries to put people away with tricks and liars,” said Daniel Hill, attorney for Pastor Fausto Palafox, former international president of the Vagos Motorcycle Club and first-named defendant in the case.

Related | Long Vagos MC trial continues in Vegas 
Related | Judge rules Vagos MC members will face charges 
Related | Star witness in Vagos MC trial lied 
Related | Jury selection begins in Vagos MC case


The jury deliberated the equivalent of only about two days after more than five months of contentious testimony at the troubled trial that had some witnesses stunningly recant their own stories on the witness stand.

Defense attorneys lost bids during trial to have Navarro throw out the case as deeply flawed — including after prosecutors disavowed the testimony of their own star witness, former Vagos member Gary “Jabbers” Rudnick.

Navarro said repeatedly it would be up to the jury to decide the facts and reach a verdict.

Rudnick testified and then acknowledged fabricating his account that Palafox issued a “green light” go-ahead to kill Jeffrey Pettigrew, then-president of the Hells Angels chapter from San Jose, California.

Palafox, 56, watched Monday as the 10 women and two men filed out of the jury box, and he mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

U.S. Attorney Nicholas Trutanich declined outside court to talk about how the prosecution unfolded and whether the government will continue to trial for 13 other accused Vagos defendants in the case.

“I’m grateful for the court’s time, the jury’s consideration and the diligent work of the assistant U.S. attorneys,” Trutanich said, adding that he believed the jury reached a verdict it found “fair and just.”

The government chose to take the Vagos case to trial despite Rudnick previously recanting his testimony at a state trial that led to a murder conviction in Reno against Vagos member Ernesto Manuel Gonzalez. The Nevada Supreme Court threw out that result because of improper jury instructions. Gonzalez was awaiting a retrial when federal charges were brought.

Gonzalez, now 42, was among the defendants acquitted Monday. Others were Albert Lopez, Albert Perez, James Gillespie, Bradley Campos, Cesar Morales and Diego Garcia. None testified at trial. All are from California. They range in age from 36 to 70.

Collectively, they were accused of conspiring since 2005 to deal drugs and commit violent crimes including killings, robberies, extortion and kidnappings in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Nevada.

U.S. Justice Department attorney John Han told the jury a “war” between the Vagos and Hells Angels over territory and respect in California dates to 2005 and continues today.

The focus of the case was the shooting inside the Nugget casino in Sparks. The jury was told Rudnick argued with Pettigrew, and that Pettigrew threw a first punch before pulling a gun and firing several shots while casino patrons dived under blackjack tables and behind slot machines.

The melee continued for about two minutes before Pettigrew was shot by Gonzalez. His attorney, Michael Kennedy, maintained that his client was within his rights to defend himself and others when he shot Pettigrew.

The acquittals came in the same courtroom and before the same judge who in December 2017 found flagrant misconduct by prosecutors and dismissed criminal charges against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his sons and supporters in a 2014 armed standoff with government agents. An appeal of that dismissal is pending.

Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Long Vagos MC trial continues in Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (February 5, 2020) BTN — A federal prosecutor spent a second day Tuesday telling a jury in Las Vegas that eight accused Vagos motorcycle club members were members of a broad criminal racketeering enterprise responsible for crimes including the killing of a rival Hells Angels leader from California in a northern Nevada casino in 2011.


Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Schiess drew frequent objections from defense attorneys as he pointed jurors toward evidence that he said showed Vagos agreed according to “laws of the street, not laws of society” to commit years of acts of murder, robbery, extortion, kidnapping and drug dealing in addition to the shooting death of Jeffrey Pettigrew.

Vagos members “operate by violence and by silence,” Schiess said. “The silence is to protect the violence,” and crimes were committed “as a pattern in order to run the business.”

Related | Judge rules Vagos MC members will face charges
Related | Star witness in Vagos MC trial lied
Related | Jury selection begins in Vagos MC case

Closings were expected to continue this week, with defense attorneys poised for chances to describe a case they say the government has not proved.

The trial has had a bumpy history and narrowly avoided a mistrial after prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro to throw out testimony of a central witness to the shooting who acknowledged after more than three days on the witness stand that he lied.

The jury had been told during opening statements in August that they would hear from ousted Vagos member Gary “Jabbers” Rudnick about a “green light” go-ahead issued by Pastor Fausto Palafox, the Vagos international president, to kill Pettigrew at the Nugget casino in Sparks.

Rudnick admitted in September, after more than three days of testimony, that there was no “green light.”

The eight co-defendants - Palafox, Albert Lopez, Albert Perez, James Gillespie, Bradley Campos, Cesar Morales and Diego Garcia - each face up to life in prison if they are convicted.

When Schiess referred during closings to Rudnick’s testimony, defense attorney Mark Fleming objected and accused the prosecutor of vouching for his own disavowed witness.

Navarro said the jury will decide what and whom to believe.

“The decision about credibility of a witness is yours,” Schiess told the panel. “You get to decide whether he’s credible. That’s your call.”

SOURCE: Associated Press

Friday, November 22, 2019

Judge rules Vagos MC members will face charges

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (November 22, 2019) BTN — A little more than two months after a major disruption in a federal trial against eight reputed members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club, a federal judge has ruled that the most serious charges of murder and conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise will not be thrown out.


The motion to dismiss the charges surfaced after the government’s star witness — an ousted Vagos member who had been cooperating with authorities and agreed to testify against his former allies — admitted to repeatedly lying on the witness stand in September.

Gary “Jabbers” Rudnick had spent more than three days telling jurors that Vagos members had plotted to kill a rival biker in 2011 in Sparks.

“This was one of the worst witnesses ever put forth in a courtroom,” Jess Marchese, an attorney for one of the eight men on trial, said Thursday. He and attorneys for the remaining defendants had asked U.S. District Chief Judge Gloria Navarro to throw out the murder and racketeering charges due to a lack of sufficient evidence.

Related | Star witness in Vagos MC trial lied
Related | Jury selection begins in Vagos MC case

After more than four hours of arguments Thursday, Navarro agreed with the defense that the case was “a lot weaker than it was in the beginning” but said that she weighed the “totality of the circumstances” when making her decision.

The trial, which began in August and was expected to last through the end of the year, resumes Monday morning.

The charges stem from a racketeering indictment in 2017 against 23 Vagos members arrested in Nevada, Hawaii and California.

Vagos, the Spanish term for “lazy,” is a reference to a vagabond. According to the indictment, the biker gang was formed in San Bernardino, California, in the mid-1960s and has spread to at least seven countries. It is said to have 75 chapters in the United States, 54 of which are in Nevada and California, the states where authorities have said most of the criminal activity occurred.

The eight men on trial — Pastor Fausto Palafox, Albert Lopez, Albert Benjamin Perez, James Patrick Gillespie, Ernesto Manuel Gonzalez, Bradley Michael Campos, Cesar Vaquera Morales and Diego Chavez Garcia — also face one count of using a firearm to commit murder during and in retaliation to a crime of violence in addition to the murder and conspiracy charges.

The bikers are accused of a laundry list of violent crimes, including the 2011 fatal shooting of a rival Hells Angel club member at the Sparks Nugget hotel-casino — a crime described, at the time, as part of a broader criminal conspiracy that involved a coordinated cover-up and threats of retaliation against club members who cooperated with law enforcement.

Thirteen more defendants are awaiting trial in a case that prosecutors allege involves Vagos and crimes in Nevada, California, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon and Utah.

SOURCE: U.S. News and World Report

Friday, September 20, 2019

Star witness in Vagos MC trial lied

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (September 20, 2019) BTN — A star witness for the government has repeatedly lied on the witness stand during a federal racketeering trial in Las Vegas for a group of reputed motorcycle club members.

And in an astonishing twist on Thursday, prosecutors asked a judge to throw out the testimony of Gary “Jabbers” Rudnick after he spent more than three days telling jurors that members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club had plotted to kill a rival biker in Sparks in 2011.

Related | Jury selection begins in Vagos MC case

“We have grave concerns and doubt as to whether this witness will be truthful,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Han said during the 23rd day of a trial that started in August and is expected to last through the end of the year.


Rudnick, who was ousted from the club after the fatal shooting, cooperated with authorities and testified against his former allies.

Defense attorneys for the eight men on trial immediately asked to have the most serious charges of murder and conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise thrown out, and U.S. District Chief Judge Gloria Navarro allowed Rudnick’s testimony to continue through cross-examination. Should Navarro dismiss the case, it would mark the second time in as many years that high-profile federal charges against multiple defendants were tossed out.

In early 2018, Navarro threw out felony conspiracy and weapons charges against Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and another man.

The most recent possibility of a major trial disruption emerged this week as Rudnick lied about never having met with Mark Fleming, a lawyer for one of the defendants, Albert Lopez, and a private investigator. When he was recalled to the stand Thursday, Rudnick admitted that he had met with the lawyer and investigator, a former FBI agent, for two hours on an afternoon in November 2017.

Defense attorneys accused government prosecutors of persuading Rudnick to lie about the meeting.

“This witness is incapable of telling the truth,” defense attorney Kathleen Bliss, a former federal prosecutor, told the judge. “This trial has become so unfair and so contaminated as to Rudnick and the government’s complicity. They’ve had opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to fix it. You can’t unring the bell of Gary Rudnick.”

In this Dec. 9, 2011 file photo, murder defendant Gary Rudnick enters the courtroom

Lawyers for the other defendants, including Ernesto “Romeo” Manuel Gonzalez, who fired the shot that killed a leader of the Hells Angels, and Pastor Fausto Palafox, the Vagos international president known as “TaTa,” supported Bliss.

The judge asked for arguments from both sides in writing. “I don’t believe the government can prove the case without Rudnick,” said defense attorney Jess Marchese, who represents James “Jimbo” Patrick Gillespie.

Gonzalez’s attorney, Michael Kennedy, called Rudnick a “serial liar,” while Palafox’s lawyer, Amy Jacks, said Rudnick was “completely unreliable.” Han suggested that prosecutors could still prove the charges through other witnesses but added that “obviously there are certain things lost without the testimony of Rudnick.”

More defendants await trial

Prosecutors have said that leaders of Vagos orchestrated the September 2011 killing of a rival Hells Angels leader on the floor of John Ascuaga’s Nugget. Each defendant on trial is from California, ranging in age from 36 to 70.

Thirteen more defendants are awaiting trial in a case that prosecutors allege involves Vagos and crimes in Nevada, California, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon and Utah.

Prosecutors have written in court papers that Vagos operated as a criminal enterprise and engaged in drug distribution, firearms trafficking, murder, kidnapping, assault, extortion, robbery and witness intimidation.

Video surveillance showed Jeffrey “Jethro” Pettigrew pistol-whipping another man on the casino floor before gunfire broke out.

During the fight, Gonzalez shot and killed Pettigrew, 54, who was known as the “godfather” of the Hells Angels in San Jose, California. Gonzalez was found guilty of murder in state court, but his conviction was overturned, and he was indicted in the federal case while awaiting a retrial.

On Thursday, defense attorneys stopped short of asking for a mistrial before Navarro decided whether to dismiss charges against the defendants.

When Rudnick, who spent time in state prison for his role in the slaying, was called back to the stand, he was cross-examined by Lopez’s lawyer, who asked whether Rudnick ever said the defendant was not part of a conspiracy.

“I know I said something like that to you,” Rudnick testified.

SOURCE: Las Vegas Review Journal 

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Jury selection begins in Vagos MC case

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (July 30, 2019) BTN — Jury selection began Monday in U.S. District Court for a trial scheduled to begin with openings August 12 and stretch until about Thanksgiving.

The eight men, all from California and ranging in age from 36 to 70, represent the first of three groups totaling 21 defendants in a sweeping case that prosecutors allege involves Vagos and crimes in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Nevada.

The centerpiece of the case is the shooting death of Jeffrey Pettigrew, president of the Hells Angels chapter in San Jose, California, during a brawl at a crowded Reno-area casino that sent gamblers diving under blackjack tables and left bullet fragments in slot machines.

September 23, 2011: Police officers keep an eye on handcuffed men at the east entrance to John Ascuaga's Nugget hotel-casino after a shooting in Sparks, Nevada - The Reno Gazette-Journal

Two Vagos members received non-fatal gunshots in the exchange of gunfire and one was wounded while riding his motorcycle several hours later in what authorities called a retaliatory drive-by shooting.

“The Vagos are always trying to be the big dog. In some areas they are,” said Terry Katz, a retired Maryland State Police lieutenant and gang expert with the International Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association.

“Everybody’s heard of the Hells Angels, the Pagan’s, the Bandidos, the Outlaws. But the Vagos are right up there,” Katz said. “To kill Pettigrew in a setting like a casino shows that they just don’t care. It’s not like there are no cameras around.”

Now, nearly eight years later, prosecutors plan to tell a jury the case goes well beyond allegations that the eight defendants plotted to carry out a “green light order” to kill Pettigrew.

“That’s the enterprise. They’re the Vagos,” Daniel Schiess, the assistant U.S. attorney heading the prosecution, told Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro during a recent pretrial hearing. “The entire conspiracy for the enterprise is admissible against everyone.”


A 12-count indictment filed in 2017 accuses the 21 defendants of being a transnational gang with a hierarchical chain-of-command in which members reach leadership posts by adhering to club rules and committing acts of murder, kidnap, assault, extortion, robbery and witness intimidation as well as drug and weapons trafficking.

Charges date from a January 2005 bar brawl in Los Angeles; include allegations of cocaine and methamphetamine smuggling into the U.S. from Mexico; and point to a September 2011 kidnapping at gunpoint of a Vagos member suspected of violating gang rules. Prosecutors say he was beaten and robbed of his jewelry, guns and motorcycle.

The case relies on hundreds of recorded telephone conversations, reports by confidential informants and accounts by an undercover law enforcement officer who posed as a Vagos member in 2011 and 2012.

One allegation is that club members in Utah were ordered in August 2012 to pay a $100 tax to support lawyers for Ernesto Manuel Gonzalez, who was convicted in state court in Reno of Pettigrew’s death and sentenced to life in prison.

The Nevada Supreme Court overturned Gonzalez’s conviction in December 2015 due to faulty jury instructions at trial. He was awaiting a retrial when the federal racketeering indictment was filed.

He and his co-defendants — Pastor Palafox, Albert Lopez, Albert Perez, James Gillespie, Bradley Campos, Cesar Morales and Diego Garcia — have each pleaded not guilty. Each faces up to life in prison if he’s convicted.

SOURCE: My Northwest

Sunday, July 28, 2019

Alleged leader of local Deadly Sins MC arrested

Carson City, Nevada, USA (July 27, 2019) BTN — A 49-year-old Carson City man was arrested by the Tri-County Gang Unit on five felony charges, one gross misdemeanor charge, and three misdemeanor charges after he allegedly committed felony domestic battery.

According to the report, David Sanchez is the president of the Deadly Sins Motorcycle Club Carson City Nevada chapter and he is associated with the Vagos Motorcycle Club and was arrested early Friday morning.


Late Thursday evening, upon arrival, deputies made contact with Sanchez and his child. Deputies took Sanchez into custody for felony domestic battery.

Just before 2 a.m. on Friday, deputies were granted a search warrant of the property and found the following evidence, which was confiscated and booked:

— A Glock 17 9mm pistol was located in a clothing hamper of the master bedroom that Sanchez resides in along with magazines.

The gun was verified through dispatch as stolen out of Carson City. Sanchez is a registered ex-felon and he has prior history of domestic batteries.

— 14.56 grams of Cocaine in a small plastic bag was located in the master bedroom in a desk drawer on the west wall. The Cocaine was Nartec tested and yielded positive results.

— Additionally $521 U.S. currency was located next to the Cocaine in the drawer, and $251 U.S. currency was located in a pair of jean pants approximately three feet from the desk drawer containing the Cocaine.

— A digital scale and numerous small plastic bags were located next to the Cocaine as well

— A vile of Testosterone without a prescription was located in the same desk as the Cocaine

— A small plastic bottle with no prescription was located on the east night stand. The contents of the bottle were 17.5 counts of Cyclobenzaprine 10mg and one count Cyclobenzaprine 10mg with a separate imprint

— Three separate plastic bags of marijuana weighing approximately 10.2 ounces were located in the master bedroom. Each package had a hand written name on it, indicating it did not come from a legal dispensary.

— Samples of blood located in the residence along with clothing containing blood drops were collected in respect to the domestic battery that occurred

The door to Sanchez’s room is approximately ten feet from his child’s bedroom, which was unlocked. He was additionally charged with child endangerment.

Full list of charges:

Trafficking controlled substance (Cocaine)
Possession with intent to sell
Possession of a stolen firearm
Ex-felon possessing a firearm
Possession of a controlled substance (Testosterone)
Possession of dangerous drug without a prescription
Possession of drug paraphernalia
Possession of less than one ounce of marijuana
Child Endangerment

SOURCE: Carson Now


Friday, November 2, 2018

Mongols MC: Rat brags how he gained trust with members

Santa Ana, California. (November 2, 2018) BTN — A veteran federal agent who spent years undercover after infiltrating the Mongols Motorcycle Club offered his first-hand account Thursday of a secretive culture of violence and intimidation during testimony in an ongoing federal racketeering trial.

The three years that Darrin Kozlowski and three other U.S. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Officers spent embedded in the outlaw motorcycle club already has led to guilty pleas from 77 members of the Mongols. 



Now, the since-retired special agents’ efforts are at the center of the government’s attempts to seize legal control over the Mongols’ trademark name, a move that would bar the bikers from wearing the patches that now adorn their vests.

Related | Mongols MC: Feds going after clubs colors at racketeering trial

During a federal trial in Santa Ana this week, prosecutors have portrayed the Mongols as a criminal organization that encourages and rewards members who take part in violent, at-times deadly assaults, including riots in Laughlin, Nev. and a melee at the Morongo Casino in Cabazon near Palm Springs in 2002, and violent attacks in bars or restaurants in more recent years in Hollywood, Pasadena, Merced, La Mirada, Wilmington and Riverside.

Kozlowski, who previously infiltrated a Hollywood chapter of the Vagos motorcycle club and an East Coast chapter of the Warlocks motorcycle club, worked his way up the ranks of the Cypress Park chapter of the Mongols between 2005 and 2008, adopting the persona of “Dirty Dan” and telling other members of the club that he had Mafia ties fostered while growing up in Chicago.

It was a risky move, Kozlowski acknowledged during his testimony, particularly since he had already infiltrated one outlaw motorcycle club in Southern California. A photo of Kozlowski had also been printed in a book written by William Queen, a since-retired ATF agent who had infiltrated the Mongols years earlier, and whose work was well known throughout the motorcycle gang.

Kozlowski testified to buying crystal methamphetamine from several members of the Mongols, to being present for several brawls in clubs or parking lots, to helping members legally barred from having firearms hide their guns and to being told that other members of the club that they had killed members of the Hells Angels, whose bloody rivalry with the Mongols dates back to the 1970s.

“Members would often talk about doing things to elevate themselves within the Mongols by doing these acts of violence,” Kozlowski said. “It was talked about as a badge of honor.”

Kozlowski said some members of the motorcycle club were initially suspicious of him and the other undercover agents, forcing them to take polygraph tests before being allowed to join. He described for jurors the inner workings of the club, including detailing the various patches members can acquire for a variety of actions, from assaults and even murders of rivals to explicit sexual conquests.

To bolster his false identity, Kozlowski said he once offered to fly his chapter president to Chicago for a tour of what he claimed were his childhood neighborhoods. The chapter president unexpectedly accepted the invitation, Kozlowski testified, and law enforcement officials were forced to set up a dinner in Chicago with other agents posing as Italian organized crime bosses who told the Mongols leader they had worked with Kozlowski on past criminal endeavors.

There were several times Kozlowski said he believed the other Mongols were on the verge of realizing he was a law enforcement officer. He recalled once entering the home of Mongols leadership to see several members holding Queen’s book and looking at the photographs, and immediately believing he had been set up before realizing it was simply a coincidence. The president of his chapter eventually saw the photo of Kozlowski in the book, and had to be convinced it wasn’t him.

“Why would a member of the ATF who infiltrated the Vagos in this area come back and be a member of the Mongols?” Kozlowski testified about telling his chapter president.

Attorney Joseph Yanny, who is representing the Mongols, has acknowledged that members of the club broke the law, but told jurors that those individuals had been kicked out for their actions. On other occasions, Yanny told jurors, the club members acted in self-defense or were induced into drug deals by undercover agents.

Kozlowski testified that during his time with the motorcycle club he never saw anyone kicked out for illegal behavior, including individuals convicted of felonies. Prosecutors have previously indicated that if they are successful in their efforts to gain legal control over the Mongols’ trademark, they could literally take the jacket off the bikers backs anywhere in the country. The club traces its roots to Montebello in the 1970s.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who is presiding over the trial, was angered late Thursday morning when four bikers, including one wearing sunglasses, appeared in the courtroom. The judge initially believed that it was a violation of an agreement the club had made to only have two of its members in the courtroom at a time, but learned that two of the visitors were from other motorcycle clubs.

Carter, who noted that 40 to 50 Mongol members attended some pretrial hearings, said anyone has a right to watch the trial. But he also made clear that for every member of the Mongol’s who attends, he will have an equal number of U.S. Marshal’s in the courtroom.

“You can have 50 people in here, but I’ll match them,” Carter warned the clubs leaders. “My jury is not going to be intimidated.”


Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Snitch Files: An ATF agent has a story to tell

Los Angeles, California (October 16, 2018) BTN — The following is an account of an ATF agent and his skewed view of motorcycle clubs. What is not amusing is him betraying the trust of the clubs he prospected and joined. His story is presented here, unadulterated and in his own self glorifying words.  

How I Infiltrated One of L.A.’s Most Vicious Motorcycle Gangs—and Lived to Talk About It

ATF agent Darrin Kozlowski went deep undercover to take down the Hollywood chapter of the Vagos
By Mike Kessler and Darrin Kozlowski

On and off for almost 20 years, I investigated and infiltrated outlaw motorcycle gangs as an agent for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I wasn’t the only agent to go deep undercover, and I don’t claim to be the best. But the work I did took a lot of bad guys off the streets. I infiltrated the Warlocks in West Virginia in a case that took me up and down the East Coast—Florida, South Carolina, Brooklyn, the Bronx—and resulted in 57 federal arrests (including four Hells Angels) and 49 search warrants executed in six states that turned up 175 firearms (including two sawed-of shotguns and one machine gun), one silencer, one pipe bomb, and body armor.


Here in L.A., I infiltrated the Mongols for three years on what was ATF’s most successful undercover case to date and remains the largest single enforcement operation we’ve done. We prosecuted more than 100 members of the Mongols on weapons and drug charges; 79 of those members were hit with RICO charges, too.

Through all these cases, I came to learn what it’s like to be inside the heads of the guys who ride with outlaw motorcycle gangs—their mentality, their conversations, how they perceive the public and their enemies, and their lack of regard for law enforcement and for innocent lives when there’s a confrontation. Like in Laughlin, Nevada, in 2002, when the Mongols and Hells Angels opened fire on each other in a casino, or the 2015 Twin Peaks restaurant shoot-out between the Bandidos and Cossacks in Waco, Texas.

Even though I’m retired, there’s a lot I still can’t say—partly for my own safety and partly because it would be potentially dangerous for other agents. But there’s one case I can talk about: my infiltration of the Vagos in L.A. back in 1997. It was my first long-term undercover case—in Los Angeles or anywhere—and it nearly got me killed.



The Vagos were as bad as outlaw motorcycle gangs got—right up there with other “one-percenter” gangs like the Hells Angels and the Mongols. If you look closely at the patches on their jackets, you’ll see a diamond with “1%” in the middle. That’s their way of saying they don’t live like the rest of us. Some of these guys had rap sheets as long as a traffic jam on the 101. We’re talking about drug running, illegal weapons sales, and any other moneymaking schemes. Of course, they never refer to themselves as “gangs,” and they might have some regular guys as members. Some even hand out toys at Christmas. But that’s to enhance their public image. That diamond is there for a reason. The Vagos had hundreds of members and dozens of chapters, stretching across the country and into Mexico. And they were growing fast. That’s the outlaw motorcycle gang way: Recruit, grow, and take over more territory by any means necessary. These are the same dudes who’d one day kill a Hells Angel in public up in Reno, and then murder someone else in public in Bakersfield. We wanted to go deep and pull them out by the root.

FALSE START
I don’t know what surprised me more, that Junior had been killed or that his girlfriend knew who I was. I’d never met the woman—didn’t even know her name, and, to my knowledge, she didn’t have mine. I’d been cultivating her boyfriend as an informant when he got run down by a car on Sunset. He was riding a Harley I’d arranged for him to use, and the car hit him so hard it lopped off one of his feet. Died on the spot.

This was in early ’97, a few months after I’d transferred to L.A. from ATF’s Milwaukee office. I was an ambitious 31-year-old agent with a wife, a kid, and another on the way. Back in Wisconsin, I’d taken an interest in working outlaw biker gangs, so I learned to ride on a friend’s Honda, then managed to get a Harley that ATF had seized, a Fat Boy with straight handlebars, no windshield, no saddlebags. I rode to biker bars and events. I let my hair grow, dressed the part, tried to understand the scene. I’m originally from Chicago’s South Side—a tough, working-class part of the city. I knew how to be around bad guys because I grew up with a lot of them. I’m not sure if I blended in because I was fairly quiet and soft-spoken, or if I got that way in order to blend in.

After four years in Milwaukee I was reassigned to California and brought the bike, Wisconsin plates and all. My goal, the one I proposed to my new bosses, was to investigate and infiltrate the one-percenters of Greater L.A. After arriving, I got in touch with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. They’d been keeping tabs on these guys. My contact there told me about a potential confidential informant—a CI—named Junior. He said Junior’d tried to join the Hells Angels but had been “run down the road” for some reason. I got Junior a bike and gave him some cash. We started in Hollywood, where he had a connection with the local Vagos chapter.

The name is Spanish slang for someone who does nothing all day—a vagrant or vagabond. They formed in the 1960s in the Inland Empire, and while they do have a Hispanic presence—the Venice chapter back in the day was pretty much entirely Hispanic—they’re mostly white; no blacks. The horned creature on their patch is Loki, a god of mischief in Norse mythology.

But you don’t get to wear that logo as a “full-patch” member without putting in a lot of time. Unless you have enough street cred or contacts to get “windowed in,” the first step is to hang around until they give you permission to refer to yourself as, well, a “hang-around.” Make it through that phase, and you become a “prospect.” Then they give you the “rocker”—the bottom part of the patch that goes on the back of a vest—which means they’re gonna really test you to get the full patch. Junior wasn’t an official hang-around, but I was playing the long game: I wanted him to get his patch, and he’d be able to vouch for me so I could try to get my patch, too.

Junior had some contact with a guy in the Vagos’ Hollywood chapter named Chuck [names have been changed], a short, beer-bellied dude with black-framed glasses. He wore a painter’s cap with the brim flipped up, had ink from neck to toes, and ran a tattoo shop in West Hollywood. Junior started hanging around there, and he was a good CI—showed up on time, took license plate numbers, eavesdropped, reported back to me. In fact I’d seen him a few hours before the accident, at a bar on the Strip where he gave me some information and I gave him some cash.

I was sitting in my office downtown the day after Junior died when his girlfriend called. I offered my condolences and hung up, wondering if I was screwed. “Junior must have talked about me,” I thought. Did his girlfriend know any of the Vagos he’d been hanging around with? Did he tell her he was working with ATF? If the same thing happened today, I’d call of the operation. But I was young, and ATF hadn’t done many of these biker gang infiltrations; there wasn’t a lot of official protocol. So I decided I’d pay Chuck a visit.

GRILLED
I parked my bike outside the tattoo shop. I knew what Chuck looked like from the sherif’s department’s binders, but I had to fake it and ask for him inside. I introduced myself as Koz, which is my real nickname—short for Kozlowski—but I figured if anyone asked, I could say that it was short for “Kamikaze” because of how I rode my Harley or some bullshit like that. I wanted a name that I responded to instinctively.

I told Chuck I was a buddy of Junior’s, that I knew he’d been hanging around the Hollywood Vagos, and that I had some bad news. Chuck knew about the crash on the Strip but not that Junior was involved. We talked for a while, and he told me to come back in a few hours. When I showed up again, Chuck got on his bike and had me follow him east to their clubhouse—basically a two-level cinder-block warehouse at Hollywood and Kenmore—where I rode in and somebody locked the chain-link gate behind me. There were about ten guys, their bikes all lined up. Chuck introduced me. “Wait here,” he said and went in the building with the other guys.

An hour or so later, someone came out and called for me. “Get in here.” As I walked inside, this heavily fortified metal door slammed behind me, and they patted me down for a wire. Now I’m scared shitless, locked in a windowless building with a bunch of outlaw biker dudes who were very likely convicted felons. I had no cover team, and I didn’t have much in the way of what we call a “backstop”—a story about who I am or what I do for a living, though I was at least carrying a driver’s license and Social Security card under my alias.

They patted me down and found my service weapon in my boot, a SIG Sauer semiautomatic. Back then, the LAPD carried Berettas, so I wasn’t too concerned that they’d suspect me of being undercover. Even though their guns were on a table, they let me keep mine. Next thing I knew, I was being interrogated. Four Vagos kind of stood out. There were Tiny Dan and L.A. Lenny, who happened to be badge-carrying L.A. County juvenile probation officers. There was Lars, the chapter president, who was super fit from training as a boxer and whose wardrobe consisted of jeans and a white T-shirt. And then there was Big Rick, a large guy in his late thirties or early forties with a long ponytail, a Fu Manchu mustache, and a “nobody fucks with me” air of authority. He held the title of international sergeant at arms. Outlaw biker gangs are organized like the mafia or the military, which makes sense, since the gangs were started by ex-military guys after World War II.

I was shaking so hard I couldn’t even work the kickstand on my bike. I just dropped it.

So there I was, in what’s essentially a bunker, and I knew I was shaking. I was pretty sure they knew it, too. Big Rick did most of the talking.

“How did you know Junior?”

“Why are you carrying a gun?”

“Why do you have Wisconsin tags on your bike?”

This went on for at least 30 minutes, and I had to wing it. Big Rick took notes the whole time, and I was trying to keep my story straight, thinking, “What kind of outlaw takes notes!?”

At one point, Big Rick said to me, “We have reason to believe that Junior was working with ATF.”

It felt like my head went completely sideways. He didn’t say “LAPD” or “the cops” or “the feds.” He said “ATF.” I have no idea what came out of my mouth next, except that it was pure bullshit. I wasn’t thinking about my wife or my kid or my kid on the way. I was focused on not getting a bullet in the head.

Whatever I said satisfied them. When we got back outside the building, they told me they were going to a bar and that I should follow. They got on their bikes and turned east on Hollywood. I turned west, gunning it to the 101 and the 170 into North Hollywood, where two ATF agents waited for me in a parking lot. I was shaking so hard I couldn’t even work the kickstand on my bike. I just dropped it.

Maybe the Vagos knew someone in the LAPD who pulled the VIN off Junior’s bike and linked it to ATF. In any case, I figured it was a lost cause. But a week later my pager went off. It was Big Rick. I had more bravado on the phone: “You’re probably calling to tell me you checked into my story and learned it’s all bullshit. And guess what? You’re right. You guys had some hair up your ass about who I am, talkin’ about cops and ATF and a bunch of other nonsense. I don’t know any of you, and I had no reason to trust any of you, so I fed you some bullshit and got the hell out of there. I didn’t know where you were going or if you were gonna take a pipe to my head or what. And you know you’d have done the same damn thing.”

Rick didn’t seem fazed. “Hey man,” he said, “I’m just calling because we’re having a function this weekend at the clubhouse. We want you to come back. But leave your gun at home.”

This meant one of two things: Either they were gonna let me become a hang-around or they were gonna kill me.

AFTER HOURS
The Hollywood chapter, which had about ten members who lived all over L.A., threw a regular party called Green Hell. (Sometimes the Vagos refer to themselves as Green Nation.) Plus Loki has sort of a Satanic vibe, what with his horns and all. They also flaunt the number 22, since “V” is the 22nd letter in the alphabet.

Green Hell went from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. at the clubhouse. It was a moneymaker. The guys would go to bars and strip clubs, recruit guests, and offer late-night work to the strippers. There was a cover charge and a cash bar, a pool table, a couple of stripper poles. It drew a big crowd. Hollywood people always showed up. The band Matchbox 20 came one night. The Guns N’ Roses drummer, too. Even a few movie stars came. People liked the underground feel. I don’t think most realized that it was a Vagos party or that if things jumped off, there could be serious violence.

My job was to stock the bar, watch the gate, work the door. At one Green Hell, a guy from the Armenian Power gang was making trouble, and when we tried to throw him out, he put up a fight. I knew I had to put hands on him to avoid blowing my cover. A few of us escorted him to the street and threw him into a parked car, which caused his head to smash the side-view mirror. A few days later, during church—what outlaw motorcycle gangs call weekly chapter meetings—a bunch of Armenian guys came to the clubhouse when I was watching the gate. One of them said, “I wanna talk to Lars.” Lars came out, they walked down the block, and within a few minutes they’d brokered a peace deal. Everything was cool. A few months later, in the parking lot of a nearby restaurant where they all hung out, the Armenian guys showed me a trunk full of machine guns.

On another church night, I was outside by the gate when I looked up and saw a car rolling by. Then a hand with a gun emerged from the sunroof. Blap-blap-blap-blap-blap! I heard the zing of a bullet as it went past my ears. We never figured out who it was.

By that point it was late spring, and I’d gotten more backstops in order: a place to live, some address history. My Harley had California plates, and I had a truck registered to my undercover name. I’d rented a little apartment in a North Hollywood fourplex near Victory and Lankershim with its own garage. I’d park my ATF vehicle, a small GMC truck, a few blocks away and walk to my undercover place and slip in through the alley. Sometimes Vagos would come by to hang out or see what I was up to. I had an ATF cover team in place about 50, maybe 60 percent of the time, doing drive-bys, but a cover team can’t really save you in this type of role; it just keeps an eye out from time to time and cleans up if things go bad.

My best friend from the academy, Frank D’Alesio, was doing the same sort of infiltrating with the Vagos in Las Vegas at the time. It was a coincidence, but we used it to our advantage. Being an Italian American from a Rust Belt city with a mafia presence, Frank portrayed himself as a connected guy with side hustles across the country. He told them that he had a business associate from back East named Koz who was hanging around with Vagos in Hollywood, and I told the Hollywood Vagos about Frank. The Vagos have a rule that’s basically “if it doesn’t have to do with the club, it’s no one else’s business.” Frank and I figured if we followed the rules, maybe they’d respect us enough to do business together.

We would talk at night to keep our stories straight. Pretty soon Frank and one of his informants were making runs to L.A. We’d see each other at Vagos functions, go on errands together—taking packages from Point A to Point B, that kind of thing. We knew better than to ask what was in the packages; it was way too soon for that.

The head of the entire Vagos organization was a scraggly-haired, bald-domed guy called Whitey who was in his fifties and wore a cowboy hat and Fu Manchu. He looked like the comedian Gallagher, or a clown, which is funny because he’d brag that he was the first person to play Ronald McDonald in a commercial. He lived in the San Gabriel Valley. I remember one time he made me and Frank try to sell a bunch of videos of him riding around on a motorcycle. Anything to make money for the gang. We took the tapes to ATF, got some cash, and brought it back to Whitey.

THREADING THE NEEDLE
By month three of my hang-around phase, I’d seen plenty—felons in possession of firearms, guys using or selling drugs, the two probation officers associating with known felons involved in a criminal enterprise. I watched and listened and filled out reports as I got to know some of the Vagos. Big Rick would have me to his house in Covina, where he had a lot of weapons. We’d go drink beer and play darts. He was kind of my sponsor, my main point of contact, not unlike Al Pacino in Donnie Brasco. (My original contact—Chuck from the tattoo shop—wound up moving away.) I liked Rick, and I have to admit it felt good to have his confidence in me. People ask if I ever felt conflicted about tricking these guys. Sometimes I did, but you have to reel yourself in and remember they’re part of a criminal organization.

One weekend in the summer of ’97, about four months after becoming a hang-around, I was with a bunch of them headed to Las Vegas for a big officers’ meeting, which happens maybe once a year. They ride in tight formation, wheel to wheel and basically shoulder to shoulder—ranking members up front, rank-and-file in the middle, followed by prospects, and finally the hang-arounds in the back, choking on exhaust and dust. And they ride fast. When you see a pack of them on the highway, there’s a good chance they’re going to a meeting, unless they’re out to show their presence and mark territory. Or they could be on a “run” to a fund-raiser where they’ll take over a park or campground, hand out fliers, charge a cover, sell food and beer—it’s basically a bake sale for bad guys.

On that weekend in Vegas, the Vagos rented out a VFW hall. Whitey, Lars, Chuck, and Big Rick were there. So was Frank, since he was local. We knew we were close to becoming prospects because they’d made us fill out applications. That’s another weird thing: Outlaw biker gangs make the path to membership pretty damn official. They do background checks. You give them a Social Security number, driver’s license—all sorts of stuff, including a fee, which goes toward a private investigator. By chance, I met the PI vetting me. He was hanging around with some Vagos, and when I introduced myself, he was like, “Yeah, man—I know who you are.”

At the VFW hall, Frank and I weren’t allowed to hear the others talk business. We sat in another room, waiting to be called in. I believe I went first. As I walked in, I was facing all the high-ranking officers. They asked, “Are you willing to kill for the club?” They more or less played head games with me to see what I’d say and to test my commitment. But after a few minutes, they eased up and gave me my bottom rocker—the part of the patch that says “SoCal” on it.

It was official: I was a prospect. When they were done with me, they called for Frank and did the same routine on him. Even though you can wear what you want, outlaw motorcycle gang members always wear a denim or leather vest. It’s basically the uniform. The Vagos told me and Frank we had 30 minutes to get the rockers on our vests, so we found an upholstery shop nearby and had our bottom rockers sewn on. Later, when I was with the Warlocks, I was ordered to carry a sewing kit. I think one-percenters are the only outlaws on the planet who keep a needle and thread handy.

LOCKED UP
Being undercover is a terrible way to live. You actually have three lives: your undercover persona, your family persona, and the persona as a law enforcement officer, doing the paperwork and acting like a respectable civil servant. Even though I knew management had my back, dealing with them was the hardest part. They wanted results faster than I could deliver, and they didn’t understand—not in any real way—that every time I was with the Vagos I could have wound up dead. And at the same time I was wondering if I was gonna get whacked, I had to take mental notes about everything I was seeing and hearing—the guns, where I was told to take a package, who’s in possession of what illegal substances. The only reason it didn’t drive me insane was because I was too busy trying to juggle it all, to keep it straight and survive.

Once you’re a prospect, they own you, especially if you don’t have a straight job. I wished I’d made a real job part of my backstory. They thought my hustle with Frank was the extent of it, so they figured I had loads of free time when, really, I had a family at home. They called me a lot. It could be anything from “Hey, prospect, cut my grass” or “Hey, prospect, take this package over to Big Rick’s place” to just hanging out. Saying no wasn’t an option.

I was missing doctors’ appointments for the kids, coming home too tired to do dad duties, and making my wife deal with the whims of my undercover work. I knew it was tough for her. Later, when I traveled back East to infiltrate the Warlocks, I’d be gone for months at a time, which put a huge strain on my family life. My long shaggy hair, goatee, grubby clothes, and steel-toed boots didn’t help, especially in the suburbs, where I lived during those cases. I can’t tell you how many times I showed up at my kids’ school functions only to see parents and teachers shy away from me. If I wanted to lie low, I’d dress a bit nicer, but I was hardly clean-cut. When I infiltrated the Mongols in L.A., I got fully sleeved out with tattoos, so blending in as a civilian got even harder.

Some Vagos, mostly guys from the San Fernando Valley and San Gabriel Valley chapters, used to hang out at a bar near Sunland and Foothill boulevards in the Tujunga area. The owners supposedly didn’t like them wearing their patches in the place and gave them a hard time. So that juvenile probation officer, Tiny Dan—he was obese, with close-cropped hair and a dark goatee— decided, “Let’s go to this bar and document how they’re harassing us and discriminating against us.” The idea was to file a lawsuit and make some money. About a dozen of us rolled to this bar after meeting up and establishing the ground rules. One rule was “No weapons of any kind.” The thing is, since becoming a prospect I’d begun secretly carrying my gun again. My thinking was “If shit breaks bad and I’m supposed to help these guys or defend myself, I don’t want to be caught flat-footed.”

We walked into the bar, and the Vagos had a chip on their shoulder from the jump, looking to stir shit up, talking with the bartender about wearing their colors. Somebody must have made a call or tripped an alarm because LAPD showed up within minutes—multiple cars, lights flashing. They brought us outside one by one, lined us up in front of the bar, and started patting us down. One of them found my gun tucked in my waistband and called out, “Gun!”

As I was being cuffed I looked down the line and the Vagos looked at me like, “What the fuck, Koz!? We said, ‘No guns.’ ”

I was the only guy who got arrested, and I had to make it look legit. A neighbor of mine happened to be a ranking LAPD officer based in the Foothill station. He knew I was ATF, but he didn’t know I was undercover until I told him everything in my cell. Even though I had an alias, a fingerprint check would have turned up my real identity because it’s cross-referenced with an FBI database. Tiny Dan also knew a girl at the front desk, which I learned only later; if she’d gotten my real identity, she could’ve spilled the beans. But Dan came and bailed me out the next morning. The whole night, my wife was at home, wondering why she hadn’t heard from me. When I finally saw her, she said, “I see that you’re not dead. So if you weren’t in jail, you’ve got some explaining to do.”



Before I went to court, my ATF colleagues met with the judge, and he agreed to go along with it to make things look by the numbers. In court, he sentenced me to two years of probation and time served at the Foothill station for carrying a concealed weapon. The whole episode actually gave me more street cred, but I hadn’t forgotten about Junior’s girlfriend or the grilling I’d gotten a few months earlier.

PATCHED IN
By the fall of 1997, about seven months into the case, Frank and I had already been getting hints that we were going to get our full patches when all the Vagos met up at the next national run. This was good news. The bad news? Rumor was that it’d be in Mexico. Working on foreign soil as a federal agent is a bureaucratic nightmare. ATF would have had to notify the Mexican authorities, who could be corrupt or incompetent or simply unwilling to let us work there. And even if we thought we could pull it of, we still had to run it through the proper channels in D.C. We asked, “Hey, can guys in an undercover role dip in and out of Mexico?” The answer wasn’t only no, it was “Hell no!”

The easiest thing would have been to go regardless, hope nothing happened, and come back without telling anyone. But if we got caught, our careers would be over. Frank and I decided our only option was to come up with an excuse not to go. At the time, ATF was part of the U.S. Treasury Department, which had its own federal criminal database. We managed to get something put into the system that red-flagged our aliases for suspicion of trafficking marijuana from Mexico into the U.S. near Brownsville, Texas. That way we could tell the Vagos, “Hey, we got red-flagged a while back and can’t cross the border.” And if they had a source with access to the system, it’d look true.

Fortunately, at the eleventh hour, the national run wound up being slated not in Mexico but in Fontana, near San Bernardino. That happens to be where the first biker gang, the Hells Angels, was founded; in nearby Redlands, a gang called Psychos got started before some of its members split off and formed the Vagos. For whatever reason, Frank, his CI, and the other Vegas guys didn’t go to Fontana, but a hundred Vagos from other chapters made the run to this large property with a long dirt driveway. I worked security in front, bored as hell, watching my cover team drive by now and then. Finally someone from the gathering yelled, “Prospect, get back here. And bring your bike.”

I got on my Harley, and as I rode down the driveway the gate closed behind me; up ahead, they all stood in a horseshoe formation, blocking me. Someone yelled, “Get off your bike, prospect!” I’d barely put the kickstand down when they started pushing, shoving, slapping, even punching me. I couldn’t understand what was happening. I was thinking, “Did I do something wrong? Do they know I’m an undercover cop?” I was glad I wasn’t wearing a wire, but mostly I was thinking, “If this gets bad, just claw your way over that fence to the street! Don’t let yourself fall to the ground with a hundred guys trying to stomp you with steel-toed boots.”

Lars, the Hollywood chapter president with a boxer’s build, was in front of me, pushing, yelling stuff I could barely process, like, “You fucked up, Koz! First you got rough with the Armenian. Then you got people coming around shooting at you. Then you get arrested for possession when we agreed not to carry weapons. You’re fucking trouble, man!”

I tried to stick up for myself without getting physical or making anybody angrier. I’m like, “That’s fuckin’ bullshit, Lars. I did what I needed to do.”

Then after a minute or two—it felt like hours—it all came to a stop. Lars handed me my full patch, grinned, and said, “Get that patch on.” Everybody started cheering.

When we left, my cover team was watching for me, assuming I’d be at the back of the pack. But I was closer to the middle. After they finally spotted me, they were high-fiving one another. “He got his patch! He’s in!”

UNMASKED
I was excited, too. I’d be able to attend church meetings, learn more about the inner workings of the gang. The six or seven months of work—the stress on me and my family—all of it was paying off.

Halloween came soon after I got my patch, and there was a party at a member’s house in the San Fernando Valley, around Reseda and Parthenia. Some Vagos lived in two or three houses on the same block, and the party was hopping. I was even kind of enjoying myself. But then Lars, Tiny Dan, and a smelly, raspy-voiced guy named Pig Pen Pete found me and said, “We need to talk.” We went to another backyard, which was empty, and Dan, the probation officer, said something like, “Hey, we know you got patched in, but we still have some checking out to do. I’m going to have to roll your fingerprints.” He was acting like it was a formality they forgot about, so I wasn’t getting too hinked up. “Sure man, whatever you need,” I said, trying to play it cool.

Dan pulled out an ink pad and fingerprint cards and took my fingerprints, asking me, “Do you go by any other names?” I told him no, and then we walked back to the party.

A few days later, I parked my government vehicle down the street from my undercover apartment in North Hollywood and walked down the alley so I could enter through the back door as usual. My undercover truck and Harley were in the garage.

No more than five minutes after I arrived, there was a knock at the door. It was Lars. “Hey, we gotta call Big Rick,” he said, sounding kind of cold.

“Alright, what’s up?”

He said, “Let’s just get Rick on the phone.”

When I put the phone to my ear, Big Rick said, “What were you doing today?”

I’m like, “I don’t know. I was out and about.”

Rick’s like, “Oh, yeah? What were you doing?”

“Taking care of some business, nothing related to the club.”

Then he asked, “Well, what car were you in?”

I told him I drove my truck, and he said, “I don’t think you were in your truck.” Turns out Lars and some guys were at my place earlier in the day. “They went in your garage and saw your truck and bike.”

I started backpedaling: “OK, well, yeah, you’re right. I had a different car.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“It’s really none of your concern. I was in someone else’s car, taking care of some stuff with other people. Nothing to do with the club.”

Rick told me to put Lars back on the phone, who didn’t say much to Rick other than “Yeah…yeah…yeah.…” He hung up, turned to me, and said, “We still got some concerns about who you are. Where’s your patch?”

I’m like, “Lars, are you kidding me?”

“We may be wrong about this,” he said, “and if so, we’ll owe you an apology. But right now, I need your patch until further notice.”

I was pissed. I wasn’t about to let these assholes blow up all my hard work. I doubled down: “This is bullshit. This is amateur hour. Why didn’t you sort this shit out before? Is this some kind of joke?”

But Lars said, “Don’t make contact and don’t come around the clubhouse.”

At one of the SFV houses, we found a human skull wrapped in a bag. It wasn’t decorative; it had material on it.

So I gave him my patch, vest and all. He was kicking me out of the Vagos two weeks after I was patched in and seven months into an operation that had taken me away from my wife, my newborn, and my two-year-old. Once I knew Lars was gone, I called my cover team, which rolled by to be sure other Vagos weren’t outside waiting to kick my ass. Then they got me out of there. For the next eight weeks or so, I was back at the office, helping put together all the evidence we had on these guys so we could make some arrests and, hopefully, weaken the gang.

Looking back, I was lucky. According to an ATF agent in San Diego who’d heard it from his own CI, the whole thing could be traced back to Junior, my own informant, and his girlfriend. She’d crossed paths with some Vagos right after I was patched in, and she told them that Junior had been working for the ATF when he died. She even gave them the business card I’d handed Junior, which had my Wisconsin information on it. (I’d crossed out the old phone number and written my L.A. number on it while I was waiting for new cards.) So the Vagos put the pieces together, and according to the CI, they were going to “take care” of me.

Out in Las Vegas, nobody suspected Frank of being undercover. They actually thought he was my target and warned him, “Hey, your buddy Koz out in L.A., he’s with the ATF and he’s been working you.” Frank wound up on the phone with Big Rick and the Vagos president, Whitey, who said something along the lines of “I think Koz needs to be eliminated.” At that point Rick said, “I’m getting off this phone call right now,” and hung up. Frank used me as an excuse to lie low and slowly drift away from the Vagos without suspicion.

Over the next several months, we got warrants for Vagos in L.A., Vegas, and San Diego, and we assembled teams of officers—ATF, LASD, LAPD, and local law enforcement from other counties—to move on multiple locations. That included Rick’s place, Lars’s place, Tiny Dan’s place, the Hollywood clubhouse, and the San Fernando Valley houses from the night of the Halloween party. The raids happened before dawn. I didn’t participate, but I was at the SFV properties right after it all went down. Three Vagos were sitting handcuffed on the sidewalk. Pig Pen Pete was one of them, and he started yelling at me, calling me a motherfucker. All told, my work helped us make 13 arrests on everything from drug and gun possession in L.A. and Vegas to possession of commercial-grade explosives down in San Diego. At one of the SFV houses, we found a human skull wrapped in a bag. It wasn’t decorative; it had material on it.

Frank and I received official recognition from headquarters in D.C., and our work inspired enough confidence to help ramp up and improve the undercover branch. It also helped us avoid making some of the same mistakes again in future cases. Looking back, I did a lot of things wrong and made a lot of mistakes. I was mostly flying by the seat of my pants, but that made me a better undercover agent when I infiltrated the Warlocks and the Mongols.

After my Vagos infiltration, the Hollywood chapter lost more or less half its membership. And when it started to pick back up, I worked behind the scenes as a co-case agent and supervising CIs on a two-year infiltration that netted several arrests across five Southern California counties on charges ranging from drug and gun sales to street terrorism, attempted murder, and murder. It wasn’t lost on us that the number of people we put in handcuffs was 22. And if it wasn’t for my first case with the Vagos, my work—and ATF’s—taking down major players in the Warlocks, the Mongols, the Hells Angels, and the Aryan Brotherhood might not have landed indictments and convictions numbering in the hundreds. We didn’t put them out of business, but we sure as hell slowed them down.

Darrin Kozlowski spent 28 years as an ATF agent before retiring in 2017. Mike Kessler is a regular contributor to Los Angeles. His last piece was about peacocks being poached on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

SOURCE: LA Mag

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Political Smear: Biker runs for city council seat against straights

Upland, California (October 9, 2018) NOTE: We are running this article in its original and biased wording, Biker Trash Network — A candidate for Upland City Council is more than the business owner he declares himself to be on the November ballot, according to records from Upland police.

Rudy Zuñiga, 47, is a documented member of the Vagos outlaw motorcycle gang, police records show, leading the city’s top cop to question his fitness for elected office.

During a traffic stop seven years ago, Zuñiga told Upland police Officer Maurice Duran he was a member of the outlaw group, according to the field interview report filed by Duran that day.

Upland, California City Hall 

Since Zuñiga announced his candidacy for Upland City Council, he has made mention of his affiliation with motorcycle enthusiasts but has not publicly identified the group.

On Aug. 16, Zuñiga posted a video on his campaign’s Facebook page, entitled “Confession.”

“Through the whole process of my divorce, I was building a motorcycle,” Zuñiga said on the video. “It kind of helped me get by and get through the days, and such.

“So I built my bike, I got it on the road. I started riding all the time by myself. At the time, I didn’t have any friends who had motorcycles,” Zuñiga said. “I used to go to this one spot over by my mother’s house, and there was a bunch of guys always hanging out with motorcycles and I’d stop in and hang out and talk to them. They were pretty cool. They turned out to be pretty good guys. I started hanging out with them for a bit. And more and more and more. And I ended up joining up with them.

“We had our differences,” he continued. “I decided I should move on. It was time for me to do something else.”


In the video, Zuñiga never identifies the motorcycle group he joined.

Zuñiga twice declined to discuss questions about the group when contacted by a reporter. In a brief telephone conversation Monday, however, he said he is not affiliated with a gang.

“I have not committed any crimes. I am not in a gang. I am not in a motorcycle club. I don’t know what to tell you,” Zuñiga said before hanging up on a reporter.

‘A family group’

According to documents obtained from the Upland Police Department under the California Public Records Act, however, Zuñiga has identified himself as a member of the Vagos outlaw motorcycle club.

On March 5, 2011, Officer Duran stopped Zuñiga for having a modified exhaust on his motorcycle and for not wearing a helmet.

According to the field interview report, Zuñiga was wearing Vagos gang attire and his motorcycle featured an “SGV” sticker on his front headlight (the Vagos’ fifth chapter was founded in the San Gabriel Valley, according to its website), a “22” sticker on his fuel tank (which stands for the 22nd letter of the alphabet, V), and a personalized license plate, “GNG GRN.”

“Which he states means ‘going green,’ but I believe actually means ‘gang green,’” Duran wrote in his report. Members of the Vagos refer to themselves as the “Green Nation” on their website and use green throughout their attire.

“Zuñiga refused to let me take photos of his tattoos and his fingerprint,” Duran continued in the report. Fingerprints and photos are typically collected for use on a gang card, a document shared between agencies to help them identify known and suspected gang members.

“Zuñiga stated he is a member of the Vagos,” the report reads in part, quoting Zuñiga saying the club is “nothing more than a ‘family group.’”

‘A brotherhood’

Whatever they may call themselves, Upland’s police chief says there’s little question what kind of organization the Vagos actually are. The Vagos website lists a “Badlands” chapter based in Upland.

“Vagos are an outlaw motorcycle gang that refer to themselves as a ‘club,’” Chief Darren Goodman said. “By definition, they’re a criminal street gang as defined under Penal Code 186.22. Its members go through a prospecting stage where they’re required to commit crimes at the direction of existing members.”

In 2012, Keith Allen Silva, the former president of the San Bernardino Chapter of the Vagos, was sentenced to 75 years to life for the 2003 killing of a man over the sale of a motorcycle.

Photo of Rudy Zuñiga From: Rudy4Upland

In June 2017, federal agents arrested 22 alleged Vagos Motorcycle Club members in the Inland Empire and around Southern California, accusing them of committing violence against rival gang members — and even their own — and building their territory through crime and intimidation.

According to Hunter Glass, a ationally recognized expert on street gangs, gang mentality and culture, few members ever fully cut ties with gangs like the Vagos.

“When you get into stuff like the Vagos and the (Hells) Angels, that’s a brotherhood. You don’t just turn your back on your old buddies,” he said. “It’s a fraternal order you don’t walk away from. No matter what you think, you will always have those ties.”

Outlaw motorcycle gang members often own businesses, usually bars or nightclubs, in which they typically engage in illegal activity, Glass said.

“I’d say that would be a real concern for people,” Glass said.

Political battle

Zuñiga describes himself as an “engineer/business owner” in his candidacy filing: He and his current wife run a furniture store in downtown Upland. He’s running for a council seat representing the city’s 4th District.

And Zuñiga is running, in part, by appealing to voters’ concerns about safety in the city.

“Having raised my family in a safe community we once enjoyed, it saddens me that other families can’t enjoy the same safe neighborhoods (as) it once was,” Zuñiga’s ballot statement reads in part. “If elected I would utilize my experience in budgeting to cut waste in order to save tax dollars for improvements throughout our city, provide training for our reserve police officers to assist in the lack of safety downtown, the bike trail and skate park.”

He may face an uphill battle politically. Zuñiga is running against incumbent Carol Timm and business owner Tammy Rapp. While there’s no polling on the race publicly available, campaign donations have been highly lopsided.

According to his most recently released campaign financial disclosure statement, Zuñiga has raised $4,248 in 2018, including a $600 loan to himself. Other than a $1,000 donation from Rancho Cucamonga-based RMP Management Co., the majority of his donations come from individuals, most of them described as retirees on his California Form 460, filed on Sept. 18. As of Sept. 22, Zuñiga still had $2,740 in his campaign chest.

Rapp, meanwhile, has raised $765 so far in 2018 and still has $215 left on hand.

But both trail Timm, who has raised $24,705 so far in 2018, including $1,000 received from the Police Officers Research Association of California’s political action committee donated on Sept. 29. As of Sept. 22, Timm still had $15,720 on hand.

Zuñiga has been attacked on social media, including in a Facebook page post with photos allegedly showing him in Vagos gang attire. The owner of the Facebook page did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Zuñiga’s supporters accuse Timm’s campaign of engineering the attacks on him.

“I have nothing to do with any website like that and I do not know anyone who is involved or behind it,” Timm wrote in an email.

Similarly, Rapp said the “information isn’t stemming from me or my campaign.”

Candidates with criminal records

California law was changed in 2012, making it illegal for felons to hold office in the state. But Zuñiga doesn’t appear to have been convicted of any felonies.

San Bernardino County court records indicate Zuñiga was arrested and charged with driving under the influence in 2000 and being drunk in public in 2008. Both are misdemeanors and both charges were dismissed, court records indicate. He also received a traffic infraction in 2008.

Candidates statewide have been called out for questionable ties or possible criminal activity in the past, according to Marcia Godwin, a professor of public administration at the University of La Verne.

Omar Navarro, the Republican candidate opposing Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, was on probation until March for placing an electronic tracking device on his wife’s car.

Richard Bunck, who’s made unsuccessful runs for Apple Valley Town Council, Claremont City Council and the Claremont Unified school board, has been dogged by what he said were former connections to a Nazi splinter group, the National Socialist White People’s Party.

And three mayoral and City Council candidates in Oroville this November have criminal convictions, including for prostitution, drug possession and impersonating a police officer.

“It is not all that rare for a former gang member or someone who got into trouble at a young age to run for political office later,” Godwin said. “Some of these candidates attribute their interest in elected office to mentors or local programs that helped them.”

Among them, she said, is Luis Rodriguez, author of “Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in LA,” who ran as the Green Party candidate for governor in 2014.

But that’s not what’s happening here, according to Upland’s chief of police.

“I believe in redemption and the power of change. I have seen scenarios where people have denounced their gang and totally changed their life,” Goodman said. “However, that doesn’t apply to people who deny they are gang members, deny what the gang is, and deny what the gang does. If a person is lying about their affiliation and deceiving people about the horrific acts of the gang, then they are not done being a member. I do not believe a gang member should sit on any city council and set policy that affects a police department. There is no legitimate, ethical police officer who would disagree with me."

“Look, I am committed to unifying this city, strengthening the police department, reducing crime and improving quality of life,” Goodman added. “How the hell do I accomplish that if a Vago gang member is on my City Council?”

SOURCE: Daily Bulletin
SOURCE: Rudy4Upland