Melbourne, Australia (August 5, 2019) BTN —A man has been arrested after police seized a loaded firearm and drugs believed to be steroids from the Bandidos MC clubhouse in Melbourne's north.
The police raided properties in Brunswick and Doveton in Melbourne's south-east on Thursday as part of the anti-bikie Echo Taskforce.
The State Emergency Service assisted police with floodlights, as it was still dark, at an address on Weston Street in Brunswick on Thursday morning, a spokeswoman confirmed.
Along with the firearm and drugs, a 48-year-old man was subsequently arrested at the Brunswick property, and charged with possessing an unregistered handgun and unlicensed ammunition as well as a drug of dependence.
No one was arrested and no items were seized at the Doveton property.
Victoria Police said the two search warrants had been executed as part of an ongoing operation.
"Echo Taskforce detectives have executed two warrants this morning, one each in Brunswick and Doveton, as part of an ongoing operation," a spokeswoman said. "As the investigation is ongoing, it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time."
The clubhouse has been the scene of violence in the past.
Former Bandidos enforcer Toby Mitchell was shot by two gunmen in an attempted hit outside the Brunswick clubhouse in 2011.
In 2014 a drunken passerby was beaten to death after taunting a dog tied up outside the clubhouse.
Echo Taskforce was launched in 2011 to tackle Victoria's outlaw bikie gangs.
Clemson, South Carolina, USA (August 1, 2019) BTN — It’s day three of the summer rally for the Hells Angels motorcycle club in Clemson.
On Wednesday, the bikers took to the field to play softball for a local charity. The east coast bikers played against the west coast to raise money for the Pickens County Advocacy Group.
There was some concern from the community as the “outlaw motorcycle club” headed to town, but we heard from a local “Hells Angels” biker for the first time who said it’s been a great week.
“All I can say is we are having a good time here in Clemson and everything’s been great,” said Phil Sierputowski.
Sierputowski tells 7News that the club picked Clemson for their annual rally because it’s the home of the national champions.
There was extra security on hand from Clemson Police and several federal agencies due to the crowds.
The bikers will have their last official event Wednesday evening, but officials anticipate many staying through the end of the week.
Tampa, Florida, USA (July 31, 2019) BTN – Two men this week will stand trial in the 2017 assassination of a rival motorcycle club leader who authorities said was shot and killed while sitting in his pickup truck in rush hour traffic in Pasco County.
The two defendants, Christopher “Durty” Cosimano, 31, and Michael “Pumpkin” Mencher, 52, are both alleged members of the Hillsborough County chapter of the 69’ers Motorcycle Club.
They sat together at the defense table as their murder trial started Tuesday. But their lawyers told jurors that someone else was to blame for the slaying of Paul Anderson, 44, president of the Cross Bayou chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club:
Mencher’s attorney told the jury that Cosimano shot Anderson.
Cosimano’s attorney said someone else — he did not say who — was responsible.
But prosecutors said it was Cosimano who pulled the trigger, and if he missed then Mencher was there to finish the job.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Natalie Adams walked the 16-person jury through the Dec. 21, 2017 assassination and the violent feud that led to it. Cosimano and Mencher rode motorcycles behind Anderson, tracking him. Both carried loaded guns, prosecutors say, and wore masks to hide their faces.
When Anderson took an exit on the Suncoast Parkway and stopped at a red traffic light near State Road 54, Cosimano walked up to the truck’s window, tapped on the glass, then shot the Outlaws leader several times with a Glock 45 semiautomatic pistol, according to prosecutors. “He was dead with his foot on the brake, and a phone in his hand,” said Adams as Cosimano and Mencher looked on, quietly.
The state accused Mencher of being Cosimano’s backup, prepared to kill Anderson if the 69’ers’ president messed up the hit. Anderson, the Outlaw leader, was killed “to claim territory, to demand respect,” Adams said. But Cosimano and Mencher’s attorneys challenged the state’s account of what happened and what motivated the shooting.
Defense attorney Anne Borghetti said her client, Mencher, was told by Cosimano that he wanted to go riding on Dec. 17, 2017. That’s all.
Cosimano never mentioned anything about Anderson, she said, or any plan to execute him. She also tried to minimize Mencher’s ties to the 69’ers, saying the gang treated him poorly, even sometimes leaving him behind at club events. They called Mencher “the village idiot,” she said, and Cosimano’s plan “was to blame Michael Mencher” for the shooting.
Cosimano’s attorney, J. Jervis Wise, said someone else executed Anderson in 2017, but did not name that person. Instead, he described the incident as a “rogue act” that the leader didn’t know about. The attorney said prosecutors are relying on testimony from 69’ers members who will do anything they can to reduce their jail time for involvement in the case.
“They will tell the government what they think the government wants to hear,” Wise said.
Both Cosimano and Mencher faces charges of first-degree murder and a slew of related charges, including conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering activity and use of a firearm in a crime of violence causing death. If convicted, each faces up to life in prison. Mencher also faces drug-related charges for his involvement in a cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine ring that prosecutors accuse the 69’ers of running.
Members of the 69’ers, including at least one who has already pleaded guilty to charges related to this case, are expected to testify on behalf of the government, the state told jurors. Three members of the 69’ers — Allan Burt “Big Beefy” Guinto, Erick Richard “Big E” Robinson and Cody James “Little Savage” Wesling — were indicted along with Cosimano and Mencher and accused of taking part in the plot to kill Anderson. They took plea deals earlier this year.
Authorities said the 2017 murder of Anderson was part of an escalating conflict between local chapters of two prominent and motorcycle clubs, the Outlaws and the 69’ers, whose Hillsborough branch called itself the “Killsborough” chapter.
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.
