Members of the Mongols Motorcycle Club
“Over the past five weeks you’ve been witness to a lengthy
parade of cruelty,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Welk said of the evidence
presented of the club’s criminal history since its founding in 1969. For the first time, federal prosecutors are trying to get a
motorcycle club found guilty of racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering
in order to have its trademark taken away. It would mean the club’s
motorcyclists could no longer wear the patches they wear on their “cuts,” slang
for leather jackets.
Welk argued that the club’s members commit a range of crimes
from drug trafficking to murder, all in service to the organization and at the
direction of its leaders.
He argued that “for the most part innocent civilians” are
often the ones who become the club’s victims because they “had the misfortune
to encounter members of this defendant organization.”
Mongol Nation’s members have a “twisted sense of honor” in
its “codes” of conduct “that are inconsistent with the rules of civilized
society,” Welk argued.
The trial featured about 40 witnesses, including former
Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, and about 200 exhibits, Welk noted. The patches Mongols wear on their leather jackets are meant
to be “messages and signals” to rival gang members and even the general public
that Mongols should be feared.
“A Hell’s Angel knows what that patch means,” Welk said.
“When they see that Road King vest with a skull-and-crossbones patch they know
what he did, that he killed… for his gang.”
A “civilian” might not quite understand the specific meaning
of a “murder patch” featuring the skull-and-crossbones, Welk argued, but they
get the general idea and are often the victims when they “offend” a Mongol.
“Their trigger mechanism is shockingly low,” Welk said. “So
those (patches) are powerful, not just to the men who want to wear them, but to
everyone.” Welk noted that Mongols are instructed to not wear their
leather jackets with patches in a car, and when they drive a car they are
taught to fold them in a way to conceal their affiliation with the club from
police.
“It’s all about protecting themselves because they are a
paranoid organization,” Welk argued. “They’re fearful and deeply suspicious of
the government.”
Even if one of its members gets a motorcycle stolen they are
told to not report the crime, but to instead report the vehicle missing so if
it’s found they can retrieve it, Welk said. Instead, the Mongols would rather
investigate a theft of their property on their own, he added.
“They consider themselves a law unto themselves,” Welk said. The club’s wives and girlfriends are considered “property,”
Welk said. And the gang is noted for its prejudice against
African-Americans, Welk argued.
Welk argued that Ventura testified that when his fellow club
members were about to discuss any illicit activity he would leave the room so
as not to be tied up with it.
“He was like I didn’t care, I didn’t know about it, I wasn’t
going to jail,” Welk said. “And that’s messed up.”
The Feds are going after the Mongols MC's logo
Ventura said after his testimony that he
considered the government’s attempts to seize the club’s trademark as a threat
to the First Amendment. “This is bigger than the Mongols club,” Ventura said.
“You’ve got the government… telling you what you can and cannot wear.”
He added, “The First Amendment is to protect unpopular
speech… Some people may think the Mongols are horrible, but they still have
equal rights under the Bill of Rights… Who’s next? The Shriners? Where does it
end? It’s a First Amendment issue top to bottom.” Ventura said he didn’t know anything about the crimes
federal prosecutors have alleged over the years.
“They did not have that when I was in it,” Ventura said of
his active membership in the gang, beginning in the early 1970s when the
ex-Navy SEAL returned home from the service. “There are cops who break the law, so do you devalue the
whole police force?” Ventura said.
Ventura said he wears a denim jacket he received as Mongol
when he goes out motorcycling. “That’s how old I am,” the 67-year-old Ventura said with a
chuckle. Ventura wondered what would happen if the government wins
its case. “Are they going to stop the 38th governor of Minnesota and
take his jacket?” Ventura said.
Attorney Joseph A. Yanny argued that the government’s case
is “the best book of fiction I’ve ever heard in my life.” Yanny said the government went after his client for racial reasons. “I believe this group has been targeted because they have a
lot of Mexican-Americans in there,” Yanny said.
Yanny argued that much of the government’s case rests on
testimony and quotes from documentaries from former members who made plea deals
with prosecutors. “People will sign anything to get a better deal for
themselves,” Yanny said, adding that one former head of the club denied in his
testimony that he did any of the crimes he pleaded guilty to.
“And they all got less time,” he said of the 70 some former
members who have pleaded guilty in cases stemming from undercover
investigations in which FBI and ATF agents infiltrated the club. “It’s time to send a message for sure to the ATF and U.S.
government,” Yanny said. “They shouldn’t afflict people this way.”
Yanny argued that the members who have committed crimes were
kicked out for violating “zero tolerance” policies against illicit activity
that draws the attention of law enforcement. Yanny even argued that one member
convicted of murder was wrongly convicted and that he would like to help the
man win his appeals.
“Rogue acts happen,” Yanny said. “Individual men have been
convicted.” Yanny accused federal prosecutors of taking the “wrongful
acts of a few individuals” and escalate it to a “group conviction.” “These are ordinary people,” he said of his clients. “They
are hardworking people. You don’t see the Hell’s Angels here. You see the
Mongols and minorities are easy to pick on and they typically don’t fight like
these guys do.”
SOURCE: My News LA
