Hells Angels Club President Released

Oakland California, USA (September 10, 2020) BTN - A federal magistrate judge signed off on the release of a high-ranking Sonoma Hells Angels member, who is facing charges that he participated in a plot to murder a fellow club member who had fallen out of favor with the club.

But the Thursday morning order by U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi is not the end of the debate; the U.S. Attorney’s office is appealing the release order, meaning that the defendant, Jonathan “Jon Jon” Nelson, will remain at Santa Rita Jail for the time being.

If Nelson’s release is approved, he will be required to adhere to certain conditions; he is forbidden from interacting with other Hells Angels members or going to clubhouses. He will also be forbidden from using a computer or the internet and be limited to a flip phone.

Nelson, named by federal prosecutors as the president of the Hells Angels Sonoma Chapter, was indicted in 2017 as part of a large-scale investigation into the Hells Angels. Eleven club members — most of whom were tied to the Sonoma Club — were charged with racketeering and engaging in serious violent crimes, including murder.

But Nelson’s attorneys have painted him as a “father, son, coach, and small business owner” who is well-respected in the Sonoma area. One of the biggest defense points in favor of releasing Nelson was that he spent several months out of jail after the 2017 indictment.

He was detained in September 2018, when prosecutors filed new charges that made Nelson eligible for the death penalty. When the government decided not to pursue death in this case, Nelson’s attorney have moved for him to be released from jail.

“I believe one important fact in Mr. Nelson’s favor was his previous good performance while released in this case for over nine months on the previous indictment,” said Jai Gohel, one of Nelson’s lawyers. “Also, it is clear that the fact that Mr. Nelson no longer faces the death penalty was enough to tip the balance towards his release.”

Nelson is facing charges that he conspired with several other Hells Angels to murder Joel Silva, a former Hells Angels sergeant-at-arms who prosecutors say had fallen out of favor with his fellow club members. Prosecutors allege that Nelson lured Silva to the Fresno clubhouse, where another member shot him in the head. Silva was illegally cremated at a nearby funeral home, according to prosecutors. Brian Wendt, the president of the Fresno Hells Angels chapter, is alleged to have pulled the trigger.

SOURCE: The Mercury News

Roar To The Shore Event Canceled

Wildwood, New Jersey, USA(September 10, 2020) BTN - Members of the Pagan's Motorcycle Club are expected to be in the resort this weekend, police said, even though an annual motorcycle event they frequent has been canceled.

Police are aware that members of the club will be in the city this weekend, police Chief Robert Regalbuto said Thursday, adding he doesn’t know what they’ll be doing as there’s no event attached to their visit.

“Everybody’s welcome here; anyone who rides a motorcycle is welcome to come to town,” Mayor Pete Byron said. “We just hope that they remain respectful and regard the rules on the governor’s orders. We welcome everyone to town.”

The Pagan's are a fixture at Roar to the Shore, an annual motorcycle event in the city, as it’s a “mandatory run” for club members in the state. However, the event was canceled this year after the city denied organizers necessary permits, according to the event’s website.

The city paid about $40,000 for police overtime at last year’s Roar to the Shore, according to previous reports. In a Facebook post, police listed 26 arrests during the event for charges ranging from possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose to possession of a controlled dangerous substance, but it was unclear whether all the charges listed were filed against Roar participants.

SOURCE: The Press Of Atlantic City

Hells Angels Member Denied Parole

Quebec, Canada (September 8, 2020) - A founding charter member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in Quebec has been denied parole on a drug-trafficking sentence — in part because he remains loyal to the motorcycle club.

Michel (Sky) Langlois, 74, also told the Parole Board of Canada he is not interested in being transferred to a halfway house because he fears contracting the coronavirus. He was denied both full parole and day parole. During a hearing held last week, Langlois’s case management team recommended day parole was acceptable in his case but full parole would be “premature.”

Langlois was arrested in April 2018 in Project Objection, a probe led by the Escouade nationale de répression contre le crime organisé (ENRCO). The investigation alleged a few Hells Angels based in Quebec, including Langlois, controlled drug networks in specific locations across the province.

An undercover agent met with Langlois and another Hells Angel on Aug. 9, 2017 at restaurant on Drummond St. in downtown Montreal to discuss the distribution of drugs in the Outaouais region. The agent learned Langlois claimed to have title over drug trafficking in Petite Nation, a regional county municipality, and was partners in the distribution of nearly 300,000 meth pills and several kilos of hashish.

On Oct. 3, 2018, Langlois pleaded guilty at the Montreal courthouse to charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy and gangsterism charges. His sentence left him with a prison term of just under 33 months. At the time, Langlois agreed with a summary of facts that were read into the court record. But he told a different story to the parole board last week — that he was merely helping a friend by selling meth and never saw the drugs being sold.

A written summary of the board’s decision indicates Langlois worked on a farm as a teenager before he left for Montreal. In 1963, he began to hang around with the Popeyes, another of Quebec’s motorcycle club at the time.

In 1977, Langlois and several members of the Popeyes were recruited into the Hells Angels and formed the clubs’s first chapter in Canada, based in Montreal. In 1997, he became a founding member of the club’s South chapter, based on the South Shore.

Langlois does not deny he is a Hells Angel but, he told the board he “never committed an offence at their incitation,” according to the summary.

“You do not consider the Hells Angels to be a criminal organization and you adhere to this group solely out of a love for motorcycles and that the group does not recommend to its members that they commit crimes,” it says.

The parole board noted Langlois has been a model inmate who worked in the penitentiary’s library before it was forced to close because of the pandemic. But the board could not overlook the fact Langlois continues to meet with organized crime figures while behind bars.

Langlois will become eligible for a statutory release sometime next year.

SOURCE: Montreal Gazette

Hells Angels Host Charity Event

Akron, Ohio, USA (September 8, 2020) BTN - An annual lemonade stand that raises money for children battling cancer is coming to a local Hells Angels Motorcycle Club this year. Kiely’s Lemonade Stand helps raise money each year for families staying at the Ronald McDonald House of Akron with children who are battling cancer.

The fundraiser, which usually is held in Streetsboro, will take place this year in Akron. Brandy Taylor said the Akron Hells Angels Motorcycle Club volunteered space this year to host the seventh annual event.

Taylor said the lemonade stand started after her daughter Kiely’s two cousins, Ryland and Jocelyn, were diagnosed with brain cancer. Taylor said the brother and sister were diagnosed in 2011 and 2012, and are now cancer free.

Kiely's Lemonade Stand

She said the Ronald McDonald House was amazing with helping out the family, which inspired the family to organize the stand each year.

The event will take place from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 13. Rather than selling lemonade and cookies for a fixed price, patrons can choose their donation, Taylor said. The club is at 560 N. Howard St. in Akron.

Taylor said they’ll also hold raffles for gift cards and other items donated before the stand opens up. Since the fundraiser started, she said they’ve raised close to $18,000. Taylor said they’ve donated to 17 families so far.

Part of the proceeds also go to making goodie bags each Christmas for children battling cancer. Last year, 50 bags were given to children in the hospital over the holidays.

People interested in learning more can visit facebook.com/KielysLemonadeStand

Reported Gunfight Between Rival Clubs

Houston, Texas, USA (September 6, 2020) BTN - Three people were shot Saturday during a gunfight outside a southwest Houston bar. It happened in the 9900 block of Fondren around 11:30 p.m.

The shooting happened as rival motorcycle clubs fought in the parking lot, investigators said. One person was shot five times and was last listed in critical condition. Two others were wounded but are expected to survive.


Witnesses were not cooperating with police as they worked to find out what led to the violence, Houston police said. No arrests had been made as of Sunday morning.

SOURCE: ABC13

Convictions Reversed in Hells Angels Case

Montreal, Canada (September 6, 2020) BTN - Four people who were convicted four years ago on charges alleging they helped three Hells Angels members launder their money have succeeded in having their convictions reversed on appeal.

In a decision released on Thursday, the Quebec Court of Appeal ordered that the trial of Richard Felx, 62, Michel Ste-Marie, 75, and his children Dax, 45, and Marie Ste-Marie, 47, should not have proceeded.

All four were first charged in 2009 in Operation Diligence, an investigation led by the Sûreté du Québec, into how members of the Hells Angels based in Quebec had infiltrated specific segments of the province’s construction industry. As part of the same investigation, Felx, a former notary, and the others, were found to have helped Normand (Casper) Ouimet, 51, Martin Robert, 45, and Alain Durand, all full patch members of the motorcycle club, hide their money.

In a trial held at the Laval courthouse in 2016, Quebec Court Judge Gilles Garneau found all four guilty of money laundering, conspiracy and gangsterism. Felx’s role was to create trusts and an offshore company in Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, where he was able to send his clients’ money.

Ste-Marie and his children had a company that specialized in credit recovery and helped the three Hells Angels move their money around and into offshore bank accounts based in Mauritius. They charged a 10-per-cent commission on their transactions.

After they were convicted, Felx and the others were sentenced to prison terms of between 42 and 66 months.

But before the trial started, Garneau was asked to rule on a defence motion arguing it took the prosecution too long to prosecute the case. The four accused were first charged, along with Ouimet and Robert, in 2009 and the trial began seven years later. The motion was even argued before the Supreme Court of Canada issued a decision in 2016, commonly referred to as the Jordan ruling, setting very strict limits on how long a person charged with a crime should expect to wait before they have a trial.

Garneau ruled that, while he agreed it took the prosecution too long to bring the case to trial, placing a stay of proceedings on the charges would not have been an appropriate remedy in their case. Garneau wrote that “society has a certain and primordial interest in seeing the accused undergo their trial.”

On Thursday, three Quebec Court of Appeal judges issued their unanimous decision. They ruled that the only remedy available was to have a stay of proceedings placed on the charges filed against all four. They quashed the guilty verdicts and ordered a stay of proceedings on the charges.

“The first (error in Garneau’s decision) is an assumption that an appropriate remedy allows a measure of discretion in the assessment of various factors and that this discretion allows a judge to decline a stay of proceedings if he or she should conclude that it is not an appropriate and just remedy. An unbroken line of jurisprudence since (a precedent-setting case) has held that the only available remedy for a finding of unreasonable delay is a stay of proceeding,” Superior Court Justice Patrick Healey wrote on behalf of all three of the appellate court judges.

SOURCE: Montreal Gazette 

Rebel's Last Ride

June 22, 2020 BTN — Donald Charles Davis, AKA Rebel passed away at approximately 5:00 PM PST on June 19, 2020. Five days earlier, he suffered critical injuries related to an accidental fall. Don was the founder of the Aging Rebel website and author of Out Bad, Expect No Mercy, and The Twin Peaks Ambush.

Don was a notorious supporter, defender, and advocate for the freedom of the outlaw motorcycle club communities. Don was a Vietnam War Veteran, an unwavering defender of his truths, and a man loved and admired by his community.

From the man himself

The Aging Rebel has lived what cynics call an “interesting” life that has included writing for two newspapers.

He was hired by a daily in Massachusetts by mistake when he applied for a job on the loading dock. And, he was fired from another paper in Indiana when, as his Editor put it, that fine journal decided “to project an image of professionalism and respectability.”

He has also been fired from jobs at magazines and has unsuccessfully pursued careers as an autoworker, laborer, ditch digger, warehouseman, window maker, house framer, art forger, novelist and telephone salesman.

Because he loves children, he has always done his best to keep the world from running out of a babies. And, because he loves women he is usually married. Generally unemployed, he likes motorcycles and lifting weights and his ambitions include winning the lottery. Some people say he now lives, more or less, in El Lay.

Marnie, Rebel’s life partner, has created a Gofundme account to support his loved ones with the costs of his memorial and end of life requests in alignment with his personal last will and testament. Link is below.

The staff of the Biker Trash Network sends it's deepest condolences to his loved ones and family.

Major Win For Hells Angels MC

Nanaimo, BC, Canada (June 15, 2020) BTN — British Columbia’s Supreme Court has curtailed the sweeping powers of the provincial Civil Forfeiture Office in a ruling that concluded it could not seize three Hells Angels clubhouses based on a belief that they would be used for future criminal activity.

In a 321-page decision released late last week, Justice Barry Davies struck down a core provision of the provincial Civil Forfeiture Act as unconstitutional, ruling the office’s targeting of property because it is likely to be used to commit crimes in the future intrudes into criminal law – “the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal legislature."

The Hells Angels clubhouse in Nanaimo was seized in 2007

To illustrate his reasoning, Justice Davies posited that, under B.C.'s civil-forfeiture law, dangerous drivers who had served their sentence for killing or severely injuring a pedestrian could have their new car seized as “a future instrument of unlawful activity.” The law’s speculation over potential new crimes also runs counter to the “principles of sentencing enacted by the Parliament of Canada under the Code that have as an objective the rehabilitation of offenders,” he wrote.

Rick Ciarniello, a long-time Hells Angel who acts as a spokesperson for the bikers and who testified in the trial, said Hells Angels living in Manitoba and all parts farther west were asked for monthly donations to fund the 13-year legal fight, which cost more than a million dollars.

“We were probably the wrong people to fight this, but the only ones that had the resources and wherewithal to do it,” Mr. Ciarnello told The Globe and Mail on Sunday. “These were not just the rights of Hells Angels that were being violated; what we did here is we fought for the rights of all British Columbians."

Related | Hells Angels lose clubhouse to forfeiture

Related | Hells Angels MC still fighting for their clubhouse

The judge found the office was only able to prove that the B.C. Hells Angels, an organization with a reputation for violence and multiple members convicted of serious crimes, used their Vancouver clubhouse for a trio of cocaine and methamphetamine deals at least 15 years ago. Justice Davies said it is possible the bikers or their associates could once again use this clubhouse and the two others for such crimes, but the provincial agency did not prove that this is likely.

The office launched its case involving the Nanaimo clubhouse in late 2007. It began proceedings against the Vancouver and Kelowna clubhouses in 2012.

Hope Latham, a spokesperson for B.C.’s Solicitor-General and Minister of Public Safety, whose office oversees the civil-forfeiture system, said it was too early to say whether the ruling would be appealed to the province’s highest court. “For now, the Civil Forfeiture Office and its counsel will take time to review the court’s findings,” she said in an e-mailed statement.

Joseph Arvay, lead lawyer for the Hells Angels in the case, said not only was the law unconstitutional, but the office’s interpretation of the legislation was an overreach. As well, he added, the office had “all the resources imaginable” to prove the clubhouses were instruments of crime and failed to do so.

“Say what you will about the Hells Angels but I think they made an important stand,” Mr. Arvay said. “Almost everybody settles these cases because the risks of going to trial are so great.”

In a 2016 report, the Canadian Constitution Foundation, Calgary-based civil-liberties advocates, looked at eight provincial civil-forfeiture programs across the country and found they often trampled on the rights of citizens and seized property from innocent people. It gave the civil-forfeiture systems in B.C. and Ontario an "F" grade.

Lawyer Bibhas Vaze, who is representing a client in another trial arguing the civil-forfeiture system is unconstitutional, said the ruling is another clear rebuke to the office’s practices. He said in recent years clients have had to sign consent orders to keep their property but allow the office to seize it in the future if the office conducts a spot inspection that uncovers alleged criminal activity.

“The director is engaging in future policing, that’s unconstitutional,” Mr. Vaze said. “There’s a lot of people who think that fairness in the law only applies to certain sets of people, but we’re seeing across North America right now that people are finally cluing in that when you don’t take fairness seriously it results in rampant inequality in our world.”

SOURCE: Times Colonist