Pagans MC: We were ambushed by the Hells Angels MC

Staunton, Virginia (October 4, 2018) BTN — During the early morning hours of Sept. 10 at the Hometown Inn near Greenville, five men — four of them reportedly members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and the other a prospect — were lying in wait after two members of the rival Pagan's Motorcycle Club were spotted across the street at the Pilot Travel Center.

Confiscated Pagan's MC Colors

Roughly 90 minutes later, as the two Pagan's pulled into the motel parking lot on their motorcycles, an ambush was unleashed, based on video evidence shown Thursday in Augusta County Circuit Court.

Related | Hells Angels MC members charged with violence

One of the Pagan's was shot, the other knocked off his motorcycle and beaten with a hammer.

Top left to top right: Andy Thongthawath, Richard West, Nathaniel Villaman, Joseph Paturzo ; Bottom left to bottom right: Buster Domingo, Anthony Milan, Dominick Eadicicco

Prior to the shooting, which took place shortly before 3 a.m., after the two Pagan's were seen at the travel center, one of the motorcycle gang members rousted four others from their rooms at the motel.

After the men took off their Hells Angels gear and changed into different clothing, one of the Hells Angels kept close tabs on the Pagan's across the street with binoculars. Another was seen holding an iPad in their direction as he presumably filmed them, motel surveillance video showed. Three other Hells Angels were nearby.

An hour and a half later, the Pagan's went to the Hometown Inn. The clerk, unaware there were now rival club members at the motel, gave them a room next to one of three rooms rented by the Hells Angels, according to evidence.

As the Pagan's pulled up to their room, one following the other, the second rider was knocked off his motorcycle as it was still moving. The rider in front wiped out as he attempted to escape the ambush, skidding his bike to the ground. As he ran, two Hells Angels opened fire on him, video showed. An investigator said four to five gunshots were fired.

The victim was struck once in the lower left side of his back. He survived the shooting and was released from the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville after a week-long stay, according to testimony.

The beating victim was not seriously injured. Both victims were members of the Pagan's Motorcycle Club out of southern Virginia, the sheriff's office said. Seven suspects were arrested at the scene. Two guns and a shell casing were recovered at the motel by investigators.

Following the shooting, Augusta County Sheriff Donald Smith said both groups were passing through the area following an unidentified convention.

Anthony Milan

One of two men accused of opening fire is Anthony Milan, 28, of East Elmhurst, New York. Milan is a prospective member of the Hells Angels in New York City, according to evidence. He appeared in Augusta County Circuit Court on Thursday in an attempt to get a bond set.

Dominick J. Eadicicco, 48, of Staten Island, New York, is also suspected of opening fire, evidence showed.

Milan, Eadiciccio and three others are charged with two counts of malicious wounding by a mob, along with single counts of conspiracy to maliciously wound, gang participation in a criminal act and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

In court Thursday, Milan, who has no prior felonies, was denied bond.

Two other Hells Angels were not charged in the attack but face drug and gun charges.

All seven suspects remain behind bars.

SOURCE: News Leader

Hells Angels MC: Three plead guilty to drug trafficking

Montreal, Quebec, Canada (October 3, 2018) BTN — Three full-patch members of the Hells Angels, including one of the clubs founding members in Canada, and a member of the Repentigny police pleaded guilty to various drug trafficking charges at the Montreal courthouse on Wednesday.

Twenty people in all appeared before Quebec Court Judge Daniel Bédard inside a fifth floor courtroom that was humming with activity throughout the day as almost every remaining case in Project Objection, a major investigation into three drug trafficking networks run by the Hells Angels, came to end only six months after arrests were made in April.

“I’m very impressed,” Bédard remarked at one point as several drug dealers pleaded guilty to charges that will result in them serving time inside federal penitentiaries.

The person who ended up with the longest sentence, a six-year prison term, was Stéphane Maheu, 47, a member of the gang’s South chapter. He had been sought by members of the Escouade nationale de répression contre le crime organisé (ENRCO) since April, but suddenly emerged at the Montreal courthouse on Wednesday.

Despite having been a wanted man for months, Maheu was able to walk around the courthouse freely before he appeared before Bédard and admitted he led a network that sold cocaine and methamphetamine in different parts of Quebec.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of drug trafficking, two counts of conspiracy, and a gangsterism charge. According to a joint statement of facts read into the court record, a group run by Maheu also sold nearly 300,000 methamphetamine pills in the Outaouais region while under investigation. The Hells Angel also assigned two men to run a drug trafficking ring in Cowansville and Granby, but one of the men turned out to be a civilian undercover agent who was working for ENRCO. Maheu received “a tax” on the 42,000 meth pills and 177 ounces of cocaine that were sold in the Eastern Townships.

Maheu was taken into custody as soon as Bédard accepted the guilty plea.

“Everything is perfectly clear,” Maheu said when Bédard asked him if he understood what he was admitting to.

Michel (Sky) Langlois, 72, one of the first men to ever wear the Hells Angels logo in Canada when he became a founding member of the Montreal chapter in 1977, was also done in by the same undercover agent. On Aug. 9, 2017, Langlois and Maheu met with the agent at La Medusa, a restaurant on Drummond St., to discuss the distribution of drugs in the Outaouais region. The agent learned that Langlois claimed to have title over drug trafficking in Petite Nation, a regional county municipality in the Outaouais region and was partners in the nearly 300,000 meth pills Maheu sold as well as six kilograms of hashish.

Langlois was sentenced to an overall prison term of 58 months.

Hells Angel MC member Stéphane Maheu leaves the courtroom during a break in proceedings on Wednesday. Maheu received a six-year sentence after pleading guilty to drug-trafficking charges.

When Bédard asked him if he understood what he was admitting to the septuagenarian biker said “yes” in a long and drawn-out way that left Bédard unimpressed.

“Yeah, yeah,” Langlois said when the judge asked him a second time.

The same undercover agent met with Louis Matte, 52, the other Hells Angel who pleaded guilty on Wednesday, on Oct. 17, 2017 to discuss drug trafficking in Ontario near the Quebec border. Matte gave the agent a sketch of the territory he controlled in Ontario and the agent agreed to pay him a tax on all the meth pills he sold on Matte’s turf. The agent ended up paying Matte $22,000 over the course of four meetings.

Prosecutor Marjorie Delagrave and defence lawyer Gilles Doré made a common suggestion that Matte should be sentenced to a 22-month prison term. Doré asked Bédard to delay sentencing the biker until January because a close relative of Matte’s is very ill.

The last person to plead guilty on Wednesday was Carl Ranger, a member of the Repentigny police who was suspended following his arrest this year. Ranger met with the undercover agent in August 2017 and asked if he could borrow $6,000. The agent said the loan came with a cost and asked Ranger to look up a licence plate number for him in a police database. While on duty, on Oct. 3, 2017, Ranger handed the agent the information he was looking for in exchange for $1,100. Later on, in February, Ranger offered to transport 10,000 meth pills from Lachenaie to Boucherville and returned with $10,000 from a drug dealer. He was paid $1,000 for his work.

Prosecutor Françis Pilotte asked that Ranger be sentenced to an 18-month prison term. His defence lawyer asked that Bédard delay his decision on the sentence until January as well.

Included among the people who pleaded guilty on Wednesday was Carmelo Sacco, a 36-year-old resident of Ste-Adèle who admitted to being the leader of a methamphetamine trafficking ring that operated in eastern Montreal and the southern part of the Lanaudière region.

Prosecutor Juliana Côté described how accounting records seized in Project Objection revealed the group led by Sacco sold more than 2.5 million meth pills and seven kilos of cocaine between Oct. 7, 2017 and Feb. 18 of this year. The group is estimated to have made $1.7 million in sales during the same period. Sacco was sentenced to an overall prison term of 53 months.

SOURCE: Montreal Gazette

Bandidos MC: Snitch gets 15 years without parole

San Antonio, TX. (October 3, 2018) BTN — A former high-ranking member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club who helped federal authorities convict the top two leaders of the club received 15 years without parole Wednesday, making a tearful apology and promising to continue to cooperate.

“I’m remorseful for what I’ve done. I apologize to the family of Anthony Benesh,” “Downtown” Johnny Romo, 48, told the judge, crying.  "I took a man’s life. It’s been a heavy burden on me for many years. Now I have to live with it.”

Romo rose to become a sergeant-at-arms in the Bandidos’ national chapter before he turned informant and became a key prosecution witness in the three-month trial of former national president Jeffrey Fay Pike and then-vice president John Xavier Portillo. The pair was sentenced last week to life in prison without parole for leading the Bandidos’ racketeering conspiracy.

Romo faced up to life in prison without parole in the 2006 murder of a member of the Hell’s Angels, but because he provided substantial assistance, prosecutors filed a motion seeking a reduction in sentence.

His cooperation came with a price.

Prosecutor Eric Fuchs told Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra that Romo was the top-ranking cooperator in their racketeering case and now has a “green light” over his head. The feds recovered a letter signed from ex-vice president John Portillo authorizing the hit on Romo, Fuchs said.

Despite that threat, Romo said he would testify again if necessary.

“I will continue to cooperate with the government if they ever need an expert witness on an outlaw motorcycle gang, ” Romo told the judge.

Over two days on the stand in March, Romo testified that Portillo, a national Bandidos sergeant-at-arms at the time, passed down a directive from president Pike that Romo was to put a squad together to kill Anthony Benesh, who had planned to start a Hells Angels chapter in Austin. The beef was over territory. Texas is considered the Bandidos’ homeland and turf.

Romo said he picked full-patch members of the Bandidos and his own brother, Robert Romo, who was trying to join the club. They took the information Portillo had provided about Benesh, watched for their quarry for two days at his house and followed him as he went to eat at a pizza restaurant in Northwest Austin.

On a Saturday evening in March 2006, Benesh was killed by a rifle bullet in front of his girlfriend and two sons. According to testimony from the Romos, Robert Romo delivered the fatal shot from a scope-fitted hunting rifle as Johnny Romo, in a separate car, gave him instructions over a two-way radio.

Johnny Romo testified that the hit made him Pike’s go-to person for carrying out “beat-downs” and other similar enforcement tasks. His jobs included revoking the patches of Bandidos members in Central American chapters during a period of infighting within the biker club, which had chapters worldwide.

Romo began cooperating with federal authorities in spring 2014 after a drug arrest. He wore a wire to record Portillo and other members of the organization make incriminating statements. But Romo also withheld information that he’d been involved in Benesh’s killing. He didn’t mention it until agents confronted him after he’d already been sentenced to 24 months in prison on drug charges — far less than the 60 months he originally faced.

The Romos pleaded guilty in September 2017 to murder and firearm charges in aid of racketeering in connection with Benesh’s killing. Two members of the Bandidos’ San Antonio Centro Chapter, Norberto “Hammer” Serna Jr., 37, and Jesse James “Kronic” Benavidez, 41, pleaded guilty in September 2017 to discharging a firearm during murder in aid of racketeering because they were part of the Benesh hit crew.

During the sentencing Wednesday, Johnny Romo shed tears and paused several times when his voice broke as he apologized for killing Benesh.

“He was a father to his children that I took away,” Romo said. “He was somebody’s son, a brother, an uncle, a cousin, and a friend to someone. Everyone is suffering for what I’ve done."

“I apologize to the court and society. I apologize to my family here for letting (them) down.”

SOURCE: My San Antonio

Outlaws MC: Former leader pleads guilty to racketeering

Schererville, IN. (October 3, 2018) BTN — Orville Cochran, a former leader of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club has pleaded guilty to one count in a four-count federal indictment — racketeering conspiracy. He and others are alleged to have conspired to assault and murder members of rival biker groups in Indiana in the 1990s. In 2001, a warrant was issued for Cochran’s arrest, out of Milwaukee, by the U.S. Marshals.

According to the federal indictment, Cochran and others employed by or associated with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, between January of 1988 through at least May of 2001 committed “murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, arson, attempted arson, conspiracy to commit arson, extortion, attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion and narcotics trafficking in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, New York and Wisconsin — with the defendants agreeing that a conspirator would commit at least two acts of racketeering.

During this time period, the indictment says Cochran was a member or president of the Chicago Southside Chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club — part of the “Midwestern White Region” of the international organization.

The indictment says the Outlaws had a longstanding rivalry with the Hell’s Angels biker club and their affiliates, and until around 1993, the Outlaws controlled the Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana territory — with the closest Hell’s Angels chapter located in Minneapolis. In late 1993 or early 1994, leaders of the Outlaws believed the Hell’s Angels might be trying to gain a presence in the Outlaw’s “White Region” territory by “patching over” one of their affiliates that was present in Chicago, Rockford, Calumet City, Ill. and South Bend, Ind.

Outlaws members agreed “they would engage in a series of assaults” against the “Hell’s Henchmen” and other affiliates to discourage them from becoming Hell’s Angels chapters, and to prevent the Hell’s Angels from infiltrating their territory. They also agreed they would support other Outlaws chapters dealing with similar rivalries — considering themselves to be “at war” with rival biker clubs.

According to federal prosecutors “in furtherance of this war, various members of the White Region committed racketeering offenses.”

In June of 1994, Cochran and other Outlaws traveled to the Illiana Motor Speedway in Schererville, Ind. “to assault rival bikers” at an event known as “Summer Madness.” The then-Outlaws VP told investigators the “assaults” could include beating the rival bikers, running them over with a car or motorcycle or shooting them “to discourage Hell’s Angels affiliate club members from continuing to associate with the Hell’s Angels — and send a message to the Hell’s Angels that their presence would not be tolerated in Outlaws territory.

The indictment notes Outlaws members from Milwaukee and Wisconsin planned to attend this event — with CCW permit holders “directed to arm themselves” and two vans, one armored from Milwaukee, containing firearms and other weapons, were brought to Indiana as part of the “Outlaws caravan” to the speedway.

The night before the event, the indictment says Outlaws members learned their regional boss had been shot and seriously injured while riding on the Dan Ryan expressway in Chicago after leaving an event at the Gary clubhouse in Indiana. Outlaws members believed the Hell’s Henchmen were responsible — with the Hell’s Angels courting them. The Outlaws’ animosity for the Hell’s Angels grew after this incident.

On June 26, 1994, the boss of the Gary Outlaws assembled the group in Gary for the ride to the speedway. There, they set up their two armored vans, and duties were assigned to the members in attendance. An Outlaws member said the Indianapolis chapter boss said if rival bikers were present, Outlaws “were to shoot to kill.”

According to the indictment, during the event, Outlaws approached an ATF agent and some sheriff’s deputies and asked why the ATF wasn’t in Chicago “arresting Hell’s Henchmen,” stating that if rival bikers showed up “there would be dead bodies all around.”

As it turned out, no rival bikers showed up, and the Outlaws packed up and left. The procession was followed, and the second armored van ended up stopped by police. A driver and five passengers from the Milwaukee Outlaws chapter were inside, along with numerous weapons and rounds of ammunition.

In June of 1996, the indictment says Cochran and other Outlaws traveled to the US 41 International Dragway in Morocco, Ind., “to assault and kill members of rival biker groups.” This, after the Outlaws learned the Hell’s Angels had a big presence at this event in 1995, and they reserved several hundred tickets for 1996. Two old surplus-type police vehicles were used for security by the Outlaws at the event — with firearms concealed inside.

Ultimately, rain resulted in the cancellation of the event — and most people left, but the Outlaws remained for three days. No rival bikers showed up.

Cochran faces up to 20 years in prison, and $250,000 in fines, along with a $100 special assessment and three years of supervised release.

SOURCE: Fox6 Now