Hells Angels MC clubhouse to remain closed

Haarlem, Amsterdam (April 24, 2019) BTN — The mayor of Haarlem has closed the clubhouse of the Haarlem Hells Angels motorcycle club and has determined that it must remain closed for at least two years. The Council of State states that on Wednesday.

The Council of State is the highest administrative body for administrative law in the Netherlands.

This means that the mayor will not have to process another request for the reopening of the clubhouse located behind Central Station until next year. The Council of State is of the opinion that the mayor has sufficiently demonstrated that ninety motorcycle club members have committed crimes in the clubhouse in the past. The members were sentenced for this with penalties ranging from one to nine years.

Related | Hells Angels want clubhouse back

If the motorcycle club submits a request for reopening in early 2020, it must unambiguously demonstrate that no offenses will be committed in the clubhouse. The ruling is a damper for the Hells Angels. Earlier they successfully opposed the closure of the clubhouse for an indefinite period. The mayor then decided in early 2018 that the building would be locked for at least two years.

The motorcycle club previously wanted to request a reopening. According to the members, there is no longer any chance of criminal activities in the clubhouse. In addition, they believe that the mayor, by not taking a reopening request into consideration, affects the right to association.

The Council of State sees it differently and supports the line of the mayor.

SOURCE: Nu.nl

Alleged Outlaws MC member jailed for battery

Ocala, Florida, USA (April 23, 2019) BTN — Marion County sheriff’s deputies scrambled to Sharkey’s Bar, located at 10163 SW Hwy. 484, shortly before 3:30 a.m. When they arrived, they found a man who had been shot in his right arm. He was then transported to AdventHealth Ocala for treatment.

A witness told deputies that 28-year-old Robert Patrick Wilson had been in an altercation with the shooting victim. The witness said he tried to break up the fight and the victim exited the bar and started walking toward his vehicle. He said he then heard two shots come from behind him in front of the bar and he took cover behind a vehicle, the report says, adding that the witness said he planned to sneak up behind Wilson and take the gun away.

Another witness told deputies that he’d known Wilson for some time and had “never seen him act like this.” He said he had been talking with him earlier in the evening and after last call, an altercation broke out between Wilson and another man. He said he wasn’t sure what that altercation was about but believed a second altercation then broke out between Wilson and the shooting victim, the report says.

The witness said that Wilson was “freaking out” and allegedly saying, “I am part of the Outlaw gang” and “He is going to be dead in the parking lot.” He said Wilson said, “He’s a dead man” multiple times. And the witness said he tried to call Wilson down several times before the shooting took place, the report says.

The witness said he believed Wilson eventually had calmed down, so he went outside to speak with the victim, who was standing across the parking lot next to his vehicle. He said he then heard a gunshot and turned to see Wilson standing in front of the bar holding a gun, the report says.

The witness reported hearing two shots altogether and then called 911. And he said he saw a bartender and another bar employee surround Wilson and take him to the other side of the building.

Deputies also spoke with a bartender, who said she came out of a bathroom and saw Wilson holding a small handgun. She said he was waving it around and appeared to have the slide in the locked-back position. And she said she followed Wilson as he ran to the other side of the bar to make sure he didn’t leave, the report says.

After two other witnesses told the same account of the shooting, a sheriff’s K-9 deputy responded to the bar and his dog located a black-and-silver SCCY 9mm handgun near where Wilson had been detained. It had three rounds in the magazine, one round in the chamber and was jammed with the slide locked in the back position, the report says.

During the investigation, it was determined that Wilson, who was wearing an Outlaws motorcycle club vest, is a convicted felon and didn’t have a concealed weapons permit. He appeared to be intoxicated, was slurring his words and smelled of alcohol. And after being read his rights, he refused to speak with the deputy, the report says.

Wilson was transported to the Marion County Jail and charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon or firearm, using a firearm under the influence of alcohol, firing a weapon in public, possession of a weapon or ammunition by a convicted United States felon, displaying a firearm during a felony and carrying an unlicensed concealed firearm. He is due in a Marion County courtroom on May 21 at 9 a.m. to answer to the six charges.

SOURCE: Ocala-News

Pagan's MC clubhouse raided

Everett, MA, USA (April 22, 2019) BTN — A nighttime raid on the Pagan's Motorcycle Club in Everett ended with three men arrested — and two arraigned Monday on weapons charges, according to authorities.

A tactical squad of state troopers burst into a suspected Pagan's Motorcycle Clubhouse on Orient Avenue in Everett around 10:15 p.m. Friday, according to Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan’s office.

As the staties — including the State Police Special Tactical Operations Team — entered, they identified about a dozen Pagan's Motorcycle Club members wearing their club affiliation patches and other insignia, as well as several other people hanging out there, the DA said.

Cops say a search of the building turned up an illegal cash bar — and four illegally possessed semi-automatic handguns with loaded magazines, as well as another magazine containing ammunition.

The state police arrested James Snow, 28, of Tewksbury, who was arraigned Monday on two counts of illegal possession of a firearm, illegal possession of a large-capacity feeding device and two counts each of illegal possession of ammunition and improper storage of a firearm. Judge Jane D. Prince set bail at $1,000 — and then ordered bail revoked on an open firearms case out of Lowell District Court, so Snow remains behind bars, according to Ryan’s office.

Jeff Wentworth, 47, of Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire, also was arrested and was arraigned Monday on charges of illegal possession of a firearm, illegal possession of ammunition and improper storage of a firearm. Prince ordered the defendant released on $500 bail.

Wentworth and Snow are due back in court on May 21.

The cops also arrested Marcus Basiliere, 26, of Derry, N.H., on an open larceny warrant from the Granite state for larceny. Basiliere was arraigned in Malden District Court as a fugitive from justice. The judge ordered him held without bail pending extradition to his home state. His next court date is May 1.

The Pagan's Motorcycle Club — also known as PMC or simply the Pagan's — is an East Coast motorcycle club that’s been around since 1959, according to various media reports, which have cited cops as saying that the club can be violent. The investigation remains ongoing.

SOURCE:

Gary Gauger: Investigating innocence claims

McHenry County, Illinois, USA (April 22, 2019) BTN — Gary Gauger awoke early the morning of April 8, 1993, to a heavy rainfall beating on the windows of his Richmond home, dampening his plans to transplant seedlings on the family farm.

While Gauger went back to sleep, two members of the Outlaws motorcycle club made their way to the motorcycle repair shop that Gauger’s father operated in a garage near the farm. Although Outlaws members James Schneider and Randall Miller were responsible for robbing and murdering Ruth and Morrie Gauger that day, it would take law enforcement three years to come to that conclusion.

In the meantime, Gary Gauger was pinned for his parents’ murders and sentenced to death by lethal injection. After serving 3½ years in prison and nine months on death row, his conviction was overturned in 1996.

Exonerated McHenry County men weigh in on proposed legislation

Gauger was aided in his appeal process by Northwestern University Law Professor Lawrence Marshall, who founded the Center on Wrongful Convictions. “The police get a theory on what happened and they don’t seem to care if it doesn’t match the facts,” Gauger said. “They just work on their theory.”

Illinois Innocence Project co-founder Bill Clutter asked Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul last week to support legislation that would create a “conviction integrity unit” to investigate innocence claims. A statewide unit in Illinois would benefit counties that don’t have the funds to implement their own conviction review boards, or simply don’t see enough claims of actual innocence to justify an integrity unit, Clutter said.

Today Gauger, 65, lives on a farm just yards away from the site of his parents’ murder. He leads a quiet, secluded life with his wife, Sue Reckenthaler, and their dog, Diego. “This is my home,” Gauger said Wednesday. “I’m not going to let those guys run me out of my home.”

Gauger’s case is one of two in McHenry County in which perjury or false accusations, official misconduct, and false confessions have led to convictions and subsequent exonerations since 1989, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. 

Mario Casciaro was convicted in March 2013 of killing Johnsburg teen Brian Carrick. He served 22 months in the Menard Correctional Center on a 26-year sentence before the Second District Appellate Court overturned his conviction in September 2015. 

Although he doesn’t feel McHenry County is “progressive enough” for its own integrity unit, the area would benefit from a statewide effort, he said. “McHenry County specifically is probably a little bit too small right now, but in the future, if there’s continued growth in the population, I imagine there should be an independent conviction investigation unit,” Casciaro said.

Illinois has a history of wrongful convictions. Former Gov. George Ryan labeled the state’s system of capital punishment “haunted by the demon of error” when he halted executions in 2000. 

By the time Illinois abolished the Death Penalty in 2011, wrongful death sentences imposed on 20 people had been reversed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. 

The Illinois Second District Appellate Court, which includes McHenry County, saw 445 criminal appeals in 2017, according to the Administrative Office of Illinois Courts. Of those, 393 cases were disposed. 

In Cook County, where former state’s attorney Anita Alvarez created a Chicago-based conviction integrity unit in 2012, the office receives about 150 applications annually from those convicted of felonies, but many do not meet criteria for review, spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said. 

Seventy convictions have been reversed since 2017, Simonton said. 

A similar system in Lake County successfully helped exonerate Jason Strong, a man previously convicted of killing Carpentersville resident Mary Kate Sunderlin. “I thought, ‘Man what’s going on?’ This doesn’t happen,” Strong said. “This is like what happens only in the movies.”

For a case to be considered by Lake County’s panel, the defendant’s claim must contain new evidence that was not known at the time of trial, previously untested evidence, or some other affirmation of innocence. Strong is a proponent for the conviction integrity panel that helped exonerate him, and attributes its success to objective thinking within the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office. 

“I admire that, and I think that if you have that kind of quality in a prosecutor then you’re going to get a better integrity unit,” Strong said. Both Gauger and Casciaro generally are proponents for conviction integrity units. Gauger’s experience, however, has left him with doubts about whether McHenry County could handle a unit of its own. “How do you get politics out of McHenry County?” Gauger said. “It’s difficult.”

Casciaro has also been critical of how McHenry County prosecutors handled his case, going as far as to call State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally “delusional.” Kenneally has stood by his office’s handling of the case, and said he’s a proponent of taking every reasonable step to prevent wrongful convictions. The state’s attorney is reserving judgment on the idea of a statewide conviction integrity, however, until he can review an actual Attorney General Office’s policy.

In an email Tuesday, Kenneally cited an analysis by University of Utah law professor Paul Cassell to emphasize his belief that people often overlook the context surrounding wrongful convictions. Cassell estimated the wrongful conviction rate in the U.S. to be between 0.016% and 0.062%, Kenneally said.

“In other words, the criminal justice system gets it right in more than 99.9% of the cases,” he said. “In a system where, in keeping with basic democratic rights, the fundamental decision-makers are ordinary, everyday and imperfect human beings, this is incredibly good.” 

SOURCE: Northwest Herald