Suspected Outlaws MC members sought in man's death

Davie, Florida, USA (September 21, 2019) BTN — Davie Police Department detectives are still searching for the suspected motorcycle club members responsible for a brutal beating that resulted in a 57-year-old man's death last year.

Detectives released surveillance video Friday showing several possible witnesses and a group of motorcyclists leaving the parking lot after the beating. Detectives suspect they were Outlaw Motorcycle Club members.

Michael Kline was beaten July 4, 2018, outside of the Road Dawgs Saloon at 13010 W. State Road 84. According to Lt. Mark Leone, they left Kline bleeding on the ground.

Davie Fire Rescue took Kline to Broward General Hospital. Officers said Kline suffered a fractured skull, a fractured orbital bone and a subdural hematoma. Kline died as a result of his injuries Nov. 14, 2018.


Kline's son Michael Kline Jr. told police officers that he had been at Road Dawgs earlier in the evening to have a few drinks with his father and decided to leave him there.

Kline's son also told police officers he remembers seeing several Outlaw Motorcycle Club members there, and his father had argued with one of them a few weeks earlier.

Before the beating, Kline left the bar to buy cigarettes at a nearby Exxon gas station. A witness there told police officers that a man with a long beard and long black hair asked Kline for a cigarette.

The witness said Kline gave it to him and walked back with him toward Road Dawgs, police said. Kline never made it back to the bar. Officers found him lying on the ground bleeding.

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Pagan MC member indicted for attempted murder

Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA (September 20, 2019) BTN — A Upper Township man accused of running down a motorcyclist in his truck and then speeding away has been indicted for attempted murder. Noah Frost allegedly told police that the damage to his white Dodge Ram’s must have happened while it was parked in the Harrah’s Atlantic City parking garage.

But an investigation found that Frost was involved in the hit-and-run, which witnesses said was the result of what appeared to be a road rage incident.

Both men are members of the Pagans Motorcycle Club, Atlantic County Prosecutor Damon Tyner previously said. But it was not clear what caused an issue between the two. The victim, identified in the indictment as Benjamin DiPilla, was critically injured in the crash. His current condition was not released, but the defense was expecting medical records to be provided under a protective order.

Frost, 35, pleaded not guilty Thursday, and remains in the Atlantic County Justice Facility. He was indicted on six counts, including aggravated assault, assault by auto and leaving the scene of an accident that caused serious bodily injury.

Frost has been offered a 10-year plea deal, Assistant Prosecutor Christopher D’Esposito told the judge. Defense attorney Carlos Martir was given 11 discs of evidence, according to information given during the brief hearing arraignment before Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury. Frost is due back in court Oct. 18.

DiPilla was arrested in 2016, as part of an investigation into drugs and guns related to the so-called outlaw motorcycle gang.


He pleaded guilty in 2017 to cocaine manufacturing/distribution and prohibited weapons and was sentenced to a year probation, court records show.

SOURCE: Breaking AC

Star witness in Vagos MC trial lied

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (September 20, 2019) BTN — A star witness for the government has repeatedly lied on the witness stand during a federal racketeering trial in Las Vegas for a group of reputed motorcycle club members.

And in an astonishing twist on Thursday, prosecutors asked a judge to throw out the testimony of Gary “Jabbers” Rudnick after he spent more than three days telling jurors that members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club had plotted to kill a rival biker in Sparks in 2011.

Related | Jury selection begins in Vagos MC case

“We have grave concerns and doubt as to whether this witness will be truthful,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Han said during the 23rd day of a trial that started in August and is expected to last through the end of the year.

Rudnick, who was ousted from the club after the fatal shooting, cooperated with authorities and testified against his former allies.

Defense attorneys for the eight men on trial immediately asked to have the most serious charges of murder and conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise thrown out, and U.S. District Chief Judge Gloria Navarro allowed Rudnick’s testimony to continue through cross-examination. Should Navarro dismiss the case, it would mark the second time in as many years that high-profile federal charges against multiple defendants were tossed out.

In early 2018, Navarro threw out felony conspiracy and weapons charges against Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and another man.

The most recent possibility of a major trial disruption emerged this week as Rudnick lied about never having met with Mark Fleming, a lawyer for one of the defendants, Albert Lopez, and a private investigator. When he was recalled to the stand Thursday, Rudnick admitted that he had met with the lawyer and investigator, a former FBI agent, for two hours on an afternoon in November 2017.

Defense attorneys accused government prosecutors of persuading Rudnick to lie about the meeting.

“This witness is incapable of telling the truth,” defense attorney Kathleen Bliss, a former federal prosecutor, told the judge. “This trial has become so unfair and so contaminated as to Rudnick and the government’s complicity. They’ve had opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to fix it. You can’t unring the bell of Gary Rudnick.”

In this Dec. 9, 2011 file photo, murder defendant Gary Rudnick enters the courtroom

Lawyers for the other defendants, including Ernesto “Romeo” Manuel Gonzalez, who fired the shot that killed a leader of the Hells Angels, and Pastor Fausto Palafox, the Vagos international president known as “TaTa,” supported Bliss.

The judge asked for arguments from both sides in writing. “I don’t believe the government can prove the case without Rudnick,” said defense attorney Jess Marchese, who represents James “Jimbo” Patrick Gillespie.

Gonzalez’s attorney, Michael Kennedy, called Rudnick a “serial liar,” while Palafox’s lawyer, Amy Jacks, said Rudnick was “completely unreliable.” Han suggested that prosecutors could still prove the charges through other witnesses but added that “obviously there are certain things lost without the testimony of Rudnick.”

More defendants await trial

Prosecutors have said that leaders of Vagos orchestrated the September 2011 killing of a rival Hells Angels leader on the floor of John Ascuaga’s Nugget. Each defendant on trial is from California, ranging in age from 36 to 70.

Thirteen more defendants are awaiting trial in a case that prosecutors allege involves Vagos and crimes in Nevada, California, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon and Utah.

Prosecutors have written in court papers that Vagos operated as a criminal enterprise and engaged in drug distribution, firearms trafficking, murder, kidnapping, assault, extortion, robbery and witness intimidation.

Video surveillance showed Jeffrey “Jethro” Pettigrew pistol-whipping another man on the casino floor before gunfire broke out.

During the fight, Gonzalez shot and killed Pettigrew, 54, who was known as the “godfather” of the Hells Angels in San Jose, California. Gonzalez was found guilty of murder in state court, but his conviction was overturned, and he was indicted in the federal case while awaiting a retrial.

On Thursday, defense attorneys stopped short of asking for a mistrial before Navarro decided whether to dismiss charges against the defendants.

When Rudnick, who spent time in state prison for his role in the slaying, was called back to the stand, he was cross-examined by Lopez’s lawyer, who asked whether Rudnick ever said the defendant was not part of a conspiracy.

“I know I said something like that to you,” Rudnick testified.

SOURCE: Las Vegas Review Journal 

Hells Angels to build Harley for TV star

Sussex Way, London, England (September 20, 2019) BTN — A Hells Angels ceremony in Greece will be one of several events held in memory of a man who was beaten to death in Islington. Family and friends gathered for Alciveadis Mavredis’s funeral in a Greek Orthodox church in Sussex Way on Wednesday.

The 59-year-old, who was of Greek heritage but lived in Beach­croft Way, Upper Holloway, was celebrating his birthday at the Royal Oak pub near the Elthorne estate when he was knocked unconscious at around 1:00 am on July 13.

He spent 18 days in a coma in an east London hospital before he died.

His sisters Cleopatra and Angela Mavredis flew to the UK to attend the service. Angela said: “His death was senseless and it’s very hard for us. So I don’t think a funeral service can bring you closure, we want justice to be served.” Leon Tayler, 26, of Cornwallis Square, was charged with murder earlier this month in connection with the incident.

As the Tribune previously reported, Mr Mavredis was a skilled mechanic who starred in the MTV hit show Pimp My Ride UK from 2005-07.

Cleo and Angela Mavredis

He owned several Harley Davidson motorbikes. Floral tributes were made by his friends for the funeral – one in the shape of a motorbike and another as the Harley Davidson logo.

He was preparing to move to Greece before he died and he had made contact with the Greek branch of the Hells Angels motorcycle group, according to his sister.

Angela said: “This is all surreal, one moment to another everything is flipped upside down.

“He has a Harley in Greece that he had design plans for, so as a family we decided to fulfil it and complete the build of his bike. The Hells Angels group will design and finish it – he was going to be initiated into the group”

She added: “They are all big guys but they were like mush when they talked about Al.

The Harley Davidson floral tribute

“We have had conference calls and meetings to discuss the design. “They’re going to have a ceremony for him when it is done. There’s nothing traditional about our brother and it’s fitting for him to have a Harley ceremony.”

The Hells Angels is a motorcycle club with chapters in countries around the world that originated in America. The sisters will take Mr Mavredis’s remains back to Greece, where his elderly mother Vassiliky is waiting for a private funeral.

Part of Mr Mavredis’s desire to move to Greece was so that he could be closer to his 87-year-old mother and care for her. Cleopatra said: “Mum is a little broken right now, you can see it physically and emotionally.

“She was waiting for her son to come back and very much looking forward to this.

“We’re doing OK, it feels like I have been hit by a truck and every muscle in my body hurts, but today we put on a happy face. We were treated well by Al’s friends.”

SOURCE: Camden New Journal