Author: terry.katz

Ex-biker club president linked to killing witness charged with having bowling bag full of meth
Cole Waterman | Cole_Waterman@mlive.com March 27, 2024
https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2024/03/ex-biker-club-president-linked-to-killing-witness-charged-with-having-bowling-bag-full-of-meth.html?outputType=amp

BAY CITY, MI — Two decades ago, the president of a biker club chapter went to federal prison for trafficking massive quantities of methamphetamine. This was after he allegedly orchestrated the execution of one of his cohorts who was violating the biker code of talking to law enforcement.

On Feb. 23, detectives from the Mid-Michigan Investigative Narcotics Team (MINT) and the Flint Area Narcotics Group (FANG) surveilled the movements of David W. Tice Jr. as he drove around Flint. Tice eventually drove into Isabella County, with police pulling him over on US-10 for numerous violations, according to court records.

A police K-9 unit hit on Tice’s vehicle, prompting police to search it. They found a black bowling bag behind the driver’s seat, inside of which were two bags containing a combined 924.5 grams or 2.038 pounds of meth.

Also in the bag was a loaded Colt .38-caliber revolver, something Tice was prohibited from having as a convicted felon. Tice waived his Miranda rights and claimed he bought the meth for $5,000 from someone in Flint, court documents state.

Police arrested Tice, who initially was charged in Isabella County District Court on one drug and four firearm charges. Prosecutors dismissed their case on March 12, the same day federal prosecutors filed a complaint against Tice, who lives in Harrison within Clare County.

Tice on March 12 appeared before U.S. District Magistrate Judge Patricia T. Morris, who informed him he had been charged with possession with intent to distribute meth, felon in possession of a firearm, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. The charges are 20-, 15-, and five-year felonies, respectively.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Roy Kranz asked Morris to order Tice detained pending trial, saying he is a danger to potential witnesses. In making his argument, he recounted how Trice in September 2007 was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of meth.

According to court records, Tice around 1995 began acquiring hundreds of pounds of meth from California and used his fellow bikers to distribute it around Michigan, California, Illinois, and South Carolina. At the time, Tice was president of the Fly-In Wheels Motorcycle Club’s Harrison chapter and vice president of its national chapter.

In 2001, fellow Fly-In Wheels member Brian H. Langdon began providing info to investigators. Langdon was found dead, shot three times in his head, in his Flint house in March 2002. After Langdon’s homicide, another

confidential informant told investigators Tice and two other bikers, Donald N. York and James H. Laughton, had killed him.

“Tice recruited the other two to kill Langdon out of apparent concern that he would say more about the meth trafficking and out of retribution for Langdon giving a statement contrary to the biker code,” Kranz told Judge Morris.

Authorities arrested Tice after a multi-hour standoff during a July 2004 party at the Fly-In Wheels’ campground near Harrison, after another confidential informant indicated he feared he was about to be killed. Tice, York, and Laughton faced charges related to Langdon’s homicide, but those charges were dismissed when the trio pleaded to drug offenses. York and Laughton also received federal prison sentences.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons released Tice in 2017, though he went back in for a year after failing a drug test in 2020. He was discharged again in 2021.

Since his latest arrest, Tice has been busy on the jail’s phone, Kranz said.

“He’s trying desperately to figure out who the cooperator is, if there is one, in this case,” Kranz said. “That should cause the court some concern considering what happened in a previous case.”

Defense attorney John A. Tosto said Tice’s calls have been placed to his son and contained no threats. He added it’s natural for an incarcerated individual to be curious about the circumstances of their arrest.

Totso asked that Tice be freed on bond, adding he would follow any conditions and is anxious to resolve the case.
Magistrate Judge Morris opted to hold Tice without bond, saying it is noteworthy he was a major supplier in a prior case in which a witness wound up dead.

Tice is to appear for a preliminary examination on April 25.

© 2024 Advance Local Media LLC. All rights reserved (About Us).

‘How does being a Rebel make you a criminal?’ Bikie bosses have their say

By Peter Brewer The Northwest Star (Queensland, Australia ) March 23 2024
https://www.northweststar.com.au/story/8565668/rebels-motorcycle-gang-members-talk-about-police-harassment/

When hundreds of Rebels bikies decided to ride their Harleys to Canberra for this weekend’s celebratory meeting from all points of the country, they knew they were painting a huge target on each of their backs.

“Everyone was warned; everyone knew,” Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang spokesman “Little Mick”, from Brisbane, said.
“But that doesn’t mean what our blokes copped getting here was in any way fair or right.

Another senior Rebels member said in the two-hour ride from Sydney to the ACT, he was stopped by police three times, his licence and registration was checked and his $30,000 Harley Davidson examined for defects.

“My bike is brand new; it’s done less than 1000 kays (kilometres),” Sydney chapter boss David Lowe said.
“How is it going to have a defect?”

The ACT’s choice as the venue for the huge Rebels gathering, with around 450 members arriving from interstate to a venue near Symonston, has again drawn a sharp focus on the highly politicised discussion of consorting laws.

It’s where the ACT and NSW governments sit on opposite sides of the political fence. The bigger jurisdiction has taken a hard-line approach with laws primarily aimed at harassing and disrupting outlaw motorcycle gang activity, while the ACT has stepped well back,

Labor and Greens members variously describing consorting laws as “poorly framed”, discriminatory and in breach of human rights.

But it is well-remembered NSW has seen a nightmarish amount of bikie-fuelled violence through the years, from the so-called Milperra massacre of 1984 between the Bandidos and Comancheros to the savage, public and fatal brawl between members of the Comancheros and Hells Angels in the Sydney Airport domestic terminal.

This 2009 incident is widely regarded as the event which pulled the political trigger on consorting laws.
After that incident, in which Comancheros boss Mahmoud “Mick” Hawi was found guilty of murder and affray, NSW enacted the toughest consorting laws in the country and created the well-funded and highly mobile Strike Force Raptor teams, specifically aimed at harassing and disrupting bikie activity.

Even now, 15 years and two major reviews later, the consorting laws still exist, albeit in more diminished form. Some OMCGs arguably have a more violent reputation than others but nonetheless, all have been scooped up by the legislation.

The ACT has small chapters of four OMCGs – the Comancheros, Finks, Rebels and Hells Angels. The most recent and significant bikie-related incident in Canberra was the fatal stabbing of Comancheros boss Pitasoni Ulavalu inside Civic’s Komoko’s nightclub in 2020.

Gathering in Canberra to pay tribute to some of their longest-serving members – two of whom have been with the club for 50 years – two senior members of the largest and most established OMCG in the country said consorting laws or not, the clubs have endured – and will continue to do so.

“First of all they brand you as a criminal. How does being a Rebel make you a criminal? I’ve got no criminal record,” said Little Mick.

“Look at the shit they [the police] put us through just so we can wear these vests.

“The thing is this lifestyle has been around since the 60s. We’ve been in existence since 1969.

“And they think in 10 years they are going to shut down a whole lifestyle?

“They’ve tried to shut all these clubs down but all they’ve done is gone underground.”

Crown and B.C. Hells Angel Larry Amero both file appeals after his murder conspiracy conviction

https://vancouversun.com/news/crime/bc-hells-angel-larry-amero-appeals-murder-plot-convictions
Kim Bolan Vancouver Sun (British Columbia Canada) March 19, 2024

B.C. Hells Angel Larry Amero has filed an appeal of both his convictions and the 18-year sentence he received for his role in two 2012 gangland murder plots.

But Crown prosecutors in the high-profile case — in which both targets were eventually murdered — have also appealed, asking B.C.’s highest court to instead impose a life sentence on Amero.

Damienne Darby, of the B.C. Prosecution Service, said Tuesday that the appeals likely won’t be heard until 2025. The matter is back in court on April 16 for a case management conference.

Documents filed earlier this year by Amero’s lawyers, Hovan Patey and Josh Oppal, argue that B.C. Supreme Court Justice Miriam Maisonville made several mistakes during the long-running jury trial.

Amero was convicted in August 2022 of conspiracy to kill rival gangsters Sandip Duhre and Sukh Dhak over several months in 2011 and 2012.

Duhre was gunned down on Jan. 17, 2012 in the busy lobby of Vancouver’s Sheraton Wall Centre. Dhak was shot to death in Burnaby in November of 2012.

On Dec. 11, 2023, Maisonville handed Amero the 18-year sentence. Minus credit for pretrial custody, it amounted to a net term of nine years and two months.

Patey and Oppal said in their appeal document that Maisonville “erred in her consideration of the various Charter violations,” which should have resulted in the exclusion of some of the evidence in the case.

Maisonville also “erred in allowing highly prejudicial evidence of limited probative value to go before the jury,” Patey and Oppal said in the document. That evidence included gruesome crime scene photos of Duhre lying on the floor of the lobby restaurant, fatally wounded, blood all over a tablecloth and around his head.

The lawyers also argued that Amero should have been granted a separate trial from his co-accused Rabih (Robby) Alkhalil.

Unlike Amero, Alkhalil was charged with the first-degree murder of Duhre, but escaped from the North Fraser pre-trial jail in July 2022 — a month before jurors convicted him in his absence. He remains one of Canada’s most-wanted fugitives.

Amero’s legal team also said Maisonville erred when she “instructed the jury to consider messages sent to a co-accused to be admissible against the appellant (Amero) if they believed that co-accused was probably a member of the conspiracy.”

They also said Amero’s application to have his charges stayed due to delays in the case should have been allowed.
And on sentencing, they said Maisonville should have given Amero more credit for “harsh detention conditions” at North Fraser.

They want the verdict set aside and either an acquittal entered or a new trial ordered. They are also seeking to have the sentence “set aside and a fit sentence wherein proper credit is granted for pretrial detention conditions, Charter violations, and the appellant’s time in detention in Montreal be substituted therefore.”

Prosecutor Susanne Elliott filed a Crown appeal document also arguing that Maisonville erred, by not giving Amero a harsher sentence.

“The judge erred in principle in her consideration of the aggravating and mitigating factors,” the Crown appeal document said, adding that the judge also erred “by failing to impose a sentence that was proportionate to the gravity of the offences and the degree of responsibility of the offender.”

Elliott said the sentence should be “set aside and a life sentence imposed.”

Amero — one of the founding members of the Wolfpack gang alliance — was seriously wounded in an 2011 shooting in Kelowna that left his best friend and fellow gangster Jonathan Bacon dead. Their associate, James Riach, escaped uninjured while two women in the same vehicle as the gangsters were also shot but survived.

At trial, the Crown said the Kelowna shooting was set in motion by the United Nations gang and that the plots against both Duhre and Dhak were in retaliation.

Alkhalil had his own reasons for wanting Duhre dead. Duhre and his brothers had been at war with the Alkhalil brothers since they were in teens.

At trial, Crown relied on incriminating messages on encrypted devices found in the Montreal penthouse Amero and Alkhalil shared in 2012. The Amero messages were sent under the names Skullbuster and Birdman. Alkhalil used the handle Where’s Waldo, and for a brief time Side Swiper.

At one point, Skullbuster said to Where’s Waldo that if he “was healed, we would have already drilled back, done this properly.” After Duhre was killed, Side Swiper wrote “dips dead” and “Chk th van news this week lol we put this city upside down.”

Video surveillance footage from inside and around the Sheraton Wall Centre both before and after Duhre’s murder was also a key part of the evidence.

Postmedia and Global news obtained the video evidence after a court application last year.

It shows Duhre and a friend crossing the hotel lobby to enter the restaurant, as members of the Cuban women’s soccer team mill around. Alkhalil and Riach can be seen inside the lobby, as well as walking on a sidewalk nearby. The shooter walks through the same door that Duhre entered, across the lobby and out of view.

While the actual shooting is not captured on video, the aftermath is: dozens of people running for their lives.

Man sentenced after planned robbery ends in shooting death of biker gang members in La Marque

https://abc13.com/la-marque-deadly-shooting-galveston-county-drug-deal-turned-robbery-anthony-terrell-miles-sentenced/14550469/
ABC 13 Houston Texas Wednesday, March 20, 2024

GALVESTON COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) — A man reached a plea agreement for his role in a deadly shooting involving members of the outlaw biker gang, the Bandidos, nearly two years later.

On Monday, Anthony Terrell Miles was sentenced to 50 years in prison after being indicted for capital murder and pleading guilty to murder.

Investigators said the series of events happened on May 15, 2022, when Miles and a co-conspirator, Marvkese Crawford, plotted to rob Audry Eugene Wayne Fuller III, and Jarrod Lee Clark.

Miles and Crawford lured Fuller, an apparent member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, and Clark, an apparent Bandidos prospect, by pretending to buy drugs from them at a home in La Marque.

According to the Galveston District Attorney’s Office, Crawford drew a weapon, prompting Fuller and Clark to do the same.

Crawford, Fuller, and Miles were all struck by bullets during the shootout, according to officials.

Investigators said Crawford died while running through the backyard, and Clark dragged Fuller out of the house and drove him to a hospital, where he died.

At the plea hearing Monday, Crawford and Fuller’s mothers and grandmothers told the court how the loss of their sons has affected the family and community.

After the hearing, La Marque Police Detective Matthew Cypert said he was “glad to bring to justice all involved parties. We could not have solved the puzzle without all officers, investigators, forensic scientists, and experts involved.”

Clark still faces charges of narcotics trafficking and tampering with evidence.
The La Marque City Police Department, DPS Crime Labs, Harris County High Tech Crimes Unit, Galveston County Sheriff’s Office, and the Galveston County Medical Examiner were all involved in the investigation. ADA Kate Willis noted that firearms analysis by LMPD Det. Gene Crow DPS Forensic Scientist John-William Knight and the DPS Laredo Firearms Division were instrumental in solving the case.

Member of biker club killed in Bucyrus shooting

by: Orri Benatar NBC 4 Columbus Ohio March 19, 2024
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/crawford-county/member-of-biker-club-killed-in-bucyrus-shooting/

BUCYRUS, Ohio (WCMH) — A man has been arrested on a charge related to a fatal shooting of another man in Bucyrus inside a biker clubhouse.

Police said that on Friday, officers were called to the 800 block of South Highland Avenue just after 10:45 p.m. on reports of a shooting. 28-year-old Guilianno Yamani was found dead from a gunshot wound at the residence, which police identified as a clubhouse for the Outlaw Bikers group.

Yamani was a member and another member, 27-year-old Zachary Cole, was arrested and charged on tampering with evidence. Bucyrus police did not identify a suspect or person of interest that could be charged with murder.
Bucyrus police are continuing to investigate.

Notorious biker gangs terrorising US – cartel links and ‘Tony Soprano on two wheels’
There are more than 300 outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) in the United States that use cycling clubs as part of criminal enterprises including violence, weapons and drug trafficking
Kelly William Daily Star Assistant News Editor March 17. 2024
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/notorious-biker-gangs-terrorising–32351677

Biker gangs like the Hells Angels, Mongols, Pagans and Sons of Silence are expected to “flex their muscles” in a “display of dominance” as Florida marks Bike Week.

Cops are bracing themselves for a potential battle as leather-clad biker types on two wheels descend on Daytona for the annual event

With outlaw motorcycle gangs on the rise in the state, John Scaduto, regional director of the Florida Gang Investigators Association said the possibility of gang violence always shifts up a gear at this time of year.

He described them as “like Tony Soprano on two wheels – not-so-Goodfellas with leather and chrome.” Many also have working relationships with cartels, he claimed.

Speaking to The Daytona Beach News Journal, Scaduto said: “Some of the clubs would like to have a display of dominance in a very public way. It sends a message to the other clubs, and frankly, sends an indirect message to the public as well as law enforcement: We’re here.”

There are more than 300 outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) in the United States that use cycling clubs as part of criminal enterprises, including violence, weapons and drug trafficking, according to the US Department of Justice.
“You have just about every motorcycle club in the world now with a presence here in Florida,” Scaduto said.

The Outlaws Motorcycle Club was the dominant club in Florida until about seven years ago, but now they are being “severely challenged” by other organisations that have seen a rapid rise in numbers in recent years.

Scaduto said the main “super clubs” in the United States are the Hells Angels, Pagans, Outlaws, Mongols, Bandidos, Sons of Silence, Vagos and Iron Horsemen. The association has confirmed chapters of the Outlaws, Mongols, Pagans and Sons of Silence in Florida.

The gangs are supplying the state’s growing population with narcotics and prostitution. They may also run protection rackets.

“Part of the increase frankly, is the proliferation of motorcycle TV shows that you know, kind of glorify the lifestyle,” he said, referring to the likes of Sons of Anarchy and Mayans M.C.

Motorcycle clubs became prevalent in the United States after World War II with returning soldiers. The same thing is happening now.

“We’ve just had a couple of decades of soldiers coming back, looking for the camaraderie, what they perceive as the brotherhood,” Scaduto said.

Gangs are interested in the soldiers’ expertise in urban combat, knowledge of explosives and weaponry and recruit them so they can be prepared for opposing gangs.

Women involved with biker gangs often wear vests declaring “Property of…”

A woman who is a property of a club chapter might be shared sexually or shared to be involved in criminal activity.
Some gang members will refer to themselves as “one-percenters,” in reference to a comment that 99% of motorcyclists are law abiding. The comment was supposedly made after a riot at a motorcycle rally in 1947 in Hollister, California.

“The 1% badge which is an indicator that they are in fact outlaws, and they are telling you they’re an outlaw,” Scaduto said.

B.C. Hells Angels in disarray after exit of key member, arrests and clubhouse losses

Not only are three former clubhouses to be sold off by the government this spring, but there has been an exodus from the Kelowna chapter

Kim Bolan March 13, 2024 Vancouver Sun (British Columbia Canada)
https://vancouversun.com/news/crime/bc-hells-angels-disarray-damiano-dipopolo-exit-arrests-clubhouse-losses

Not only are three of their former clubhouses about to be sold off by the B.C. government this spring, but there has been an exodus from the Kelowna chapter.

Damiano Dipopolo, a former Kelowna chapter president, was kicked out of the Hells Angels last fall. Some of his chapter-mates followed him voluntarily.

And in January, Damion Ryan, a B.C. native and full-patch member of the Hells Angels, was charged with being part of an unsuccessful murder-for-hire plot in the U.S. targeting two Iranian dissidents living there.

Ryan, who is part of the Wolfpack gang alliance, is currently in a Manitoba jail, awaiting trial on drug trafficking charges in that province, as well as firearms charges in Ontario. It is not known if the U.S. has applied yet for his extradition.

The indictment in the case says Ryan was working for Iranian drug lord Naji Zindashti — on orders from the Iranian regime — when he was allegedly recorded on an encrypted device agreeing to put together a team to do the hit for $350,000 US, plus $20,000 in expenses.

Ryan was most recently a member of the Hells Angels Attica chapter in Greece, but Postmedia has learned he has left that biker gang for the closer-to-home Haney chapter, of which his uncle is a long-time member.

Other B.C. Hells Angels have been charged, convicted or sentenced to jail for various offences over the last year.
Sgt. Brenda Winpenny, of the anti-gang Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said in a recent interview that some of the older Hells Angels — who have been part of the gang since it started in B.C. in July 1983 — don’t see eye-to-eye with some of the club’s newer members.

“These older guys are calling these new guys coming in the new gangster-bikers, who are creating turmoil within the B.C. Hells Angels,” she said. “What’s happening now shows the dysfunction of the aging leadership.”

Some of the younger Hells Angels and their associates have been mired in the long-running province-wide gang conflict. Ryan, for example, has been targeted twice by would-be hitmen and escaped. Before his 2022 arrest on the Manitoba charges, CFSEU had included Ryan in a public warning related to the gang conflict.

Also included in the public warnings was Hells Angels associate Andy St. Pierre. He as later shot and wounded in December 2023 in the parking lot of a Superstore in Mission. No one has been charged.

While Mission RCMP did not identify St. Pierre by name, they said he “is known to police and is believed to have ties to the B.C. gang conflict.”

Postmedia has also learned that since the East End, Kelowna and Nanaimo clubhouses were seized by the director of civil forfeiture a year ago this week, the bikers have been looking for places to lease to hold their weekly “church” meetings.

Last October, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear a Hells Angel appeal of the seizures.
Civil Forfeiture Office executive-director Phil Tawtel recently told Postmedia that he anticipated “liquidating the properties in the spring.”

Dipopolo was one of the Hells Angels defendants in a 16-year court battle over the clubhouses, which the B.C. government argued had been used for criminal activities.

No one from the Hells Angels responded to a request for comment Tuesday. Dipopolo earlier declined an interview request through one of his contacts.

The bikers are still expected to hold their annual rides, which are mandatory for members, beginning next month in East Vancouver.

Winpenny said that even with the issues facing the Hells Angels, “they are one of the most powerful organized crime groups, not only in B.C., but nationally and internationally with connections all over the world.”

“We’re not naive to think that this current turmoil will affect their ability to continue to operate their criminal enterprises,” she said.

Jail Deputies Were Also Accused of Doing Favors for Gypsy Jokers Motorcycle Gang
A newly obtained report shows that federal officials were aware of gang members’ allegations against county deputies as early as 2020.

By Lucas Manfield Willamette Week (Oregon) March 16, 2024
https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2024/03/15/jail-deputies-were-also-accused-of-doing-favors-for-gypsy-jokers-motorcycle-gang/

In 2020, the Jail Deputies Were Also Accused of Doing Favors for Gypsy Jokers Motorcycle Gang Sheriff’s Office investigated allegations that at least four of its jail deputies had done favors for members of the Gypsy Joker Outlaw Motorcycle Club, according to a report newly obtained by WW.

This allegation might sound familiar. Two years later, the Sheriff’s Office investigated similar allegations after members of another gang, the Hoover Criminals, brought their claims to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In response, then-Sheriff Mike Reese brought in the Oregon State Police to conduct an independent investigation. The state findings were the subject of a WW cover story earlier this month.

That OSP report referenced an earlier 2020 investigation by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, but provided scant details. WW obtained a copy of that investigation’s findings from the Sheriff’s office through a public records request.

The report includes two new findings: First, that inmates alleged collusion with not one but two criminal street gangs; and second, that these claims had been brought to officials years earlier than previously disclosed.
The report, drafted by MCSO Detective Chris Stephens, is titled “Stephens Memo 2020″ but is otherwise undated. It recommends forwarding its findings to two superior officers, including a lieutenant, Carey Kaer, who’s now the sheriff’s chief deputy running the office’s law enforcement unit.

It’s unclear if and when it reached Reese, who now leads the Oregon Department of Corrections. Reese has previously told WW that he was unaware of the Hoovers’ allegations until informed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in April 2022. He was unavailable today to comment.

Members of both gangs—the Hoovers and the Gypsy Jokers—were locked up in Portland’s downtown jail for years as they awaited federal murder and racketeering charges. The Gypsy Jokers, a notorious California biker gang that until recently operated six clubhouses in the Pacific Northwest, had attracted federal scrutiny after several members, including the Portland chapter president, kidnapped and brutally murdered a former member, Robert Huggins, in 2015. The president, Mark Leroy Dencklau, and another member were sentenced to life in prison in 2022.

Sometime prior to Stephen’s investigation, two co-defendants in that case—along with a third inmate in an unrelated case—brought stories about favorable treatment of their gang’s members by jail deputies to a federal prosecutor, Leah Bolstad. It is not clear what their motivations were for snitching, although the information was gleaned through “proffer” interviews, a process through which defendants typically provide information in exchange for more lenient sentences.

The inmates, unnamed in the report, accused four guards of doing favors for Gypsy Joker gang members in 2018, like allowing them to make un-recorded private calls and, despite a no-contact order, pass notes between cells in order to get their stories straight at trial.

The inmates also described threats and violence. One of the inmates told Bolstad, according to a letter she sent to Stephens that he included in his report: “Yesterday Deputy Leitner opened a cell door in the Hole and allowed three gang members to go and assault a young African American male named ‘CJ.’” (According to Bolstad’s letter, she believed Leitner to be a misspelling of “Lightner.” Deputy Nathanael Lightner admitted to investigators in 2023 that he’d popped a cell door to facilitate a fight, calling it a “lapse in judgement.”)

It’s not clear when Bolstad, the federal prosecutor, first learned of the claims or at what point she informed the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment. Contacted Thursday morning, MCSO was unable to answer questions by press deadline.

Still, the new report confirms that jail administrators were aware of gang members’ allegations against county deputies as early as 2020.

Until now, the earliest known admission of collusion with Multnomah County jail guards came from Hoover gang members in a series of proffer interviews in 2021 and 2022 conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and state police.

But Stephens’ report shows that by 2020, such claims had come to the attention of Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office detectives, and that, in fact, the office had already harbored suspicions about what was happening on the fifth floor units for some time.

According to Stephens’ report, MCSO officials believed that deputies working the fifth floor of Multnomah County Detention Center were showing “preferential treatment” to gang members, “particularly Hoover gang members and Gypsy Jokers.” There were also “suspicions” that those deputies were “facilitating assaults.”

In March 2020, Stephens was brought in to investigate whether three deputies, Timothy Engel, Mirzet Sacirovic and Gustavo Valdovinos, had any connections with local gangs or had otherwise committed “any criminal actions.”
Stephens consulted one of his informants, a current Hoover gang member, who had provided “credible and reliable information” in the past.

That informant confirmed that “some of the guards at MCDC acted as if they wanted to be liked by the Hoovers,” and would try to impress the gang members by talking about having visited Hoover Street in Los Angeles. The informant said he’d once watched a guard open the cell doors of three inmates so they could go attack a new arrival. “The deputy just stood and watched for several minutes while calmly saying ‘stop fighting’ over and over in a monotone voice,” the informant said.

The informant couldn’t identify the deputy. There were no documented assaults at the time.
It is not clear what happened as a result of Stephens’ investigation. Cameras were finally installed on that floor in November, MCSO tells WW.

Two years later, after a tip from the FBI, Sacirovic, Valdovinos and a third deputy were put on administrative leave and the Oregon State Police were called in to conduct a criminal investigation. The subsequent 142-page report uncovered allegations that Hoover gang members were “running” multiple units of the jail, and that deputies, including Sacirovic and Valdovinos, had been popping cell doors to facilitate fights between rival gang members.

Police raid home near South Salem High School with ties to motorcycle gang
by Ardeshir Tabrizian Salem Reporter on March 12, 2024

Police raid home near South Salem High School with ties to motorcycle gang

Police early Tuesday morning descended on a south Salem home neighbors said is affiliated with the Gypsy Joker Motorcycle Club, arresting a Salem man and seizing ballistic vests and drugs.

At around 5 a.m., officers from the Salem Police Department searched a house in the 700 block of Southeast Rural Avenue, across the street from a student parking lot at South Salem High School.

Police arrested Wilson E. Voorhis, 43, of Salem on charges including possessing a taser as a felon, three counts of possessing body armor as a felon and first-degree theft.

Voorhis will also be charged with possessing methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin which police found at the home, according to Salem police spokeswoman Angela Hedrick.

Police also appeared to be seizing a number of vehicles parked along Rural Avenue and neighboring streets.
Voorhis was booked into Marion County Jail, where he was being held without bail as of Tuesday evening.
He has criminal convictions in Marion County dating back to 2003 including second-degree burglary, unauthorized use of a vehicle and fleeing police.

Voorhis pleaded guilty in June 2023 to unlawful use of a weapon, coercion, possessing a firearm as a felon and attempting to sell methamphetamine near a school.

He was sentenced to 25 days in prison with credit for time served and three years of probation.
Voorhis agreed to serve eight years in prison if he violated the conditions of his probation, which included “zero tolerance for new crimes,” according to records in Marion County Circuit Court.

Court records show he lived as of 2022 at the house where he was arrested.

Hedrick said she had no information linking Voorhis to the Gypsy Jokers Motorcycle Club.

But neighbors described the home as being a clubhouse for the Gypsy Jokers, which federal prosecutors have described as a violent outlaw motorcycle gang.

The club is a hierarchical criminal organization in which members maintain their status by participating in “various acts of violent racketeering activity including murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, narcotics trafficking, and witness tampering,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a 2022 news release.

The Gypsy Jokers have been active since the 1980s in several states including Oregon and Washington and have international chapters in Germany, Australia and Norway. They operated six clubhouses in the Pacific Northwest “until recently,” federal prosecutors said in the 2022 statement.

CORRECTION: Voorhis is 43 years old. His age as provided by Salem police earlier was incorrect.

KPD: One biker gang member shot another while on Fort Hood Street
By Emily Hilley-Sierzchula | Killeen Daily Herald (Killeen, Texas) March 14, 2024.
https://kdhnews.com/news/crime/kpd-one-biker-gang-member-shot-another-while-on-fort-hood-street/article_82b11998-e247-11ee-bbc2-27ec37ada2a9.html

A man was indicted this week on two felony charges after police said the biker gang member fired a revolver at a rival gang member while traveling on a Killeen roadway last year.

On Wednesday, a Bell County grand jury indicted 35-year-old Nicholas Szpilman of Killeen on a third-degree felony charge of deadly conduct with a firearm and a state jail felony charge of possession of a controlled substance less than one gram.

Szpilman was not listed in the Bell County Jail as of Thursday.

Killeen police on March 20, 2023, were dispatched to the area of Fort Hood Street and Chaparral Road in reference to a shooting.

Dispatch received 911 calls describing … a motorcyclist wearing a black jacket with a large red patch labeled ‘Chosen Few’ (who) shot another motorcyclist wearing a jacket labeled ‘Bandido,’ and that the one with the red patch was shooting at the one with the gold symbol; and … that the two motorcyclists were cutting through traffic while (one of) the motorcyclists shot a gun at the other before driving off toward Clear Creek Road.”

One of the responding officers arrived in the area and saw a motorcycle traveling away from the alleged crime scene down Clear Creek Road. As the officer got closer, he observed that the motorcyclist was wearing a black jacket with a large red patch.

The officer “activated his emergency lights in an attempt to stop the motorcyclist, but the motorcyclist accelerated away and exited Clear Creek Road before turning into a neighborhood,” according to the affidavit. “(The officer) followed the motorcyclist into the neighborhood, where the motorcyclist continued to evade. The motorcyclist drove behind a residence and disappeared briefly from (the officer’s) view. (The officer’s) in-car video showed the motorcyclist later identified as Szpilman coming away from his
motorcycle with his hands up. The motorcycle was lying on the ground.”

Szpilman was arrested at that time for evading arrest with a motor vehicle.

“It was later discovered that the place to which Szpilman fled and laid down his bike was his residence,” police said. “Officers recovered a firearm in a vine-covered area behind Szpilman’s residence in close proximity to where Szpilman laid his motorcycle down.”

Police said that Szpilman was wearing body armor and had ammunition in his jacket pocket that matched the spent casings found in the revolver located from behind his residence.

“Officers recovered more ammunition of the same caliber in Szpilman’s motorcycle saddle bag,” according to the affidavit. “Szpilman stated that he was being shot at.”

After Szpilman was arrested, police located the “Bandido” at a local hospital where he was being treated for a gunshot wound.

“The victim was given a ride to the hospital by a friend,” police said. “(A KPD detective) spoke with the victim who advised he was riding home on his motorcycle when he was shot while traveling in the area of Highway 195 and Chaparral Road. The victim admitted that he was part of a chapter of the Bandidos and was not willing to cooperate with the investigation for aggravated assault. The victim’s body build matched the description given by a 911 caller. I obtained the victim’s medical records as evidence.”