Author: terry.katz

Shooter in Soul Brothers Motorcycle Club murder gets 40 to life, with strong video evidence
Robert Rodriguez, Fresno California Bee December 21, 2023
https://news.yahoo.com/shooter-soul-brothers-motorcycle-club-214309612.html

Antoine Caradine, who was convicted of killing 31-year-old Darnell Johnson during a wild shoot out at a motorcycle club party last fall, was sentenced Thursday to 40 years to life in prison.
Caradine’s defense attorney Linden Lindahl tried to persuade Judge Kimberly A. Gaab to show his client some leniency.

Lindahl argued that the Oct. 1, 2022 shooting at the Soul Brothers Motorcycle Club at McKinley Avenue near Hughes Avenue and Highway 99, could have easily resulted in the 33-year-old Caradine’s death.
A graphic surveillance video used as evidence in the trial showed a chaotic scene involving at least four people, including Caradine and Johnson, firing their weapons as the crowd scattered. Two people were injured by gunfire, but survived. Johnson died from his wounds.

Lindahl has maintained Caradine acted in self-defense and was trying to protect others when he fired his weapon. The jury convicted him of second-degree murder.

Judge Gaab told Lindahl the video proved something completely different to her.

“What that video showed was your client, in a crowd of people advancing toward the victim who was backing away from the crowd when your client was the one who pulled out a gun and shot at him, which caused the victim to fall down and shoot,” the judge said. “And your client did that in a crowd of innocent people. That is what the video showed.”

Gaab gave Caradine the maximum sentence, a total of 40-years-to-life in prison.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Liz Owen supported the judge’s decision, saying Caradine has shown no remorse and even blamed the jury for not following directions.

“The victim’s family has been waiting a long time for the sentencing,” she said. “We’re very pleased with the judge’s order.”

Johnson’s oldest sister spoke during the hearing, describing her brother as the “protector” of the family who always wanted to see people happy.

“He lived his life aiming to put a smile on other people, it did not matter if that person was a stranger,” said Angelique Roman. “He wanted to make people happy, at the very least he found his joy making people smile.”

Prosecutor: Arrested Outlaws leader had motive to kill Pharaoh’s witness
Patrick Lakamp Buffalo News December 17, 2023

/buffalonews.com/news/local/crime-courts/prosecutor-arrested-outlaws-leader-had-motive-to-kill-pharaohs-witness/article_fc959ce6-9acd-11ee-a8ee-8794d555d9a4.html

The skeleton of a rat hangs from a noose inside the Outlaws Motorcycle Club clubhouse on Northumberland Avenue.
But that is not the only reminder against ratting out fellow members who prize loyalty to the club. Patches, stickers and T-shirts say “snitches are a dying breed” and “snitches get stitches.”

Those items were among the weapons, cash and signed swastika flag found by federal agents who recently searched biker clubhouses and members’ homes as part of a federal investigation into witness tampering in the Pharaoh’s strip club case. John Ermin, the club’s president and one of four bikers now facing charges as a result of the searches, doesn’t even need to wear a shirt to drive home a stark message. He has tattooed on his stomach the abbreviation for God Forgives, Outlaws Don’t.

The imagery and club credo help explain why former exotic dancer Crystal Quinn feared for her safety, a federal prosecutor said, after she agreed to cooperate in the federal government’s sex- and drug-trafficking case against Peter Gerace Jr., who has employed members of the Outlaws at his Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club in Cheektowaga.
Prosecutors have long been concerned about witness tampering in the case, especially since one cooperator was assaulted in 2019 and then later someone left dead rats on two cars outside the Depew home where Quinn was staying. Quinn’s death from an overdose of fentanyl last summer in Wellsville ratcheted up the investigation and triggered the search warrants for the biker clubhouses and homes. Quinn, 37, died in Simon P. Gogolack’s Wellsville home under what federal authorities call “highly suspicious circumstances.” Gogolack told authorities that Howard Hinkle Jr. told Quinn days before she died “that there was money on her head.” Gogolack and Hinkle have been detained on narcotics and firearms charges stemming from the searches of their homes, with Gogolack facing additional kidnapping and witness tampering charges.

Items seized from the Outlaws clubhouse and homes lead to the unmistakable conclusion that members of the club will harm informants, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi said in court last week.
“You know, one of the things Crystal Quinn stated before she died, while she was a government cooperator, was that she was afraid the Outlaws would kill her as a result of her cooperation,” Tripi said. “It seems like her fears … were well founded.”
‘Silence any witness’
Ermin, the general manager of Pharaoh’s, was charged with possessing 15 firearms while being a user of a controlled substance.

Three others were charged after the searches:
• Scott J. Barnes, who lives at the Northumberland clubhouse and has been described by prosecutors as a national enforcer for the Outlaws, was charged with unlawfully possessing a loaded Glock 17 pistol.
• Michael Roncone, president of the Rare Breed Motorcycle Club in Wellsville, was charged as an unlawful user of a controlled substance in possession of a firearm after FBI agents found 29 firearms and cocaine in his Lancaster home and the Wellsville clubhouse.
• Paul Raslawsky, a member of the Outlaws and a cook at Pharaoh’s, faces a charge of using a controlled substance in possession of a firearm based on a 2021 search of his Cheektowaga home.

he criminal complaints against them do not mention Pharaoh’s.
But federal prosecutors have said in previous court filings that the Outlaws Motorcycle Club provides security at Pharaoh’s.
At a detention hearing Wednesday, Tripi connected the motorcycle club members to the federal case against Gerace and Joseph Bongiovanni.
Federal authorities accuse Gerace of bribing Bongiovanni, at the time a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, and conspiring to engage in drug- and sex-trafficking at the Cheektowaga strip club. Gerace’s charges include maintaining Pharaoh’s as a drug-involved premises where vulnerable young women were exploited through their drug addictions and coerced into engaging in commercial sex acts.
Prosecutors charged the now-retired Bongiovanni with accepting $250,000 in bribes from drug dealers whom he thought were associated with Italian organized crime and shielding them from arrest, as well as providing them with information about investigations and cooperating sources.
Both have pleaded not guilty.

“There are allegations of corruption, drug distribution, sex trafficking through force, fraud and coercion,” Tripi said about Pharaoh’s during Ermin’s detention hearing. “Mr. Ermin’s employed at Pharaoh’s as the manager and several other Outlaws are employed there as well. So they have a very significant interest in anyone who might incriminate them vis-a-vis the conduct occurring at Pharaoh’s or elsewhere.
“This defendant was highly motivated to potentially silence any witnesses against Mr. Gerace,” Tripi said of Ermin.
Tripi warned U.S. Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr. that Ermin poses a danger to witnesses in the Pharaoh’s case.
But Ermin’s lawyer said the government has not offered proof of that.
“Have they pointed to this court one single witness that my client has intimidated?” asked attorney George Muscato. “No, they haven’t, because they know he hasn’t.”
Prosecutors lack proof connecting Ermin to Quinn’s death, Muscato said.
“They just want to throw it out there and say that’s good enough that you should detain him for that,” Muscato told the judge.
Schroeder did not order Ermin or Barnes detained, but allowed both to be released with restrictions. Schroeder, however, stayed his orders for one day, giving the U.S. Attorney’s Office time to appeal them to U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr., which it did. Sinatra has stayed both releases until he can review Schroeder’s orders.
A ‘good’ Pharaoh’s manager

Tripi described the Outlaws Motorcycle Club as a racist, paramilitary organization that is highly structured and dangerous.
The club has been involved for decades in racketeering, murders, drug trafficking and prostitution, Tripi said.
Ermin and Barnes are particularly dangerous, he said.
“They’re not just any regular criminals charged with a (firearms) offense,” he said. “They are ranking members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. You have a national president at the very top, and right under that you have a national enforcer.”
A signed swastika flag that hangs on a wall in the Northumberland Avenue clubhouse includes Ermin’s signature, Tripi said.
Muscato, the defense lawyer, offered a less-menacing portrayal of Ermin.
Ermin has no criminal record.
“They want to say to you, well, he’s dangerous,” Muscato told the magistrate judge. “He’s a flight risk. He’s this, he’s that. So they throw everything out at this court in an effort to try to convince you that this man is something other than what he is.”
Ermin has a legal right to possess his firearms, mostly shotguns, which he uses for hunting, he said. The FBI agents found gummies infused with marijuana and a small amount of leafy marijuana, legal in the state, he said.
Ermin has managed Pharaoh’s for about 10 years, working his way up to that job after years of doing maintenance work and other jobs there for $10 an hour, Muscato said.
He went to work at the strip club to get off Social Security disability after a motorcycle crash seriously injured him on May 12, 2000.

Ermin’s then-37-year-old wife, Doreen, died from her injuries in the crash just outside Pittsburgh.
“He went on Social Security disability, but he doesn’t want to be a slug in this world,” Muscato said. “He went and got a job that paid him enough money, and he’s been a good manager over all these years at Pharaoh’s.”
As for as being leader of what the U.S. Justice Department called a transnational criminal organization, “he must be a lousy president because he has absolutely no criminal record,” Muscato said.
“Where is the bad-guy stuff that he did?” Muscato asked. “They don’t have anything here.”
Tripi said Ermin has managed Pharaoh’s “for a very good chunk of the time it has been maintained as a drug premises, that there’s been sex trafficking occurring there and there’s been Outlaws selling drugs there as will be shown at a federal trial.”

‘Guilt by association’
Barnes, 55, is a union electrician who moved to Buffalo from New Hampshire in 2021
“That’s shortly after Gerace was charged in the superseding indictment and after it became clear that law enforcement had a spotlight on Pharaoh’s,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Cooper said in court.
Cooper pointed to “the Nazi and white supremacy stuff all over the clubhouse” as an indication of the danger Barnes poses.
Barnes was injured last spring when he fell off his motorcycle after hitting a pothole, said attorney David Cotter, who represents Barnes.
“He has had two wickedly major back surgeries within the past nine months,” Cotter said.
The FBI began surveilling the Outlaws clubhouse on Nov. 6 and arrested Barnes on Dec. 7.
“What is missing from the criminal complaint is any allegation of any other criminal activity by Mr. Barnes during that period of time,” Cotter said.

As for the pistol that agents found in the clubhouse, the criminal complaint says it was near his belongings.
“It doesn’t say it’s in his pocket,” Cotter said. “It doesn’t say it has his DNA.”
The magistrate judge declined to detain Ermin and Barnes as their cases proceed, saying most of what he heard dealt more with Pharaoh’s than their charges.

“It’s almost an argument of guilt by association,” said Schroeder.
Schroeder declined prosecutors’ request to ban Ermin and Barnes from Pharaoh’s or the Outlaws clubhouse

Major update in manhunt for attackers who slashed throat of notorious ex-Hells Angels bikie at a packed music festival in Perth

• Ex-Hells Angels bikie Dayne Brajkovich was slashed in the neck
• He was leaving Ministry of Sound EDM concert when attacked

By PADRAIG COLLINS FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA December 12, 2023

A manhunt has been ramped up to find the people responsible for slashing the throat of a notorious ex-Hells Angels bikie at a packed music festival.
Dayne Brajkovich, 44, was stabbed at around 9.50pm on Friday outside the Ministry of Sound Classical EDM concert at Perth’s Kings Park and Botanical Garden.

Assistant Commissioner Tony Longhorn told the West Australian on Wednesday investigators would work tirelessly to bring Brajkovich’s attackers to justice.

‘I am confident that the investigation team will leave no stone unturned as they zero in on those responsible,’ he said.
Police are treating the assault as a targeted attack, with the throat-slashing nearly costing Mr Brajkovich his life if not for the quick-thinking of a doctor who saved him.
‘It was an overt attack with no care or regards for the community and those going about their business, Mr Longhorn said.

As well as investigating the attack on Mr Brajkovich, the WA gang crime squad is also being kept busy with increasing tensions between the rival Rebels and Mongols motorcycle groups.
There were five arrests made during a series of raids carried out across Perth last weekend. A 46-year-old man was charged with drug and firearm offences.

Mr Longhorn said the gang crime unit was well-staffed and was ‘not stretched’ by the ongoing investigations.
‘The zero tolerance approach to OMCG (outlaw motorcycle gangs) violence remains in place and we use whatever resources are required to enforce it,’ he said.
He added that the police do not think an OMCG battle is about to move to a stage of open warfare on Perth’s streets.
‘We certainly aren’t trying to start one, or glorify outlaw motorcycle gangs,’ he said.
The day after he was stabbed, Mr Brajkovich said: ‘I asked for it, I got it. That’s the game.’
‘But I didn’t see the knife coming,’ he told The West Australian, adding that he initially feared the worst.
‘Thought it got the jugular or artery but (it was) just a vein. Got it all sewn up.’

Several people were seen leaving the area on motorbikes after Mr Brajkovich was stabbed.
Police said he received ‘a serious laceration injury to his neck’ in the attack, before being rushed to Royal Perth Hospital for emergency surgery.

It is also believed he suffered an injury to a finger as he tried to defend himself.
Detective Senior Sergeant Anthony Thompson addressed the media on Saturday afternoon, confirming police believe it was a targeted attack.

‘At this stage, we believe the incident is a result of an in-house gang-related issue between the Hells Angels and a former member,’ Mr Thompson said.

‘The parties involved are known to each other and the possibility this incident is the result of a retribution issue is certainly an avenue we are investigating.’
Mr Brajkovich was reportedly kicked out of the Hells Angels in January 2022 after allegedly assaulting the club president at the time.

So far, nobody has been charged over the attack, with the arrests over the weekend not thought to be related to the stabbing.

Thanks to Sergeant Alain Belleau of the Surete Quebec for this article

Quebecer with close ties to Hells Angels killed in Mexico

Samy Tamouro was reported to have ties to Frédérick Silva, the hit man who became an informant during the summer of 2022.
Paul Cherry • Montreal Gazette in Montral, Quebec, Canada December 13, 2023

A 37-year-old man with close ties to the Hells Angels in Quebec was gunned down in Mexico on Wednesday.
Two Mexican media websites reported that Samy Tamouro was killed at a gym in Cancun. Tamouro was charged in 2016 after a drug trafficker arrested in Project Magot-Mastiff turned informant and provided evidence linking Tamouro to Hells Angels based in Quebec.

One website reporting on the homicide showed a photo of what appeared to be Tamouro’s Quebec driver’s licence.
According to La Presse, Tamouro also has ties to Frédérick Silva, the hit man who became an informant during the summer of 2022. Last week, the Sûreté du Québec and Montreal police carried out a series of search warrants based on an ongoing investigation that started after Silva became an informant.

Police sources have told the Montreal Gazette in recent months that some well-known organized crime figures left Quebec after Silva was taken away from a federal penitentiary by helicopter and placed under police protection.
The Attorney General’s Office of the State of Quintana Roo posted a series of messages on X, formerly Twitter, about the homicide. In one, the office wrote that it has “opened an investigation after the events that occurred in a shopping centre in the municipality of Benito Juárez, resulting in a foreign person losing his life as a result of an assault with a firearm.”

In another posting it wrote: “Initial investigations indicate that the victim had a criminal record in Canada, where he was found guilty of the crimes of gangsterism and possession of money of illicit origin.”
It is an apparent reference to how Tamouro pleaded guilty in 2017, at the Montreal courthouse, to a gangsterism charge and being in possession of the proceeds of crime. The charges were based on information provided by the man who became an informant following his arrest in Magot-Mastiff in 2015.

Tamouro was sentenced to an 18-month prison term.

The drug trafficker who turned informant in Project Magot-Mastiff, an investigation into how the Montreal Mafia, Hells Angels and some street gang leaders agreed to work together to sell drugs like cocaine before arrests were made in 2015, said he began working with Tamouro in 2010.

The informant testified in court in a case brought against Hells Angels leader Salvatore Cazzetta. The informant described himself as an accountant who ran a small drug trafficking network in Montreal. He said Tamouro was introduced to the group as someone who made sure the network always had “employees,” a euphemism for street-level dealers.

“It was certain we were going to grow, because we had more employees,” the informant said, adding Tamouro, who went by the nickname “Soulier,” was a good man to have on board because he previously sold drugs in Rosemont and was well connected.

It was through those connections, the informant said, that the network teamed up with another group that included the son of a full-patch member of the Hells Angels. Within a year of working together, the informant said, they were moving three kilos of cocaine per month in three different parts of Montreal. The cocaine was alleged to have been supplied to the network by a member of the Hells Angels

The informant also testified that Tamouro was once a member of the Dark Souls, a Hells Angels support gang.

Bandidos member charged during Red River shooting accepts plea deal
By Liam Easley Taos New News Mexico December 13, 2023
https://www.taosnews.com/public-safety/bandidos-member-charged-during-red-river-shooting-accepts-plea-deal/article_11bed387-f4b7-5e34-8036-ab5dfff30f23.html

An Austin, Texas, man charged during the fatal Memorial Day biker club shooting in Red River pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a controlled substance during a hearing Tuesday (Dec. 12) as part of a plea deal struck with the 8th Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Taos. Per the agreement, Jackson will receive a conditional discharge following 12 months of unsupervised probation.
The defendant, Matthew Jackson, is a member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club and was arrested on May 27 after the Red River Memorial Day Motorcycle Rally shootout that left three other biker club members dead and five wounded.
Although not charged directly in connection to the shootings, around the time of the shooting, police say Jackson brought a firearm into a nearby restaurant licensed to carry liquor and was also in possession of methamphetamine. The firearms charge, however, was dropped by the state as part of the plea agreement.

According to defense attorney Day Thornton, the plea agreement was difficult to create, especially after months of choppy correspondence with 8th Judicial District Prosecutor Cosme Ripol, who Thornton said repeatedly ignored attempts at striking a deal.
After the plea was entered, Tuesday’s hearing addressed a separate motion in relation to concerns Thornton raised regarding Ripol’s treatment of the case.
Ripol had been handling the case for prosecutor Taina Colon, who was away from the office. Since June, Thornton claimed that Ripol had been unresponsive and vacillant in plea negotiations, at one point changing a conditional discharge period from 12 months to 18. Arguing that the negotiations cost Jackson money and time, the motion called for a reimbursement of funds expended by Jackson as attempts at negotiation were ignored.

Colon expressed doubt that it was intentional and instead blamed administrative delay and the added complexities involved with a case against a defendant who resides permanently in another state. Because of the Interstate Compact, which allows state judiciary systems to work in conjunction to resolve cases involving out-of-state defendants, 8th Judicial District Judge Jeffrey Shannon agreed that some additional time to resolve the case may have been warranted.
Colon also argued that the motion for reimbursement of attorneys fees would set a precedent that would encourage potential abuse.
Shannon agreed that the reimbursement would be irrelevant, although he did grant a return of fees for resources expended when Ripol changed the plea to offer an 18-month conditional discharge, which he said would have been inappropriate for the charge in Jackson’s case.
The May 27 Red River shooting started from a feud between the Bandidos Motorcycle Club and the Water Dogs Motorcycle Club. Jackson is a member of the Bandidos. Three arrests were made, including Jackson.
One arrestee, Jacob Castillo, was initially charged with first-degree homicide in connection to the fatal shooting, although this case was dismissed without prejudice and had yet to be refiled as of press time Wednesday (Dec. 13). The other arrestee, Christopher Garcia, who is also a member of the Bandidos, was charged with possession of a controlled substance and conspiracy to commit tampering with evidence. A jury trial has been set in his case for Feb. 26.

Eveleth man charged in connection with an assault allegedly involving Hells Angels
By WDIO Duluth, Minnesota December 12, 2023

https://www.wdio.com/front-page/top-stories/eveleth-man-charged-in-connection-with-an-assault-allegedly-involving-hells-angels/

An Eveleth man faces criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and assault charges.
Paul Debelak is accused of being part of a group of men who allegedly hurt both a man and a woman at the end of November. He’s reportedly a Hells Angels prospect.
The leader of the Hells Angels reportedly did not want the man and woman to associate with each other, according to the criminal complaint.
The complaint said a group went to a home on Summit Street on November 27th, where the victims were. The woman reported she was assaulted by two men. Then the group allegedly took the man to the clubhouse in downtown Eveleth, where he was beaten up.
Authorities executed search warrants at the Hells Angels clubhouse and at the home on Summit Street last week. Two men were arrested, including Debelak. The other has been released from the jail.
Another man turned himself in on Monday.

Second Eveleth man charged in connection with an assault and kidnapping allegedly involving Hells Angels
By WDIO Duluth, Minnesota December 12, 2023
https://www.wdio.com/front-page/top-stories/second-eveleth-man-charged-in-connection-with-an-assault-and-kidnapping-allegedly-involving-hells-angels/

A second Eveleth man has been charged in connection to an assault and kidnapping of a man and woman allegedly involving Hells Angels.
Jerand Paul French has been charged on three counts including kidnapping to commit great bodily harm, false imprisonment, and 5th degree assault.
According to the criminal complaint, on the morning of November 27 the two unidentified victims were at their residence in Eveleth when French and three other men, one of whom has also already been charged, were provided entry.
Both victims were assaulted at their residence and one of them was brought to the Hells Angels Clubhouse in Eveleth where they were detained and continually assaulted before escaping on November 28.
Authorities executed search warrants at the Hells Angels clubhouse and at the victim’s residence last week and two men were arrested.
French turned himself in on Monday.

Note that the Hells Angels affiliated Throttle Lockers MC were convicted of selling Fentanyl

Four-year sentence in Kamloops biker gang bust

Levi Landry infonew.ca British Columbia, Canada December 11, 2023
infotel.ca/newsitem/four-year-sentence-in-kamloops-biker-gang-bust/it102071

One of three men nabbed in a Kamloops biker gang investigation has been sentenced to four years in prison for selling drugs.

Jacob Cavanagh, born in 1995, was sentenced on Dec. 8 after an undercover investigation into a Hells Angels-affiliated club.

His fentanyl deals landed Cavanagh in prison for four years, but a related conspiracy charge was stayed by the Crown.

He was one of three men charged in 2022 after a years-long police investigation.
Kamloops RCMP began investigating the Kelowna Hells Angels support club, the Throttle Lockers Motorcycle Club, in early 2017. The province’s gang enforcement unit eventually took over the investigation, with both RCMP and gang enforcement officers going undercover to buy drugs.

In 2019, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit raided a business and a home owned by Cavanagh’s co-accused Zale Coty.

Coty is the last of three men awaiting a judge’s decision. He’s facing seven criminal charges, including possession for the purpose of trafficking and conspiracy.

The first was Shawn Carlisle, born in 1973, who was sentenced to 30 months jail in February after pleading guilty to two drug trafficking charges.

Outlaws Motorcycle Club president, 2 others charged with possessing guns
Mike McAndrew , Patrick Lakamp Buffalo News December 7, 2023

https://buffalonews.com/news/local/crime-courts/outlaws-motorcycle-club-president-2-others-charged-with-possessing-guns/article_51d86eec-954a-11ee-8d54-e3bda66b0165.html
Patrick Lakamp
The international president of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club and two other motorcycle club members were arrested Thursday by federal agents, and their arrests have implications for the ongoing investigation and legal proceedings in connection with the Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club probe.
John Ermin, who has been identified by prosecutors as general manager of the Pharaoh’s strip club, was charged with possessing firearms while being a user of controlled substances.
Agents seized 15 firearms and marijuana while executing a search warrant Thursday at his home in Lancaster.
Pharaoh’s was not mentioned during the initial federal court appearances of the three men.
But federal prosecutors have said in previous court filings that the Outlaws Motorcycle Club provides security at Pharaoh’s, a Cheektowaga strip club owned by Peter Gerace Jr.
Gerace is awaiting trial on charges of bribing a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, drug trafficking, sex trafficking and witness tampering.
Gerace’s charges include maintaining Pharaoh’s as a drug-involved premises where vulnerable young women were exploited through their drug addictions and coerced into engaging in commercial sex acts with him, his friends and associates.
Retired DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni is awaiting trial with Gerace on charges of accepting more than $250,000 in bribes from Gerace and other drug dealers who he thought were associated with Italian organized crime.
The case, which began as early as 2018 as an investigation of alleged associates or members of the Buffalo Mafia, has included the suicide of State Supreme Court Justice John Michalski, who was called an “unindicted co-conspirator” in Gerace’s sex trafficking; the drug overdose death in Wellsville of former Pharaoh’s dancer Crystal Quinn, who was expected to reluctantly testify against Gerace; dead rats found on cars owned by the mother of a witness; allegations of witness tampering against Gerace; the arrest of an Amherst police detective accused of lying to the FBI about his contacts with Gerace; and a failed attempt by prosecutors to have the trial moved to Rochester.
The indictment of Gerace said he “employs topless dancers, bartenders, bouncers, managers, and kitchen staff at Pharaoh’s where food, beverages, and dances with topless dancers are sold to patrons. Several of Gerace’s male employees at Pharaoh’s are members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.”
“Law enforcement considers the Outlaws MC to be a dangerous and violent criminal organization, and there have historically been a myriad of Outlaws MC prosecutions nationally … including a murder at a strip club,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi wrote in court documents.
Also arraigned Thursday on charges of possession of a firearm by a user of controlled substances were: Michael Roncone, president of the Rare Breed Motorcycle Club, based in Wellsville, which federal agents said supports the Outlaws Motorcycle Club; and Scott J. Barnes, a convicted felon who agents said has been living at the Outlaws clubhouse on Northumberland Avenue in Buffalo since they began surveilling it on Nov. 6.
FBI agents said they seized cocaine and marijuana, plus 29 firearms while executing search warrants at Roncone’s home in Lancaster and the Rare Breed clubhouse in Wellsville on Thursday.
They seized on Thursday a loaded pistol near where Barnes has been sleeping in the clubhouse, agents said.
Barnes was convicted at a general court-martial of possessing LSD and sentenced to four years in confinement, according to the FBI.
U.S. Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr. ordered the three defendants detained pending their detention hearings on Tuesday.
The criminal complaint against Ermin described him as the most powerful member of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, saying he has the ability to command legions of members and associates of the club and has considerable influence over support clubs loyal to the Outlaws.
The Outlaws Motorcycle Club has maintained a presence in the Buffalo area and has been “the dominant 1% biker club in the region.”
The 1% label refers to a decades-old American Motorcycle Association claim that 99% of motorcyclists are law-abiding citizens and 1% are not.” That led to the term of “1% biker club” to describe outlaw motorcycle clubs and their members.
The complaint against Ermin says the Outlaws Motorcycle Club maintains a clubhouse that has been active in Buffalo for decades and it is a location where there have been numerous reports of drug use and distribution over years.
At Thursday’s court appearance, Tripi said federal agents executed five search warrants and collected hundreds of items, including a human skull.
Tripi and Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas T. Cooper pressed for all three to be detained ahead of their detention hearings, citing among other reasons the threat they pose to injure or intimidate witnesses or jurors and also to obstruct justice.
“We don’t want the defendant out,” Tripi told Schroeder about Roncone, the first of the three to appear before the judge.
Since January, when the government began producing evidence to the defense i the Pharaoh’s case, acts of witness tampering have increased, Tripi said in a court filing last month.
Victims and witnesses in the Pharaoh’s case have reported multiple instances of witness tampering, Tripi has said in court recently. He has cited two incidents involving dead rats placed at a residence associated with a potential government witness.
Schroeder initially said he was not inclined to detain the three men. But after an agitated exchange with Tripi and then a brief recess during the proceeding, the judge returned and cited a section of federal law that said a defendant “shall be detained” if the government or defendant seeks a continuance.
“I treat the word ‘shall’ as being a mandate to detain at least until the detention hearing,” Schroeder said.
Ermin told law enforcement that there were guns and marijuana in his Lancaster home, and he said the marijuana was for recreational use.

Trio of Outlaws motorcycle gang members from South Florida arrested, sheriff says
WPLG Local10.com D Pembroke Park ,Florida December 5, 2023
https://www.local10.com/news/local/2023/12/05/trio-of-outlaws-motorcycle-gang-members-from-south-florida-arrested-sheriff-says/

MARATHON, Fla. – Three men affiliated with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club biker gang were arrested after a traffic stop in the Florida Keys turned up guns and drugs on Monday, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
MCSO spokesperson Adam Linhardt said deputies arrested Kyle Raidel Arriete, 32, of Tamarac; Robert Douglas Belvin, 58, of Key West; and Wayne David Hehe, 52, of Key West, after stopping their vehicle on U.S. 1 in Marathon Monday evening.
Linhardt said deputies stopped the Chevrolet pickup near 55th Street after seeing the driver, later identified as Hehe, not wearing a seat belt.
All three men were wearing Outlaws clothing and there were open alcoholic beverages in plain view, along with a strong odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle, according to authorities.
Linhardt said deputies found a 9 mm pistol and ammunition, a loaded .40-caliber pistol and ammunition, roughly .3 grams of cocaine and 6.3 grams of marijuana and assorted drug paraphernalia.
Arriete was arrested on a charge of marijuana possession and was no longer listed in Monroe County jail records as of Tuesday.
Belvin was arrested on two counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, plus charges of possession of cocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was being held on an $85,000 bond as of Tuesday afternoon.
Hehe, arrested on charges of possession of cocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia, was being held on a $30,000 bond.

Sin City Deciples Members Convicted of Racketeering and Drug Conspiracy
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
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For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Indiana

HAMMOND- Kenneth Christopher McGhee a/k/a “Sonny” and “Angel,” age 74, of Merrillville, Indiana, Richard White a/k/a “Ignorant Bastard,” age 56, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Brandon Romand Parks a/k/a “Baywatch,” age 45, of Chicago, Illinois, and Herman Troy Jefferson a/k/a “G-Rilla,” age 51, of Jacksonville, Arkansas, were each found guilty of various felony charges following an eighteen-day jury trial presided over by United States District Court Judge Philip P. Simon, announced United States Attorney Clifford D. Johnson.
The jury found McGhee and Jefferson guilty of the racketeering conspiracy and the drug conspiracy and additionally found McGhee guilty of possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of controlled substances. The jury further found White and Parks guilty of the racketeering conspiracy.
According to the Second Superseding Indictment, the Sin City Deciples, originally formed in 1967 in Gary, Indiana, is a motorcycle organization in which its members and associates engaged in acts of violence, extortion, and narcotics distribution in the Northern District of Indiana and elsewhere.
The agencies involved in the Sin City Deciples prosecution are: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the East Chicago Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Gary Police Department, the Griffith Police Department, the Hammond Police Department, the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation Division, the Lake County Sheriff’s Department, Indiana High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area officers and agents, the Merrillville Police Department, the Munster Police Department, and the Schererville Police Department. The Lake County Prosecutor’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Northern District of Illinois, Southern District of Indiana, Western District of Kentucky, and Western District of Pennsylvania also provided assistance.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys David J. Nozick, Michael J. Toth, and Kimberly L. Schultz.
This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks.
Updated November 29, 2023