Category: User Submitted News

According to their web-site the Warlocks Orlando Chapter will be hosting their 2nd annual “Gear up for Bike Week Poker Run.” This event is to take place on March 3, 2012 at Sharkys Bar, 3925 Clarcona Ocoee Rd, Orlando, Florida, with a start time of 11AM.
Also on March 3rd, the Warlocks will be hosting a 12 hour of Warlocks Sebring Party. This event is to start at 2PM and will be held at 3454 Bartee Rd, Sebring, Florida.

According to their web site, the Sons of Silence, North Colorado Chapter, will be hosting a Cabin Fever Party. This event is to take place on March 3, 2012 at the Canyon Grill, located at 4701 West CR 38E, FT Collins, CO 80526, with a start time of 12 PM.

According to their web site, the Sons Of Silence, Northern Colorado Chapter will be hosting a V-D Party on Saturday, February 17, 2012. This event is to take place at 2002 1st Ave, Greeley, CO and starts at 7PM.

According to their web site, On February 12, 2012 Arizona Chapters of the Hells Angels will be hosting their 29th annual Florence Prison Run. The web site florenceprisonrun.com states that the event will start at different meeting points around the state where packs of riders will meet up and ride down with different Hells Angels charters. Chapters listed Mesa located at 1826 West Broadway Road, Mesa AZ, Phoenix located at 147 W Mohave St Phoenix AZ, Tucson located at 2819 South 12th Ave Tucson, AZ, Cave Creek and their Nomad Chapter located at the Steel Horse Saloon 19th Ave & Bell Road, Phoenix AZ. According to a the web site presale for the run begins at 8AM at all locations, they will depart at 10Am from all locations and part starts at 11AM at the run site. More information can be found at the web site florenceprisonrun.com

Motorcycle gang member to be sentenced in drug probe
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Friday, January 13, 2012
A high-ranking member of the Pagans motorcycle gang from Ross at the center of a state grand jury probe of drug-dealing by the Washington County-based gang will be sentenced next month in federal court in West Virginia for distributing cocaine in that state.
A federal judge Wednesday scheduled sentencing for Feb. 2 for Richard J. Speciale, 50, known as “Big Rick.” He faces a minimum sentence of 10 years as part of a plea he entered in March in Clarksburg, W.Va. The terms of the plea are sealed, as are several other documents.
Mr. Speciale could face additional time for violating the terms of his probation from a prior conviction in Pittsburgh. He went to federal prison in 1998 for cocaine distribution and was released in 2007.
The current case against him began with a controlled buy in December 2009 in which state agents said Mr. Speciale sold drugs to an informant at his house in Ross.
Mr. Speciale admitted that he has been distributing cocaine in West Virginia since June 2007, just months after his release from prison.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12013/1203203-54.stm#ixzz1jR8MB4Vo

Ex-county guard sentenced on drug charge
John M. Carey, 38, bought drugs from another county prison guard, officials say.
By Sheena Delazio sdelazio@timesleader.com
January 13, 2012 Times Leader Wilkes-Barre, PA
WILKES-BARRE – A former Luzerne County Correctional Facility guard was sentenced Thursday to 18 months probation on charges he purchased drugs from another prison guard.
John M. Carey, 38, of Kingston, was sentenced on a single count of possession of a controlled substance.
Carey, who pleaded guilty to the charge in November, was charged in March after an investigation by the state attorney general.
Deputy Attorney General Tim Doherty prosecuted the case. Carey was represented by attorney Ferris Webby.
According to court papers, Carey and three other prison workers were charged in a 13-month investigation.
In May 2010, Carey testified before a grand jury that he began receiving cocaine from John Gonda in 2008, and that Gonda would deliver the cocaine to Carey at his apartment.
Carey further testified that Gonda, a former guard, provided him with half grams of cocaine approximately 10 to 15 times, until Gonda was arrested in March 2009 in another case.
Gonda, 40, of White Haven, was sentenced in November 2010 to one to two years in county prison on charges relating to a $3.6 million cocaine distribution ring based in Ashley and run by members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

Read more: http://www.timesleader.com/news/Ex-county_guard_sentenced_on_drug_charge_01-13-2012.html#ixzz1jR6PQCFI

Street gang in war with Hells Angels
By QMI AGENCY
Posted 16 hours ago
LONDON, Ont. — Street gangs with outside muscle, targeting the Hells Angels, have sparked the outburst of violence that’s left five adult businesses in flames and two people shot, London police said Wednesday.
Police vowed to end the violence, even as organized-crime analysts and criminal sources disputed if the Hells had the clout in London to battle back.
Late Wednesday, three of the men police arrested — two from London, one from Brampton — appeared in court by video to answer early charges related to the shooting. All three men are black, giving credence to the police theory biker gangs — which don’t usually allow black members — aren’t responsible for the recent violence.
Whoever is responsible for the fires and shootings, they’ll have to answer for it, Chief Brad Duncan vowed at a news conference.
“You are priority No. 1,” Duncan warned. “We will not tolerate this open display of violence. This shooting has taken place in a residential area, in close proximity to a public school, and notwithstanding the time of day that it occurred, it has put our citizens at grave risk.”
The weapon involved in the shooting hasn’t been found, police said.
Police held the news conference partly to quell rumours the violence was a result of a battle between the Hells Angels and their traditional rivals, the Outlaws, another biker gang.
“There is not information at this time to support such an assumption,” Duncan said.
But street gangs “can be every bit as dangerous as the more traditional outlaw motorcycle clubs,” he warned. “They are associated with the drug trade. Guns and firearms are involved. They are every bit as organized.”
Street gangs have no fear of the Hells Angels or any outlaw motorcycle club, biker analyst Yves Lavigne told QMI Agency.
In London, the street gangs have taken over the drug-trafficking market because traditional biker clubs lost their power, said Lavigne, author and co-author of several books about outlaw bikers and drug trafficking.
In December, the revived Hells Angels chapter in London began leaning on the street-gang members to start working for them, he said.
“What you’ve seen the past five days is the street gangs telling the Hells Angels, ‘Screw you.’ ”
Full of new members with little hardcore experience, the London Hells Angels don’t have the backbone to retaliate, Lavigne said.
“They don’t have what it takes.”
But another organized crime analyst and author, James Dubro, disagreed.
“The Hells Angels have to hit back. It’s a total lack of respect,” he said. “There has to be retaliation and serious retaliation.”
Dubro said the news that a street gang, not the Outlaws, is targeting the Hells Angels could spell even more trouble in London.
“In the end, it leads to more violence and more chaos in the underworld,” he said. “Hells Angels has it all. You couldn’t possibly take them on.”
Two sources with knowledge of London’s criminal world said they’re expecting the London Hells Angels will bring in supporters from out of town to deal with the matter.
“You’ve got all the boys coming in. It’s going to go on until someone gets killed,” said one long-time associate of bikers.
The outburst of violence began Saturday morning, when a tattoo parlour on Hamilton Road owned by a member of the Outlaws, was set ablaze. That was followed by fires at a strip club owned by a Hells Angels leader, and two massage parlours, Sunday morning.
The sequence of fires suggested the Outlaws and Hells Angels were in the early stages of a war.
The violence escalated Wednesday morning, just after midnight, when two people were shot outside a purported clubhouse of the Hells Angels on Grey Street.
A female victim was treated for gunshot wounds and released. A male victim remains in hospital in serious condition, police said.
Police wouldn’t release the names of the victims, but said the man was a known member of the Hells Angels and the woman an associate of his.
Sources told QMI Agency the male victim is Diamond Ialenti, a full-patch member of the Hells Angels.
The victim “has had ongoing issues with street gangs,” Duncan said.
Asked if it’s unusual for London street gangs to hire outside muscle, Duncan noted many other shootings in the city have involved drug dealers and gang members from the Greater Toronto Area and other areas.
“In many of our previous investigations, shooting investigations and homicide investigations, that fact has come out fairly clear.”
Duncan said police were still trying to figure how an Outlaws-associated business got mixed up with a battle between street gangs and the Hells Angels.

FIRST POSTED: THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 2012 10:15 PM EST | UPDATED: THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 2012 10:27 PM EST
(QMI Agency files)
LONDON, ONT. – As the news filtered out — a series of suspicious fires at shops, parlours and clubs connected to biker gangs, along with a shooting outside a suspected Hells Angels clubhouse — it seemed logical to conclude that London had unwittingly found itself in the middle of a biker war.
That seemed upsetting, but understandable. After all, we’ve seen this kind of stuff before. It seemed familiar and, in some strangely perverse fashion, almost reassuring.
But then London police Chief Brad Duncan revealed police believed the violence was the work of street gangs.
Street gangs? Taking on the Hells Angels? That’s crazy, right?
Yes, it is. And that, as one expert warns, is precisely the problem.
“It is audacious,” says Irvin Waller. “But street gangs tend to be audacious.”
A founding executive director of the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime, current president of the U.S.-based International Organization for Victims’ Assistance, longtime professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa and the author of several books — including the influential Less Law, More Order: The Truth About Reducing Crime — Waller has advised officials in more than 40 countries about how to prevent violence.
And when told about our police chief’s view that London is seeing a battle between gangs and bikers, Waller issues a dour warning. “None of this,” he says, “is good news.”
Shootings and suspicious fires are, of course, never welcome. But Waller says the very make-up of a street gang — young men typically, he says, between the ages of 15 and 25 — is a recipe for recklessness.
“These are basically young men who likely dropped out of school, or are not involved in jobs,” says Waller. “If they’ve started to get involved in the drug trade, which would be consistent with what your police chief said, then they’re probably carrying handguns for their own protection. And once you start carrying handguns for your own protection, you’re living a risky life.”
Whereas members of the Hells Angels tend to be older, wiser and more dependent on a well-organized hierarchy with established procedures, Waller says street gangs are, by their very nature, more careless and impulsive.
This local conflict has likely been triggered, he says, by a desire for a larger share of the lucrative drug market.
“Your typical street gang does not have links to Colombia or Mexico, so they are basically retailers of drugs,” says Waller. “The Hells Angels may also be retailers, but they’ve been involved in importing and distributing drugs… The Hells Angels are usually higher up the drug food chain.”
Waller, who has studied street gangs in Canada and Mexico, adds gang violence often escalates.
“Youth gangs are not good news because they end up shooting each other, and other people get hurt,” he says. “And there’s no doubt there’s a lot more violence associated with gang activity in Canada now than there was 15 years ago… Dramatically more.”
Waller says street gangs and handguns go hand-in-hand.
“Now, roughly 20% of homicides are (committed) with a handgun,” says Waller. “But if you go back 15 years, it was almost none that were (committed with) handgun.”
“What will the Hells Angels do?” asks Waller. “I don’t know. But these are dangerous acts. And my concern is, where is this going to stop?”
ian.gillespie@sunmedia.ca
twitter.com/IanatLFPress

SAN BERNARDINO – County prosecutors have dismissed criminal charges against Pastor Palafox, the international president of the Vagos motorcycle club.
Palafox, 47, had been charged with vehicle theft involving a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, possession of the stolen motorcycle and street terrorism. He was among several Vagos members whose arrests were announced last year at a news conference at the San Bernardino Police Department.
However, during a hearing Tuesday in San Bernardino Superior Court, Deputy District Attorney Steve Sanchez announced the charges against Palafox had been dropped. Prosecutors would not say why, citing an ongoing investigation.
Defense attorney Joseph Yanny, who represented Palafox, said later that prosecutors lacked probable cause to pursue a case. The motorcycle was part of a sale that had evolved into a civil dispute, and the alleged victim said it wasn’t stolen, he said.
“Hat’s off to Steve Sanchez for seeing the folly of prosecuting this decent man,” said Yanny, outside the courthouse. The lack of probable cause was revealed during requests for discovery, or evidence, from prosecutors, he said.
Two co-defendants in the case, Scott Rivera of San Bernardino, and Caesar Rodriguez of Oak Hills, continue to face charges and are scheduled to return to court Feb. 14.
The defendants were arrested in connection with an 18-month, seven-county investigation into the “upper echelon” of Vagos members by state and local authorities.
Hundreds of handguns and other weapons, including an anti-tank weapon and a rocket launcher, as well as body armor, cocaine, methamphetamine and Vagos clothing were seized by law enforcement officers.
Palafox, of Colton, said taxpayers’ money, which was spent to prosecute him, could have been used in better ways. “Because there was a lot of money wasted here,” he said.
Charges were dismissed in November against Andrew Lozano of Fontana, who was accused of possessing body armor and participating in a street gang. Thomas Henry Gibson of San Bernardino, pleaded no contest in November to possession of marijuana.
Prosecutors, however, say the Vagos investigation was successful.
“In regards to whether or not the raid was successful, the bottom line is that law enforcement was able to confiscate several hundred weapons and remove several pounds of cocaine and methamphetamine off the streets. Therefore, it was a huge success,” said Chris Lee, spokesman for the District Attorney’s Office.

According to their web-site, The Cave Creek Chapter of the Hells Angeles will be hosting the Chris’s 5th Annual Smoker Party. Open sources confirm that this event will take place on January 21, 2012 at the Croatian American Club, located at 2434 W. Devonshire, Phoenix Arizona and will start at 6:00 PM. They are advertising cheap drinks, band and show.

According to the Orlando Chapter of the Warlocks web-site, the Columbia, South Carolina Chapter will be hosting a Grand Opening of their clubhouse, located at 1700 Platt spring Road, West Columbia South Carolina, on January 6-7, 2012. From the web-site, it appears that the Warlocks have reserved a block of rooms at the Holiday Inn located at 110 McSwain Drive, West Columbia, SC 29169.