New indictment targets those who prosecutors say had motive to kill Pharaoh’s witness
Patrick Lakamp Buffalo News January 9, 2024
https://buffalonews.com/news/local/crime-courts/new-indictment-targets-those-who-prosecutors-say-had-motive-to-kill-pharaohs-witness/article_4be0a986-af1d-11ee-98e1-df01e4bee237.html
A 28-count superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday names six people – including Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club owner Peter Gerace Jr. and Outlaws Motorcycle Club national leader John Ermin – as part of a conspiracy to obstruct justice by targeting a federal witness for retaliation.
The overdose death last summer of that witness, Crystal Quinn, ratcheted up the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office investigation in what had already been an intense criminal case against Gerace on sex- and drug-trafficking and bribery charges. And that investigation led to the new indictment.
Three others named in the indictment face other charges – but not the obstruction count.
The new federal grand jury indictment spells out allegations of witness tampering, retaliation, kidnapping, narcotics and firearms charges.
Simon Gogolack, who called 911 to report Quinn had died in his Wellsville home, faces 17 counts – the most of any other person named in the indictment.
In addition to obstruction, witness tampering and retaliation charges, he faces distribution of fentanyl resulting in death. He’s the only defendant in the indictment to face that charge. On July 31 or Aug. 1, Gogolack intentionally gave Quinn fentanyl, which resulted in her death, according to the grand jury charge. Prosecutors have said she was found to have 400 times a lethal dose of the potent opioid drug.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Jeffrey T. Bagley, who represents Gogolack, could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but he has previously discounted the prosecutors’ assertions about Gogolack.
“He eagerly awaits his day in court where he can properly defend himself,” Bagley told The News on Friday. “The reality is far simpler and less interesting: Simon had known Crystal Quinn since high school and is deeply saddened by his friend’s death.”
Others named in the indictment are:
• Gerace on obstruction, tampering and retaliation counts.
• Ermin, the Pharaoh’s manager and national president of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, on obstruction, tampering, retaliation and firearms counts.
• Michael Roncone, who was the president of the Rare Breed Motorcycle Club Wellsville Chapter and is associated with the Outlaws, on obstruction, making a false statement and firearms counts.
• Frank Knight, a Wellsville resident linked to Roncone and Gogolack, on obstruction and false statements counts.
• Howard Hinkle Jr., a Wellsville resident associated with Roncone, on obstruction, tampering, retaliation, marijuana, drug-involved premises and firearms counts.
• Cortnie Barber on kidnapping and narcotics conspiracy counts.
• Bernard Byrd III on a narcotics conspiracy count.
• Scott Barnes, who lived at the Outlaws’ Northumberland clubhouse and has been described by prosecutors as a national enforcer for the Outlaws, on firearms charges.
• Many of those named in the indictment are already in custody on previous charges, including Gerace, Ermin, Barnes, Hinkle and Gogolack, and have pleaded not guilty.
• For the most part, many of the counts in the indictment do not come as a surprise.
• During recent detention hearings for already-arrested Outlaws bikers, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph Tripi and Nicholas Cooper provided information – but did not answer all questions from judges – about what happened to Quinn during her fatal trip to Wellsville.
• In successfully seeking to keep Ermin detained, Tripi sought to tie together Quinn’s March 9, 2023, grand jury appearance with Gerace’s eventual detention, Gerace’s ties to Ermin and the motorcycle clubs, and the Rare Breed club’s links to Gogolack.
• On Feb. 3, 2023, Quinn was charged related to Facebook messages she sent to threaten a witness against Gerace. Prosecutors describe Quinn as a former Pharaoh’s employee, a longtime friend, associate and cleaning lady for Gerace, and she was associated with several members of the Outlaws.
• Quinn met with FBI agents three times over the next month, providing information about Gerace and the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, according to the indictment.
• On March 9, Quinn testified before a grand jury.
• Two weeks later, the grand jury returned an indictment charging Gerace with three counts of witness tampering and one count of distribution of cocaine – on top of the sex- and drug-trafficking and bribery charges he already faced. After his detention hearing proceedings on March 24 and March 27, a judge revoked his previous release order and he was ordered detained.
• On April 3, Quinn entered a pretrial diversion agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Probation Office, and also entered a formal cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors.
• On April 6, the criminal charge against her was dismissed, and that dismissal was noted on the public docket.
• The government told Wolford at a detention hearing that Gerace figured Quinn cooperated.
• “We look back and say, standing here today, that she cooperated. She flipped,” Tripi said at a Dec. 19 hearing. “She testified in grand jury. Gerace got detained. Gerace got mad. Gerace made statements that he could have people killed and had a long reach. And the manager of his club is the national president of the Outlaws, who controls legions of people, who has support clubs and puppet clubs under him, which includes the Rare Breed. And then someone who wants to be a hit man and hangs out with the Rare Breed in Wellsville injects himself back into her life and lures her and she overdoses and it is staged to look like (an accidental or suicidal) death.”
• Prosecutors have previously identified Gogolack, 39, a previously convicted drug dealer, as someone who had a role in her death. He was indicted on narcotics and firearms charges after Quinn turned up dead in his home. Another indictment in September followed, adding two kidnapping and six witness tampering charges against him.
• “We believe the evidence shows and will show at a later court proceeding that he fed her the fentanyl that killed her,” Tripi told Chief U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford at a recent court proceeding.
• But the name Cortnie Barber, charged with kidnapping, has not come up at previous court proceedings or public court filings, and the indictment includes scant information about what role prosecutors believe Barber had in the alleged retaliation against Quinn.
• The indictment lays out how those charged with obstruction of justice conspiracy did so in several ways to keep her from testifying against Gerace at his Pharaoh’s trial.
• They caused dead rats to be placed at Quinn’s residence; members and associates of motorcycle clubs were told to threaten her; and then they caused her death, according to the indictment.
• Once she was dead, they concealed from law enforcement how she died and misdirected FBI agents to prevent information from being discovered.
• They also concealed the identities and the extent and nature of the relationships between individuals who caused her death and the Rare Breed Motorcycle Club, the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, Ermin and Gerace, according to the indictment.
• On Feb. 25, 2021, Gerace was indicted on five counts including drug- and sex-trafficking and bribery. The government contends Gerace and his associates groomed vulnerable and drug-addicted women into a life of daily drug use and coerced and manipulated them into engaging in commercial sex acts. Prosecutors have charged now-retired DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni with accepting $250,000 in bribes from Gerace and drug dealers whom he thought were associated with organized crime and shielding them from arrest, as well as providing them with information about investigations and cooperating sources.
Bongiovanni’s name does not appear in the superseding indictment unsealed Tuesday.
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