Pagans and the Feds

http://www.wvgazette.com/News/200910170473

October 17, 2009
Prosecutors hope charges will cripple Pagans
By The Associated Press
 

By charging national leaders and more than 50 other Pagans Motorcycle Club members and associates with murder conspiracy, racketeering and a host of other crimes, federal prosecutors are attempting something even the Hells Angels have never managed: beat the Pagans badly enough to loosen their grip on the outlaw motorcycle world in the Eastern U.S.

"That's going to devastate that organization," Bill Dulaney, an outlaw biker turned assistant professor at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C., said of the Oct. 6 indictments issued in Charleston.

"The Pagans are not a large organization."

Not too many years ago, the Pagans ranked among the outlaw motorcycle world's so-called big four. Then came a series of racketeering cases in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh that helped keep the club to about 400 full-fledged members.

While rivals such as the Hells Angels get credit for operating sophisticated rackets, investigators describe the Pagans more as a group of blue-collar working stiffs. A string of recent court appearances tend to back that up: the club's top officer owns a construction company, while other members work as truck drivers, electricians, welders, even a school bus driver in West Virginia.

They have, however, retained their reputation as one of the toughest and most violent biker gangs.

The latest indictments in Charleston accuse club president David "Bart" Barbeito, vice president Floyd "Diamond Jesse" Moore and others of running a sprawling organization engaged in kidnapping, robbery, extortion, conspiracy to commit murder and other crimes in an effort to be the pre-eminent biker gang in the Eastern United States. Barbeito and Moore have been deemed too dangerous to release until trial, along with several other members named in the indictment.

"They're a very old-school, intimidation-based motorcycle gang," said Steve Cook, executive director of the Midwest Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association. "They're ruthless. They're a violent, violent group."

The government certainly believes that. FBI agents arrived to search Barbeito's rural Maryland home in Blackhawk helicopters, according to his lawyer, Stanley Needleman.

Once there, they found 18 firearms, including a handgun with the serial number removed, 2,000 rounds of ammunition and four bulletproof vests, U.S. Assistant Attorney Steve Loew said during Barbeito's recent detention hearing.

Loew rejected Needleman's contention that the bulletproof vests were used by Barbeito's children as a precaution during hunting, saying deer don't shoot back.

Loew has tried to show just how violent the club can be by airing recordings of Moore allegedly ordering subordinates to beat former club members who were behind on their annual club dues and, in one instance, cut off an ousted Pagan's finger.

Many of the charges against Moore and others center on alleged efforts to intimidate smaller motorcycle clubs. In one instance, Pagans are accused of invading the Portsmouth, Ohio, clubhouse of the Road Disciples, stripping them of their patches and ordering them to disband.

Dulaney dismisses the notion such disputes should be prosecuted as federal crimes.

"The beatings, the fights, all of this needs to be put into the context of the society in which they operate," he said. "A couple of bikers beat the hell out of each other, then all of a sudden it's an international gang conspiracy."

Dulaney contends most biker violence should be viewed as enforcing social norms in an outlaw society dominated by "1 percenters." Outlaw bikers adopted the term decades ago after the American Motorcycle Association began defending the pastime by saying 99 percent of riders are upstanding citizens.

"In every region, there's a dominant club and that will be a 1 percent club and there are other outlaw clubs that are not 1 percent clubs," Dulaney said. "The local 1 percent club really does hold responsibility for keeping order.

"It actually keeps more peace than it causes violence ... It's how they enforce group norms."

And it can solidify a biker's position, said Terry Katz, a retired Maryland State Trooper and member of the International Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association.

For instance, 73 Pagans charged after a fatal 2002 brawl at a Hells Angels convention in New York boosted their positions.

"They became known as the 73," Katz said. "They actually got a higher status in the club."

Federal prosecutor Loew alleges one of the 73, Virginia resident William Grayson, has since been elevated to national vice president. Grayson refused to answer that question during testimony at Barbeito's detention hearing.

The West Virginia case also involves allegations of drug dealing and illegal gambling, with money passed up the chain to the leadership.

Katz, who reached associate status with the Pagans during an undercover operation, considers the group highly organized and fully criminal.

"They are an organized crime group and have been proven to be so," he said.

Dulaney, who grew up in West Virginia and knows Pagans members, says the amount of crime and organization varies wildly by chapter.

For instance, one chapter in Florida centered on partying, not racketeering.

"They just wanted their place to run, drink beer, get high, have a blast, look at naked women," he said. "There wasn't really any illegal activity going on."

Clubs in West Virginia and Pennsylvania were different: "It was all about making some illegal money," he said, "a little bit of prostitution, a lot of illegal guns."

Barbeito's lawyer, meanwhile, dismisses the idea the Pagans are a criminal organization and credits his client with putting a stop to drug dealing, among other things.

"At one point, maybe the Pagans were what they say they were," Needleman said. "But Mr. Barbeito, to my knowledge, straightened that club out.

"Ninety-five percent of these people were kids who never grew up."

"DUCK"
Biker Republic