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Numerous police and international intelligence agencies classify the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) as a motorcycle gang and contend that members carry out widespread violent crimes, including drug dealing, trafficking in stolen goods, gunrunning, extortion, and prostitution rings. Members of the organization have continuously asserted that they are only a group of motorcycle enthusiasts who have joined to ride motorcycles together, to organize social events such as group road trips, fundraisers, parties, and motorcycle rallies, and that any crimes are the responsibility of the individuals who carried them out and not the club as a whole.

The Hells Angels founded their first chapters in New York state on December 5, 1969 by "patching over" the Aliens motorcycle gang of New York City and the Hackers biker gang in Rochester. In 1975, another chapter was established in Binghamton. With additional chapters in New Rochelle and Troy, the Hells Angels have a presence in the Hudson Valley, as well as in Suffolk County on Long Island. The New York City charter is among the club's largest, and, along with the Cleveland chapter in Ohio, is responsible for coordinating all Hells Angels activities in the Eastern United States as well as those of chapters in Canada and Europe.

The Hells Angels have formed links with the Gambino and Genovese crime families in New York City and the Bufalino crime family in Western New York, providing security, transportation in narcotics transactions and contract killings for the Mafia in exchange for drugs. The U.S. Customs Service documented cases in which the New York Hells Angels partnered the Medellín Cartel in the smuggling of cocaine. The club also distributes methamphetamine in the state and smuggles marijuana into the United States from Canada through the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation.

Mafia connections

The United States Department of Justice has stated that the Hells Angels have links with New York's Gambino and Genovese crime families; the mafia is afforded security and transportation in narcotics deals in exchange for drugs and contract killings.

Rape and sexual assault

Eight Hells Angels members, who were in New York City to attend the funeral of murdered club member Jeffrey "Groover" Coffey, were arrested on suspicion of the March 10, 1971 gang rape of a seventeen-year-old girl in a leather goods store in East Village, Manhattan. The bikers allegedly returned to the store, owned by Eugene Pritzert, to pick up goods they had ordered the day before. When Pritzert told them the goods were not ready, they began abusing him, waking Pritzert's girlfriend who was asleep in the rear of the store. While some members guarded the store owner, others took turns beating and raping the girl. After approximately six hours, Pritzert managed to escape and alerted police. The girl identified her alleged attackers in a police lineup. The eight men – Robert Cardner, Robert Marshall and Car Paretta from Massachusetts, Thomas Fusco, Edward Robinson and Kevin Seymour from New York state, Kurt Groudle from Ohio, and James Ordfield from New York City – were charged with rape, sodomy, unlawful imprisonment and criminal trespassing.

Assault, murder, and conflict with rival clubs

College student Bruce Meyer was shot five times in the head at point-blank range with a .22 caliber handgun fitted with a silencer in the parking lot of his apartment building in Brewster on December 14, 1975. Law enforcement sources stated that Meyer was murdered by the former president of the Connecticut Hells Angels chapter in retaliation for him killing a Hells Angels member in a car crash on July 3, 1975.ref name="Forget">Raymond C. Morgan (1979). The Angels Do Not Forget. Law & Justice Pubs, U.S.A. ISBN 9780960271801. Archived from the original on 2023-03-07. Retrieved January 29, 2023.</ref>

In September 1994, near Buffalo at the Lancaster Speedway drag races, there was a clash between the Hells Angels and a rival biker gang resulting in two deaths, and multiple injuries.

On January 28, 2007, a woman named Roberta Shalaby was found badly beaten on the sidewalk outside the Hells Angels' clubhouse at 77 East Third Street in the East Village, Manhattan. The resulting investigation by the NYPD has been criticized by the group for its intensity. The police were refused access to the Hells Angels clubhouse and responded by closing off the area, setting up sniper positions, and sending in an armored personnel carrier. After obtaining a warrant, the police searched the clubhouse and arrested one Hells Angel who was later released. The group claims to have no connection with the beating of Shalaby. Five security cameras cover the entrance to the New York chapter's East 3rd Street club house, but the NY HAMC maintains nobody knows how Shalaby was beaten nearly to death at their front door. A club lawyer said they intended to sue the city of New York for false arrest and possible civil rights violations.

Operation Roughrider

The New York City chapter of the Hells Angels began manufacturing and distributing methamphetamine in mid-1978, with chapter president Sandy Alexander providing the drug formula, vice president Howard "Howie" Weisbrod supplying the phenylacetone (P2P) used in the manufacturing process, and Paul Francis "K.C." Casey acting as the primary manufacturer. Alexander served as the chapter's president from its inception on December 5, 1969 until March 25, 1984, and also led the club's East Coast and European chapters. Casey manufactured the drug in a series of locations in Staten Island and Connecticut. Half of the methamphetamine produced by Casey went to Weisbrod's P2P supplier, and the other half to Weisbrod, who then distributed the drug to New York City chapter members for retail sales. Alexander was also given some of the profits from the methamphetamine enterprise as compensation for providing the formula. During this period, virtually all of the methamphetamine sold by the Hells Angels on the East Coast was distributed by Alexander, Weisbrog and Casey. Alexander also sold cocaine that he sourced from Jerry Buitendorp. Having methamphetamine laboratories on the East Coast provided the New York Hells Angels with easy access to large quantities of the drug without risking shipments from California, where most of the gang's labs were located, and allowed them to become self-sustaining rather than being reliant on chapters on the West Coast.

The methamphetamine trade became so lucrative that the New York Hells Angels formed a "methamphetamine distribution board" to assess how much of the drug to provide and how to divide it among other chapters. The Mid-State chapter, based in Binghamton and Troy, obtained narcotics from members of the New York City chapter. The Hells Angels also maintained a weapons trafficking route stretching from North Carolina to New York City and the Capital District. According to federal documents, the Hells Angels utilized an extensive counter-surveillance system to prevent law enforcement infiltration that allegedly included a contact in the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and a federal prosecutor in Albany.

The methamphetamine ring headed by Alexander, Weisbrod and Casey began to break down in 1983 and ceased completely in the spring of 1984 when Weisbrod's P2P source dried up. Members of the New York City chapter continued to distribute methamphetamine obtained from other sources. Alexander was succeeded as chapter president by William "Wild Bill" Medeiros in March 1984. Madeiros left the post after four months to resume the position of sergeant-at-arms, and Casey then assumed the presidency. Due to dissatisfaction with restrictions on methamphetamine distribution imposed by Alexander, several members of the New York City charter, including Charles "Charming Chuck" Zito, broke away to form the New York Nomads chapter based in the Hudson Valley on November 11, 1984, in order to distribute greater quantities of the drug than was permitted in the City chapter. The Nomads chapter established a semi-autonomous methamphetamine distribution business, and allegedly controlled drug labs in Westchester and Putnam counties.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation of the Hells Angels codenamed Operation Roughrider commenced after Vernon Hartung, an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution, Petersburg, Virginia, contacted the bureau and became a confidential informant. Following his release from prison on April 2, 1982, Hartung was introduced to San Francisco Hells Angels chapter president Gary Kautzman by Robert "Hoss" Hall, president of the Richmond, Virginia-based Confederate Angels Motorcycle Club. Along with undercover FBI agent Kevin P. Bonner, Hartung met with Kautzman on the pretext of seeking authorization to establish a Hells Angels chapter in Baltimore, a ruse which allowed Bonner to infiltrate the club over a 26-month period. Beginning in March 1983, Bonner posed as a Baltimore drug dealer interested in purchasing methamphetamine and cocaine from the Hells Angels, and he made narcotics transactions with members of eleven chapters across the country, including New York City chapter president Sandy Alexander and Mid-State chapter vice president James "Gorilla" Harwood.

Operation Roughrider culminated with the arrests of 133 Hells Angels members and associates on racketeering and drug trafficking charges after over a thousand law enforcement personnel carried out approximately fifty coordinated raids in eleven U.S. states on May 2, 1985. $2.6 million in cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, hashish, PCP and LSD, as well as weapons including Uzi submachine guns and rocket launchers were seized. Fifteen of the arrests took place in the New York metropolitan area, where the New York City chapter headquarters on the Lower East Side of Manhattan was raided, and at least one Uzi and an undetermined quantity of drugs were discovered. A further 19 club members and associates were taken into custody in Albany and Broome counties.

Arrest warrants were also issued for two Hells Angels, Herbert "One-Eyed Bert" Kittel and New York Nomads chapter president Chuck Zito, who were working as bodyguards for Bon Jovi on tour in Japan at the time. Kittel and Zito surrendered to the United States Embassy in Tokyo on July 22, 1985 after they were the subject of a nationwide dragnet by Japanese police at the request of the FBI. On October 14, 1985, the Tokyo High Court approved an extradition request by U.S. authorities, and, after detaining the pair in a Tokyo prison for four months, the Japanese Ministry of Justice released them into the custody of U.S. Justice Department officials in Tokyo on October 26, 1985. Medeiros was a fugitive from justice until October 1985. He, along with Harwood and John "Pirate" Miller, subsequently agreed to cooperate with the government and enter the Federal Witness Protection Program.

On December 12, 1985, Alexander and Weisbrod, a Jewish Hells Angel, pleaded guilty to federal narcotics distribution charges, while chapter secretary Charles Neuman pleaded guilty to conspiracy. Alexander was sentenced to sixteen years' imprisonment on February 13, 1986 and was paroled from prison in August 1993. On March 27, 1986, Mid-State members Kim D. "Mr. Fun" DiLuzio and Ronald G. "Big Cheese" Cheeseman were sentenced to fifteen and 26 years' imprisonment, respectively, after pleading guilty to federal racketeering and narcotics conspiracy charges. Three associates – Janet "Puffy" Beam Cheeseman, James Lee "The Mayor" Farrigan and Richard D. "Piggy" Cirzeveto – were also given sentences of two, fifteen and eighteen years for drug trafficking and extortion.

Cheeseman, president of the Binghamton and Mid-State chapters, was sentenced on April 1, 1986 to an additional six-to-eighteen-year sentence, to run concurrently, after pleading guilty to first-degree sodomy, a charge stemming from a video cassette showing him engaged in sexual acts with a seven-year-old boy and an eleven-year-old girl found when federal, state and local authorities searched his residence. The same day, seven other Hells Angels members and associates – Orville Deitz, Philip Kramer, Raymond "Butch" Lindsay, John "The Baptist" LoFranco, Patti Milhomme Root, Maureen "Mo" Pompey and Martin "Tiny" Pulver – were sentenced to prison terms of between six months and twenty-three years in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York in Albany after pleading guilty to various federal charges. LoFranco, a professional boxer and high-ranking member of the Nomads chapter, had pled guilty to three conspiracy counts, for racketeering, narcotics and extortion conspiracy, on February 3, 1986, and was paroled from prison in 1994 after serving nine years of a 23-year sentence.

Zito pleaded guilty to one felony drug count in late 1986 and was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. His sentence was reduced to seven years' in 1988, and he ultimately served six years in federal prison. Casey pleaded guilty to conspiracy, manufacturing and distribution on November 2, 1987. Brendan Manning, who succeeded Casey as New York City chapter president, was convicted on December 11, 1987 of conspiracy and distribution of methamphetamine.

In an effort to seize the Hells Angels' New York City chapter clubhouse, the federal government filed a complaint against the building on May 1, 1985, alleging that it was subject to forfeiture under federal drug forfeiture laws, which had been amended by Congress on October 12, 1984, to permit forfeiture of real property used for narcotics-related activities. Sandy Alexander, his wife Colette Alexander and the Church of Angels – a moniker under which the HAMC was incorporated as a nonprofit religious organization in New York state – subsequently intervened as claimants in the action. On February 4, 1994, after an approximately five-week trial, a jury returned a verdict in favor of the claimants, who they determined had proven that the premises was not used, or intended to be used, to commit, or to facilitate the commission of, a felony drug violation between October 12, 1984 and May 2, 1985.

Drug trafficking

A methamphetamine trafficking network run by members and associates of the Hells Angels' Rochester chapter operating in Western New York from 2002 through July 9, 2010 was dismantled after an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Genesee County Sheriff's Office, the New York State Police, the City of Batavia Police Department, and the Village of LeRoy Police Department. James Henry McAuley, Jr., the vice-president of the Rochester chapter and the leader of the drug ring, was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison in July 2016. Richard W. Mar, the former president of the club's Monterey (California) chapter, supplied the Rochester Hells Angels with methamphetamine and trafficked the drug to New York from California; he was sentenced to ten years in federal prison in August 2016. Rochester Hells Angels members Richard E. Riedman and Jeffrey A. Tyler, and three associates – Donna Boon (McAuley's wife), Gordon Montgomery and Paul Griffin – pleaded guilty to drug trafficking offenses based on their roles in the conspiracy; Riedman was sentenced to thirty-seven months in prison, Tyler to eighteen months in prison, Boon to three years probation and twelve months of home incarceration, Montgomery to sixty months in prison, and Griffin to probation. Additionally, Rochester Hells Angels member Robert W. "Bugsy" Moran, Jr. was sentenced to eighteen months in prison and Gina Tata was sentenced to three years probation, while Timothy M. Stone was sentenced to twelve months in prison on charges related to the case.

Most Wanted

In 2018, the FBI and United States Marshals Service announced a reward for Hells Angels gang member Christopher Slightam.

References

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4. "Under watchful eye, bikers aid charity – Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008 | midnight". Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved August 9, 2010.
5. Fallen Angel: The Unlikely Rise of Walter Stadnick and the Canadian Hells Angels Jerry Langton (2006)
6. History of the Chapter hells-angels-rochester.com
7. The beginnings Mike Gallagher, The Standard-Star (August 23, 1987)
8. Six Members And Associates Of The Hells Angels Charged In White Plains Federal Court With Racketeering, Narcotics, And Money Laundering Offenses justice.gov (March 16, 2017)
9. United States v. Robert P. Moran casetext.com (January 5, 2005)
10. Cops Arrest Hell's Angels After Chase Ray Quintanilla, Chicago Tribune (December 12, 1994) Archived November 26, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
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28. Hells Angels arrested in drug raids United Press International (May 3, 1985)
29. FBI “Full Steam” On Hells Angels Crackdown Scott Williams, Associated Press (May 3, 1985) Archived September 29, 2022, at the Wayback Machine
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31. Broome bikers, friends charged Nancy Jean Pawlik, Press & Sun-Bulletin (May 3, 1985) Archived August 1, 2021, at the Wayback Machine
32. 19 members of Hell's Angels indicted for drugs, extortion The Post-Star (May 11, 1985)
33. Hell's Angels bail Press & Sun-Bulletin (November 3, 1985)
34. Japan to Extradite Two Hells Angels in Narcotics Case Los Angeles Times (October 14, 1985)
35. Japan to grant extradition of Hells Angels United Press International (October 14, 1985)
36. Americans Wanted in New York Extradited to U.S. Associated Press (October 26, 1985)
37. United States of America v. Charles Pasciuti Justia (August 24, 1992) Archived September 8, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
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40. Angels admit guilt New York Daily News (December 13, 1985)
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48. Street Justice by Chuck Zito with Joe Layden Kirkus Reviews (August 1, 2002)
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53. https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/law-enforcement-assistance/christopher-slightam
54. https://www.univision.com/amp/local/chicago-wgbo/fugitivo-del-fbi-podria-estar-viviendo-en-joliet

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