Moncton Forum

Angels not invincible, police say

B.C.. Recent arrest of chapter president used as example

In the presence of Angels
Halifax motorcycle club members mum on posing in web photos with Hells riders
By DAVENE JEFFREY Staff Reporter

Chronicle Herald- Halifax
 

Some members of a Halifax-area motorcycle club apparently enjoy being in pictures with the Hells Angels, but they’re not interested in talking about it.

A member of the East Coast Riders, left, appears in a photo with a Hells Angels member, centre.-photo

http://www.eastcoastridersmc.com/main.html

The East Coast Riders, who have a clubhouse in Waverley, have lots of photos on their website and a link to the Hells Angels website. Some of the photos show club members posing with Angels.

And at least one Rider can be seen schmoozing with some Angels on the Toronto chapter’s website.

It’s hard to say where any of the photos were taken and when.

Several Riders were contacted for an interview but the only one who responded did so with a two-word e-mail: "No thanks."

"Do they associate with Hells Angels members? It’s not a secret. It’s obvious that they associate with the Hells Angels," a biker investigator with Criminal Intelligence Service Nova Scotia said in an interview.

And police are interested in the Riders.

"They are aware of that. They see us at the road checks and so on and so forth," the investigator said.

The intelligence service’s 2006 report says two motorcycle clubs in the province are friends or associates of the Angels and openly associate with them at various biker runs and events.

The Riders are one of those clubs, the intelligence officer confirmed.

"What their interconnections are with the Hells Angels, that remains to be seen," said another member of the intelligence service’s biker section.

The two officers, who are both new to the biker division, spoke on the condition that their names not be published.

"Certainly anytime anybody would be hanging around with a criminal organization as decided by the criminal courts of Canada, you would wonder (why), for sure. It does make you wonder," the second officer said.

"From photographs that I have seen on the Internet, there’s a lot of people, a lot of high-level people, that have been photographed with Hells Angels members.

"It is a lot about image, it seems like."

In recent years, the Angels have been trying to show a kinder side to the Canadian public. Like other motorcycle clubs, they hold bike runs in support of charity, the second officer said.

"That’s all for the purpose of boosting their image," the officer said.

The Riders also host charitable events that are open to the public and advertised on their website.

"That certainly indicates to me that they don’t have any secrets within their clubhouse," the second officer said.

The Riders website says the club is a group of friends and riding enthusiasts and that it has a constitution and bylaws.

"Like the many other clubs and their members that we support, we have families, careers, responsibilities and, most importantly, the desire to enjoy the freedoms we are guaranteed by the Canadian Constitution. We ride together as there is strength, friendship and safety in numbers," the website says.

The club’s motto is East Coast Riders Forever — Forever East Coast Riders, or ECRF-FECR. It is similar to the Angels’ motto Angels Forever, Forever Angels, or AFFA.

The intelligence report says Nova Scotia has not had an Angels chapter or any other outlaw motorcycle gang for several years. Several Nova Scotia-based Angels were sent to prison and their clubhouse was seized in 2001.

Before its demise, the Halifax chapter had several members. Police have previously said one longtime member of the chapter transferred to a British Columbia chapter, As well, one member was forced out, two have allegedly retired and one is in jail for murder. The status of two other jailed members is unknown.

"Right now we have nothing to suggest that the Hells Angels are establishing a chapter in Nova Scotia … but the possibility is there," the second officer said.

The intelligence report also says there is one full-patch Angel living in Nova Scotia and there have been periodic reports of other Angels paying visits to drug traffickers in the province over the past few years.

The intelligence officers would not identify the full-patch member.

’Do they associate with Hells Angels members? It’s not a secret. It’s obvious that they associate with the Hells Angels.’

With Patricia Brooks Arenburg, staff reporter

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1016

2007 03 16

Debt paid with a finger
Biker enforcers maintain order with murder, mutilations
Kim Bolan, Vancouver Sun

DAY ONE OF A TWO-PART SERIES

Crack addict and petty dealer Shawn Giesbrecht owed only $170 to his supplier in the Crew, a Prince George puppet club for the notorious Hells Angels.

But he was warned by Crew enforcer Scott Payne that the unpaid debt would cost him dearly. Payne told Giesbrecht to place his hand on a table and hacked off a finger.

"He then placed it in a small box, apparently for display," B.C. Supreme Court Justice W. Glen Parrett said in sentencing Payne last September to eight years in jail.

Payne, 25, often worked with other enforcers to inflict pain and fear on clients in the Prince George area in a sign of the increasing brutality of outlaw motorcycle gangs.

"These individuals and their organization . . . have openly cultivated an atmosphere and a reputation for extreme violence. They have, on the evidence at this trial, already engaged in the chopping off of fingers, violent beatings, and other forms of extreme violence," Parrett said.

"The subject of such violence is an open topic of discussion amongst those associated with the organization, and the discussions of violence and the trophies they take, in the form of fingers and videos, appear to be the means by which they strive to maintain discipline and control of their organization."

Law enforcement agencies who specialize in biker gangs say that the Hells Angels have moved into the north with a vengeance, controlling the lucrative drug trade there by whatever means necessary, including vicious assaults and murder.

A booming northern economy with high wages and an expanded port being constructed in Prince Rupert makes the area attractive to organized crime, says Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, head of the RCMP's Outlaw Motorcycle Gang unit.

"The north has always been an expanding field. There are a lot of drugs consumed in the north," he said. "They want to tap into that lucrative market."

But because Hells Angels members don't generally want to live in the north, they have been operating through puppet clubs -- the Crew and the Renegades -- flexing whatever muscles necessary to keep control of the criminal underworld.

"In order to flourish as a criminal organization, groups have to either be seen to be violent or be very violent in order to expand their territory or prevent other groups from coming into their territory," Shinkaruk said.

RCMP biker specialists say millions in profits from the northern drug frontier flow back down to the Lower Mainland.

The Vancouver Sun has learned that two members of the elite Nomads chapter, as well as two others, recently purchased a 160-acre quarter section of land at Hudson's Hope, about three hours north of Prince George. The land is assessed at $123,400.

According to property records obtained by The Sun, Nicodemo Mann and his brother Manuele (Manny) Manno, both full-patch Nomads, became owners of the large property on Feb. 23, along with Guiseppe Sansalone and Alexander Joseph Horacsek. Horacsek, a Maple Ridge business associate of Manny Manno, was formerly the sole owner of the land and now remains on the title with the three others.

Shinkaruk wasn't surprised to learn of the land purchase.

"The Nomads have a strong presence up north. A lot of Nomad associates are working up north," he said.

The Nomads are among the richest Hells Angels members anywhere, with real estate holdings and businesses across the Lower Mainland.

The Sun revealed in January that the Nomads had opened a new Burnaby clubhouse after completing major renovations on the Grant Street property, now assessed at over $1 million.

Sgt. Tom Bethune, head of the Prince George RCMP's biker task force, said Nomads like to travel to the north on long-distance bike and hunting trips.

But Bethune said the Hells Angels, through the Crew, have not been buying the houses used for their crack operations in Prince George, but have operated in concert with landlords in the area.

The level of sophistication in the crackhouse operation -- and the brutality -- was stressed by Justice Parrett when he sentenced enforcer Scott Payne.

"The Crown has presented a body of evidence which, in many respects, opens a window into a world of street-level drug trafficking which is both disturbing and shocking," Parrett said.

Payne was not the only brutal enforcer for the Crew. His partner in crime, 21-year-old Alia Brianne Pierini, the mother of a toddler, is now serving a five-year sentence for a series of similar attacks.

Bethune said the violence was a way for the Hells Angels to eradicate the competition and establish such a brutal reputation that no one would want to cross them.

"They took over with violence -- violence like we had never seen before here -- beatings and chopping off fingers and that type of thing, trying to get themselves known in the community," Bethune said. "At first we didn't know who they were and then we identified them as a group called the Crew and we tied them back into the Hells Angels."

An early example of the violence to come was inflicted on another drug addict named Patrick Patriquin, who walked into a Prince George convenience store named Mr. G's early one morning four years ago covered in blood.

A disturbed store clerk called police, who realized upon arrival that Patriquin's hand had been severed.

"At first they thought he had been hit by a vehicle because he was so banged up and dirty. He had cuts on his head, he was bloody, dirty, [with] road debris on him, blood-soaked clothing. Then they noticed that one hand appeared to be missing," Prince George RCMP Const. Gary Godwin said. "He was known to us. We were pretty sure this was connected with the Crew. This was a targeted assault."

When Patriquin woke up later in hospital, he refused to provide a statement to police and checked himself out a day later.

"We never did find the hand," Godwin said.

Rumours began to circulate in the criminal underworld that the hand had been kept as a trophy to be shown when necessary as a deterrent.

The file remains open, though RCMP investigators admit a charge might never be laid given the reluctance of the victim to cooperate.

While the specialized task force in Prince George has had several successful prosecutions, the battle is not over because of the increasing sophistication of the biker gangs.

"We have had some great success here and we hope to have some more. We have ongoing investigations with regards to the Crew and the Renegades," Bethune said.

The RCMP's most recent report on organized crime in B.C., obtained by The Sun, notes the increasing violence of B.C. bikers.

"Violence and intimidation have long been a hallmark of outlaw motorcycle gang activity and this past year saw an increase in violent incidents involving the Hells Angels members or their associates and the police," the 2006 report says. "The principal criminal activity of OMGs in B.C. continues to be drug trafficking and distribution and activities related to drug trafficking -- extortion and intimidation."

Northern B.C. is not the only place the Hells Angels have tried to use puppet clubs to increase their profile and potentially distance themselves from street-level crime.

Last year two puppet clubs -- the Outcasts and the Jesters -- set up shop on the Lower Mainland. Despite the fact that the Angels said the new groups had no affiliation, members started turning up with their patches at Hells Angels social events and bike shows.

The Outcasts even opened a clubhouse off King George Highway in Surrey, where members interviewed by The Sun donned clothing supporting the Hells Angels. The Outcasts website was linked to that of the Hells Angels in Toronto.

But the Outcasts began drawing unwanted attention for the established biker gang, and were forced by the Angels to turn in their patches two months ago, closing down their fledgling operation.

The Jesters, on the other hand, have geared up, with a new website featuring a grinning, malevolent-looking clown. Pictures of gang members are featured wearing leather vests and standing in front of their choppers. Road trip snapshots of biker events of the Hells Angels both in B.C. and the U.S. are posted.

"How the Jesters will do, who knows," Shinkaruk said. "They are certainly making themselves more visible. They are certainly expanding in numbers."

Details of the Angels relationship with the new Lower Mainland puppet clubs were found last April when White Rock chapter sgt.-at-arms Villy Roy Lynnerup was arrested at Vancouver International Aiport and charged with carrying a loaded weapon. The contents of Lynnerup's suitcase proved a goldmine for police, with minutes and documents related to the Hells Angels' operations, including the fact they had been approached by both the Outcasts and the Jesters.

Lynnerup, 42, was out of bail when he was charged last month with break and enter and assault with a weapon in connection with an attack on a Surrey man.

Also charged was White Rock chapter president Douglas (Doc) Riddoch, 57, who is a prominent national figure in the organization. They are alleged to to have broken into a 44-year-old Surrey man's home and beat him, leaving severe bruising to his head, arms and leg.

Shinkaruk said the fact bikers are being charged and convicted sends the right message to other victims of the violence.

"It shows the confidence people are having in the police and quite frankly the courts . . . that people will take them seriously if they do come forward," he said. "For a long time -- for decades, literally -- these guys have been able to prosper and live off a reputation . . . . We are starting to see more people willing to come forward."

Just last Friday, Joseph Calendino, a former member of the Nomads, and Sabino Debenedetto, also a full-patch Hells Angel, were sentenced to community service after pleading guilty to assaulting a man at a Kelowna casino.

The attack was caught on video-tape, showing Calendino, wearing his biker colours, grabbing the man after he accidentally knocked over the Angel's gambling chips. Debenedetto joined the attack.

Neither the victim, nor casino staff, would testify against the two.

Earlier this month in Nanaimo police charged two Hells Angels from Edmonton who were attending an island meeting of club officers.

Mounties with the outlaw motorcycle gang task force and the Nanaimo RCMP stopped a vehicle after it crossed a double solid line illegally. A search of the vehicle uncovered a loaded handgun with the serial number filed off and a small amount of marijuana, police said.

"I was certainly not surprised that we found a loaded handgun," Shinkaruk said.

Long-time Hells Angels spokesman and senior member Rickey Ciarniello was at the Nanaimo meeting. Ciarniello said Friday that he did not want to comment on anything to do with other Hells Angels "charters" or the personal business of members, such as the large land purchase in the north.

And he strongly denied the police contention that the Crew is linked to the Angels.

"We know the Renegades. I don't know who the Crew are," Ciarniello said.

He reiterated his old mantra that any time an individual club member is charged, it has nothing to do with the Hells Angels.

"I have maintained all along that anything that anybody does, they are doing it on their own behalf, not on the club's," Ciarniello said. "What people do on their own is their own business. It has got nothing to do with the Hells Angels."

Even after all the recent charges and convictions, Hells Angels members are not sidelined for long.

The most senior Hells Angels members ever charged, Norman Krogstad and Cedric Smith, both of the Vancouver chapter, pleaded guilty to several trafficking counts and got four-year sentences in November 2005. But both were released on full parole a week ago.

Former full-patch member David Patrick O'Hara, who also pleaded guilty to trafficking and gun possession, got almost three years in jail, but was released on accelerated parole last August.

And Jonathan Sal Bryce, the son of East End president John Bryce and Angels hangaround -- a low-level associate -- pleaded guilty to charges of trafficking cocaine, extortion and possession of the proceeds of crime. But he was allowed to withdraw the plea last December and await the outcome of today's abuse-of-process ruling, which could mean the charges against him are tossed.

It is the brutality with which the Hells Angels and their enforcers dominate the drug trade that bothers police the most.

Aside from the finger and hand-hacking, there have been murders, most of which remain unsolved.

And the vicious assaults filter down into other organized crime groups trying to impress the outlaw bikers.

Take an attack last July near Mission.

A man with a lengthy criminal record was allegedly kidnapped at gunpoint and confined against his will all because he had a tattoo on his arm saying "Support East End" in reference to the Hells Angel chapter headquatered on East Georgia Street.

Police say the victim was driven to a remote location where his hands were tied and he was beaten with baseball bats. He was told his tattoo needed to come off.

The tattoo was then sliced and burned off with a butane torch.

Two men -- who are not known as Hells Angels or associates -- have been charged with armed kidnapping, aggravated assault and two counts of assault with a weapon. One count lists the knife and the second lists the butane torch. Both are due to go to trial next summer.

Shinkaruk said the chilling mutilation would not have taken place unless someone in the outlaw motorcycle club had wanted it to happen.

"It seems to me that you wouldn't have an interest in doing that unless you were doing it to either impress somebody or under the direction of somebody," Shinkaruk said, adding that at least victims are now coming forward.

"People are saying enough is enough. I man you are having people who are having body parts cut off."

kbolan@png.canwest.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The violent life of an Avenging Angel
Quick cash led to lengthy prison sentence for low-level dealer
 
Kim Bolan
Vancouver Sun

Friday, March 16, 2007

Alia Pierini started selling drugs at age 12 or 13 -- an easy way to make money.

She never imagined the quick cash would lead to a lengthy prison term and separation from her toddler son.

Now 21, Pierini was convicted last year of some brutal assaults in Prince George, done to collect drug debts from crack addicts she was supplying.

Police alleged, and the court found, that Pierini and co-accused Scott Payne were part of an organized crime group called The Crew, a puppet club of the notorious Hells Angels. Pierini admits that she was involved in reprehensible acts of violence and extortion, including whacking a crack addict who owed her money with a medieval battle axe.

But she says she was never part of any official "crime group."

"I was shocked pretty much when the police brought that [claim] to my court case," Pierini said this week in an interview from prison. "I never once said I was anything. We didn't roll around on Harleys or wear a jacket or have a tattoo or anything."

After 20 months in jail, she has had time to reflect on the violence for which she was convicted. A second attack, which was captured on videotape and played in court, shows her beating another indebted crackhead and Tasering him as he screams.

"I am not going to deny it. It was pretty brutal," said Pierini, who is serving a five-year sentence. "Sitting in jail, I have come to realize that what I was doing was wrong . . . . Growing up, I always resorted to fighting to solve problems. I never had proper problem-solving skills."

She said she had no sympathy for the addicts at the time, but just saw them as people ripping her off when she was desperate to pay the rent for her and her baby.

"I didn't wake up one morning and say I am going to battle-axe this guy right? I was at his house and [the axe] was there and I found out there was money gone and one thing led to another," said Pierini, who comes across as articulate and intelligent.

Working in the drug trade and getting people to pay up was hard as a very young woman of slight stature.

"I just though they were taking advantage of me and I had to show them I was serious," she said. "I couldn't fight people."

Pierini said the idea that someone higher up in organized crime was influencing the violence is just wrong.

"I just did whatever I wanted to. I didn't have to go back to anybody and report," she said.

RCMP specialists in organized crime and biker gangs say the big players rely on younger wannabes to commit acts to intimidate others in the unofficial underworld chain of command.

"All I know is they made me look a lot bigger and badder than I was. We were nobodies."

Pierini said she has a nice, supportive extended family, but started getting into trouble as a teen.

"I went on the wrong track. I couldn't ask for help. I started getting in trouble at school."

She cleaned up her act while pregnant with her son at age 17, but felt desperate to provide for him when he was an infant.

"I was a single mom. Welfare was $750 and my rent was $600. It was a way I could get quick money and I was right back into it. My big plan was to save up enough money to get out. Obviously it didn't work," she said.

Her life turned schizophrenic. By day, she was taking her baby on outings and playing with him at home.

When he went down for the night, she went out to traffic to the city's addicts and collect drug debts with as much force as necessary.

"It was convenient because I could work my own hours around his schedule," she said. "In the day, I did the whole mom thing -- I was at the park with him. I was bringing him swimming -- stuff like that."

The strain of her double life took a toll.

"I was so tired . . . . When I got arrested. I was actually happy when I came to jail for a bit because it gave me a break and got me away from everything. It gives me the chance that I can change my life to something with purpose."

At her trial the Provincial Court judge said Pierini was involved in an organization known as "The Crew" and "that it was involved in the sale and distribution of crack cocaine." He also said "such an organization does exist as a criminal organization as defined in the Criminal Code under s. 467.1(1) and that Ms. Pierini is a member of it."

That is the only part of her criminal life that Pierini does not accept.

In her mind, The Crew doesn't even exist, but came out of creative thinking on the part of the police and Prince George drug users.

After 10 months in maximum security, Pierini, who has her Grade 12, is now focused on getting courses in jail that will help with her rehabilitation. She wants to become a carpenter or landscaper.

She is adamant she has left the criminal world behind.

"I am sick of it. I am over it. Once people actually hit rock bottom, they change. And I think I have. All this time away from my son is killing me. It is so hard."

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1026

Police: Biker raids netted 31 arrests, millions in drug seizures

'We're here to shut you down'

By Sun Media/CP
 
With 31 arrests, 169 charges and a seizure of $2 million in drugs in raids across Ontario Wednesday, police believe they have put a significant dent in the heart of the province's Hells Angels organization.

A full-patch informant worked against the biker gang for the past 18 months in the operation, OPP Insp. Dan Redmond of the province's biker enforcement unit said at a press conference Thursday.

The downtown Toronto clubhouse on Eastern Ave., said to be the largest in the country, was targeted in the raids.

“We’ve taken out the main chapter ... in perhaps Canada, and definitely in Ontario, and we’ve seized their clubhouse," said Redmond.

“I think that speaks to itself that the rhetoric of the Hells Angels that they’re just motorcycle enthusiasts is not true. We’ve proven again that there’s weapons, drugs and violence related to the Hells Angels.”

Police said clubhouses in Niagara Falls, Waterloo, Barrie, London, Hamilton, as well as Durham, Peel and York regions were also raided.

Three properties - including the downtown chapter — and 81 weapons were seized, police said.

Also seized were $500,000 in vehicles and motorcycles, narcotics including cocaine and the date rape drug GHB, and more than $500,000 in cash, police said.

Eighteen full-patch members were among those arrested.

Two B.C. chapters and an affiliate biker gang - The Bacchus - in New Brunswick were targeted in the operation.

OPP Commissioner J