Spokane Hells Angels case now up to jurors
SEATTLE (AP) - After two days of closing arguments, it's up to jurors to decide the racketeering trial of four current or former Hells Angels accused of crimes as serious as murder in a case filled with unsavory characters, contradictory testimony and brutal beatings.
Jurors began deliberating Wednesday in federal court.
The four defendants - Richard Allen "Smilin' Rick" Fabel, the president of the Spokane-based Washington Nomads chapter of the motorcycle club; Ricky Jenks, of Spokane; Rodney Lee Rollness, of Snohomish; and Joshua Binder, of North Bend - are accused of participating in a criminal enterprise in which they extorted local businessmen, bullied insurance companies into paying bogus claims and "taxed" their associates by stealing their Harley-Davidsons.
The most serious of the alleged crimes are the killing of one man and the near-fatal beating of another to punish them for pretending to be members of the Hells Angels.
One by one, lawyers for the defendants ridiculed the government's case Tuesday, asserting that it is built on nothing more than speculation and the wildly incredible testimony of "a rogue's gallery of liars, felons and thieves" who were compensated for their testimony with cash - $10,000 in one case - or broad promises of immunity for their own wrongdoing. One of the government's important witnesses, Jonathan "Thunder" Yates, falsely implicated the defendants because he was bitter about having been kicked out of the Hells Angels because of his raging methamphetamine habit, they suggested.
"They know if they're going to be able to get their deal, they're going to have to get on the witness stand and say what the government wants to hear," said Gil Levy, one of Binder's lawyers. "You just can't believe a single word these people say."
In rebuttal, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Miyake insisted that while some of the witnesses' statements were inconsistent, they also revealed information that was corroborated elsewhere and information that could only have come from the participants in the crime.
For example, Shawn Lundy, a jailhouse informant, learned from Rollness that guns of two different calibers had been used to kill Michael "Santa" Walsh during a party in Arlington in 2001, Miyake said. That was something not even the investigators knew at the time Lundy provided the information.
Rollness and Binder in particular are accused of killing Walsh; their attorneys point to the party's host, Paul Foster, who was indicted along with the Hells Angels but is being tried separately. Foster's responses to an FBI polygraph about whether he killed Walsh were "indicative of deception," but that information was excluded from the case, and Foster's lawyer says his client did not kill Walsh. Prosecutors say the killing earned Binder and Rollness coveted "Filthy Few" patches for their black leather vests that indicated they had killed for the Hells Angels.
The case "is about a climate of fear, a climate of fear to keep victims and witnesses silent," Miyake told the jurors. "You can say enough to the bullies. You can say enough to the 'Filthy Few' who committed the murder of Michael Walsh."
Fabel is accused of directing others to participate in the crimes - like a mafia don who keeps his hands clean, Miyake said. But one of his lawyers, Cassandra Stamm, argued that the government has only theories and no evidence for that proposition.
The defendants could face up to life in prison if convicted.
Jurors began deliberating Wednesday in federal court.
The four defendants - Richard Allen "Smilin' Rick" Fabel, the president of the Spokane-based Washington Nomads chapter of the motorcycle club; Ricky Jenks, of Spokane; Rodney Lee Rollness, of Snohomish; and Joshua Binder, of North Bend - are accused of participating in a criminal enterprise in which they extorted local businessmen, bullied insurance companies into paying bogus claims and "taxed" their associates by stealing their Harley-Davidsons.
The most serious of the alleged crimes are the killing of one man and the near-fatal beating of another to punish them for pretending to be members of the Hells Angels.
One by one, lawyers for the defendants ridiculed the government's case Tuesday, asserting that it is built on nothing more than speculation and the wildly incredible testimony of "a rogue's gallery of liars, felons and thieves" who were compensated for their testimony with cash - $10,000 in one case - or broad promises of immunity for their own wrongdoing. One of the government's important witnesses, Jonathan "Thunder" Yates, falsely implicated the defendants because he was bitter about having been kicked out of the Hells Angels because of his raging methamphetamine habit, they suggested.
"They know if they're going to be able to get their deal, they're going to have to get on the witness stand and say what the government wants to hear," said Gil Levy, one of Binder's lawyers. "You just can't believe a single word these people say."
In rebuttal, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Miyake insisted that while some of the witnesses' statements were inconsistent, they also revealed information that was corroborated elsewhere and information that could only have come from the participants in the crime.
For example, Shawn Lundy, a jailhouse informant, learned from Rollness that guns of two different calibers had been used to kill Michael "Santa" Walsh during a party in Arlington in 2001, Miyake said. That was something not even the investigators knew at the time Lundy provided the information.
Rollness and Binder in particular are accused of killing Walsh; their attorneys point to the party's host, Paul Foster, who was indicted along with the Hells Angels but is being tried separately. Foster's responses to an FBI polygraph about whether he killed Walsh were "indicative of deception," but that information was excluded from the case, and Foster's lawyer says his client did not kill Walsh. Prosecutors say the killing earned Binder and Rollness coveted "Filthy Few" patches for their black leather vests that indicated they had killed for the Hells Angels.
The case "is about a climate of fear, a climate of fear to keep victims and witnesses silent," Miyake told the jurors. "You can say enough to the bullies. You can say enough to the 'Filthy Few' who committed the murder of Michael Walsh."
Fabel is accused of directing others to participate in the crimes - like a mafia don who keeps his hands clean, Miyake said. But one of his lawyers, Cassandra Stamm, argued that the government has only theories and no evidence for that proposition.
The defendants could face up to life in prison if convicted.