Archives - The 1987 Louisville Sluggers

Anchorage Daily News (AK) - November 11, 1987

 Author: NANCY MONTGOMERY Daily News reporter ; Staff

 Fourteen Alaska Hell's Angels nearly the entire Alaska club membership, 

according to the FBI were arrested Tuesday morning and charged with drugs 

and weapons violations and conspiracy to murder rival gang members.

 The arrests were part of a roundup of 38 Hells Angels , including three 

national leaders, in Alaska, California, Kentucky, North Carolina and 

South Carolina, according to the Justice Department. 

 Anchoragebased federal agents and police, and 38 FBI agents and a dozen 

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents flown up from the Lower 48 started 

simultaneous raids in Anchorage and Fairbanks at 9 a.m. 

 More than 75 guns, ammunition, silencers, a crossbow and a quantity 

of cocaine were seized in the Alaska raids. Some of the cocaine was 

packaged in salmon cans and containers of Old Spice shaving cream for 

sensitive skin. 

 The arrests were the result of an investigation that began 21 2 years ago 

when an Alaska Hell's Angel approached law enforcement officials and became 

an informant, said Chuck Lontor, Anchorage FBI special agent in charge. 

Lontor would not reveal the man's motive for becoming an informant. 

 The man rose through the ranks of the Hell's Angels to become one of the 

club's national officers, tape recording meetings as he went. 

 During the investigation, the informant and undercover agents purchased 

more than 20 pounds of high explosives, three automatic weapons, two 

silencers and methamphetamine and cocaine valued at $1.6 million, the 

Justice Department said.

 The informant also helped agents follow an unfolding plan to use 

explosives to murder members of the Outlaws Motorcycle club, a group 

located in Texas and the southeast, Lontor said. 

 Lontor would not name the informant, what rank he had achieved within 

the club or his current whereabouts, for security's sake, he said. The 

man is a likely candidate for a new name and identity provided by the 

witness protection program, he said.

 The murder conspiracy was allegedly in retaliation for the Aug. 12, 1986, 

killing of Hell's Angels member John Cleve, authorities said.

 Cleve was an Anchorage chapter member murdered in a Louisville, Ky., 

bar after he wore his "colors" or Hell's Angels insignia inside the bar 

despite being warned against doing so, according to John Stephen Graham 

of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Graham said the Angels 

believe the Outlaws were responsible for the killing. 

 Four Fairbanks men and three Anchorage men will be charged with conspiracy 

to commit murder, said Hassel Caudill, special agent in charge of the 

Seattle office of the the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. 

 The Fairbanks men are Jeffrey L. Esley, 32; Dennis Pailing, 32; Charles 

Potter, 40; and Mark Greer, 32, Caudill said. All were reported living 

at Mile 7 on the Richardson Highway. He was unable to identify the 

Anchorage men to be charged with the conspiracy to commit murder. 

 In Anchorage, a total of 10 men were arrested: Edwin Hubert, 35, of 

Primrose Street, and Montgomery Elliott, 34, of Barbara Street, were 

charged with cocaine distribution; Rick Fabel, 30, of Lois Drive, was 

charged with possession of a machine gun and altering a gun's serial 

number; Dan McIntosh, 40, of Dorbrandt Street, was charged with possession 

of a destructive device and silencer and dealing in explosives; Thomas 

Vinczen, 25, of Rivera Court, was charged with possessing and transferring 

a machine gun and silencer; Chris Livesay, 32, of Carnelian Street, 

was charged with possession and transfer of a machine gun and being a 

felon in possession of a firearm, and Daniel Watson, 23, of Bliss Street, 

was charged with  possession of a machine gun, a large caliber handgun, 

and being a felon in possession of a firearm. 

Fable, Livesay and McIntosh were arraigned in U.S. District Court Tuesday 

afternoon. 

 Also arrested in Anchorage were: Rick Rikelman, 32, and Gerald Protzman, 

38, of Rosewood Street; William Spearman, 45, of Barbara Street, and 

Russell Hagel, 38, of Aurora Street in Eagle River. No charges had been 

filed against them in District Court Tuesday.

 Lontor said the arrests proceeded without incident. "They were very 

polite," he said.

 "I think we did a real number on them," said Lontor, who estimated that 

only three or four Alaska Hell's Angels had escaped arrest and prosecution. 

 Still, security was beefed up Tuesday at the U.S. District Court, with 

metal detectors and scanners in preparation for the men's arraignments, 

Lontor said. But a Federal Building official said the security measures 

would be permanent. 

 Federal agents estimate the Hell's Angels number some 800 in more than 

60 chapters throughout the world. The group was founded 37 years ago in 

the California steel town of Fontana and has maintained a notorious 

reputation. 

 In recent years, members had built a sophisticated crime network with 

tax shelters, highpriced lawyers, computers to manage their administrative 

and financial matters and an arsenal of weapons including antitank rockets, 

Claymore mines and M60 machine guns, according to authorities. 

 In 1985, a 50city Angels' dragnet codenamed Operation Roughrider resulted 

in the arrests of 100 Angels, mostly on federal drug and racketeering 

charges. Authorities then said the Angels were supplanting the Mafia in 

some forms of racketeering. 

 "It's thought they control the methamphetamine industry," said ATF special 

agent Caudill, who said they'd also been bowing to market demands and selling 

more cocaine of late. 

 The Alaska chapter was accepted by the national organization in 1983, after 

spending 16 years as The Brothers. Rick Rikelman, then president of the 

Anchorage chapter, said there were about 50 members in Anchorage, Fairbanks 

and the MatSu Valley. 

 "We're the best in Alaska," Rikelman said in 1982, anticipating acceptance 

into the Angels. "Now we're going to be the best in the world." 

 The group invested in an auto wrecking business and sponsored a musher in 

the 1984 Iditarod. Although its numbers had apparently shrunk to less than 

half, Caudill said the Alaska chapter played a "prominent" role within the 

organization and religiously attended national runs.

 "If you're from the Lower 48, it strikes you funny that people who ride 

Harleys would live in this climate," he said.

 Edition: Final
Section: Metro
Page: C1
Record Number: 223140
Copyright (c) 1987, Anchorage Daily News