TN- Member of Outlaws motorcycle club says raid violated his rights

www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/jan/31/member-outlaws-motorcycle-club-says-ra
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Member of Outlaws motorcycle club says raid violated his rights
Man says SWAT team an overreaction
* By J.J. Stambaugh
* Posted January 31, 2010 at 9:04 p.m.
One of the leaders of Knoxville's chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club
says his rights were violated by a New Years Eve raid on the group's
clubhouse and his subsequent arrest.
Mark Lester, 55, who is the regional Outlaws president, said last week
the allegations lodged against him and other members of the biker club
are false. He also accused the Knox County Sheriff's Office of
overreacting by sending a SWAT team to raid the clubhouse during a
sedate holiday party to search for a leather vest.
"They totally destroyed the house, they took everything out of there,"
said Lester as he described the Dec. 31 raid in a residential
neighborhood off Western Avenue. "They took all our TVs, our microwaves.
. It was just really crazy stuff. All they found was some alcohol and
sandwich platters."
According to Lester, the most painful loss was that of a group of stone
monuments in the clubhouse yard that had been set up to memorialize
fallen Outlaws.
"The stones in the front yard for brothers who have died over the last
15 years, they dug those up and took them," Lester said. "It was just
ridiculous."
Lester and local chapter president Kenneth Foster, 55, have been charged
with aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping for a Dec. 23 incident
in which they allegedly detained an undercover Sheriff's Office deputy
who had infiltrated the club and stripped him at gunpoint of his leather
Outlaws vest, which had been given to him when he became a full-fledged
member. Lester and Foster are free on bond.
While the Sheriff's Office declined to comment last week on the case, an
18-page affidavit filed by the undercover officer, Joseph Linger, shows
that police view the Outlaws as a criminal street gang with
international ties and a proven propensity for "large-scale violence."
Outlaws chapters have been tied to crimes such as murder, extortion and
drug trafficking, Linger wrote, and the Knoxville chapter did more than
just flirt with a bad-boy image.
Linger, who at one time worked as a police officer in rural Alaska and
was employed at the Sheriff's Office as a jailer from 2004 to 2005, was
working as a bouncer at a Gatlinburg nightclub when he was approached by
Lester in August 2008, according to the affidavit.
Over the following months, Linger was gradually brought into the club's
inner circle and allegedly saw Outlaws smoking marijuana, snorting
cocaine and carrying weapons, the affidavit says. Linger also recounted
several violent anecdotes of the Outlaws' encounters with other bikers
and the public, most of them secondhand.
Linger wrote that one of the men he met - a prospective Outlaw who has
not been charged - bragged about having illegal weapons and explosives.
That same biker was the only one that Linger accused in the affidavit of
actually dealing drugs, and the officer wrote that the man sold him $160
worth of cocaine but an attempt to buy plastic explosives and hand
grenades from him didn't pan out.
Linger said he was supposed to carry weapons and be prepared to fight
with other biker clubs. He said that Outlaws were encouraged to obtain
permits to legally carry handguns, and Linger said he was "given a list
of items that should be carried at all times, including a large knife,
for protection."
The affidavit goes into great detail on the various aspects of the
Outlaws' alleged operations, including factors meant to illustrate that
they meet the legal definition of a criminal street gang. Lester,
however, maintains the allegations are ridiculous.
"We are not a gang," he said. "Our club is actually incorporated, so
we're a corporation recognized by the U.S. government. . The sheriff
said we're all criminals, but there's never been any problems here in
Knoxville. We've been here for 30 years, and there's never been any
criminal activity.
"When they came in, they found nothing more than a couple of vegetable
platters and shrimp cocktails. . We have a right to associate just like
everyone else, we have a right to wear patches."
Lester said Linger was a problematic club member who "caused
controversy." While Lester was vague about providing details when asked
what made the other Outlaws distrust Linger, he did say that no armed
robbery took place when he and Foster asked Linger to return his club
vest.
For one thing, Lester said, vests belong to the club, not to individual
members. He said he didn't understand how he could be charged with
robbery when the property didn't belong to the officer in the first
place.
He declined to discuss the incident in further detail under the advice
of his attorney, Phil Lamonaco.
"You couldn't really believe a whole lot of things he was saying,"
Lester said. "We'd go on motorcycle runs and bike shows, but he would
miss them. Or there were rumors that he was working someplace and then
we'd find out he wasn't. There were a lot of lies. We asked him to go
straighten his life out."
Lester said the Outlaws had no idea that Linger was a police officer
until he showed up at the raid wearing a uniform. Lester also said he
was disturbed to learn that Linger wasn't employed as a deputy when they
first met.
"This person was a club member first, and then he joined the sheriff's
department because he could not find a job, using our club membership to
gain employment," Lester said.
During the raid, deputies allegedly found small amounts of drugs on
three of the partygoers and charged them with misdemeanors. Some
firearms were also recovered, but no charges were filed because their
owners had handgun permits, according to Foster's attorney, Mike Whalen.
Whalen said it doesn't appear that the undercover probe turned up much
more than misdemeanors occurring behind closed doors.
"While at the clubhouse (Linger) saw members smoking pot or snorting
cocaine," Whalen said. "I can look out my window on any Saturday in the
fall on tailgate parties where there's more than that going on, and with
a larger gang - over 100,000."
Whalen said the raid was reminiscent of the 1980s, when local police and
bikers routinely clashed in Knox County. But the defendants in this
case, he said, are gainfully employed and have relatively clean records.
Lester, who works at Aqua-Chem Inc., has only three criminal convictions
on his record: an unspecified misdemeanor "public order" crime from
1984, a failure to obey a stop sign citation in 1994 and a reckless
driving charge from 1995, records show.
Court records show that Foster's only criminal convictions were both in
1984, when he was charged with two misdemeanor drug offenses. According
to Whalen, Foster drives a bus for senior citizens.
"I think the Sheriff's Office is still living in the days of old, and
from looking at their affidavit they didn't bother to verify whether
those days are over," Whalen said. "Sheriff (J.J.) Jones talked about
murder, white slavery and prostitution at a press conference, but
there's nothing about that in the affidavit. . Somebody might surprise
us all, but if this is what they've got, it like the Bard said - 'It's
much ado about nothing.' "
Sheriff Jones said he doesn't want to comment on the case until after
the defendants' preliminary hearings, which are set for Feb. 18.

J.J. Stambaugh may be reached at 865-342-6307.