Judge voids Pagan's plea deal

OFF THE WIRE
By Andrew Clevenger
The Charleston Gazette

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A federal judge rejected a plea deal in the racketeering case against members and associates of the Pagans Motorcycle Club on Wednesday, saying there weren't enough facts to support a guilty plea.

Jeffrey Wayne Jett, 59, of Clarksburg, was to be sentenced on Wednesday. But during a brief hearing, U.S. District Judge Thomas E. Johnston refused to accept Jett's plea deal.

The judge told Assistant U.S. Attorneys Steven Loew and Blaire Malkin that the Pagans case had been overcharged, and reiterated what he had said previously during multiple hearings: that when he looked carefully at the stipulations that formed the factual basis for the plea, he was not sure whether the agreed-to facts were sufficient to prove the crime that had been charged.

Johnston's decision applies only to Jett and not to any of the other 54 co-defendants in the case. He scheduled Jett's case for trial Nov. 16.

In the 44-count indictment unsealed in October 2009, Jett and other members of the Last Rebels Motorcycle Club are accused of taking jean jackets from members of a smaller club through intimidation and thinly veiled threats during a confrontation in the parking lot of a Racine grocery store in April 2008.

Four other members of the Last Rebels, a support club aligned with the Pagans, also pleaded guilty to their roles in the same incident. Johnston postponed their sentencings until after Jett's trial date.

At a previous hearing, Last Rebel Eric Wayne "Tree" Lyttle said that Pagans national Vice President Floyd B. "Jesse" Moore ordered him and others to take the jackets from members of Next of Kin -- a family-oriented club comprising two married couples who liked to ride together wearing jean jackets bearing a homemade patch designed by one couple's son.

Lyttle said he was afraid that his wife and family might be harmed if he didn't follow Moore's orders, which were discussed at Last Rebels meetings.

April Smith, one of the members of Next of Kin who was present during the confrontation, testified previously that she was initially angry that they were being forced to give up their jackets, but she quickly became anxious, with several of the Last Rebels, including Jett, standing menacingly near the two couples.

Smith's husband saw that James Edward "Big Jim" Lyttle, Eric's father, was carrying a gun during the encounter, she said.

"I was scared. I just wanted to give them what they wanted," she said.

Johnston's rejection of Jett's plea is the latest of a series of setbacks in the Pagans case for federal prosecutors, who used federal RICO laws, originally enacted to combat mob-related organized crime, to accuse the Pagans of being a criminal enterprise

Prosecut ors alleged that the Pagans used violence and intimidation to control territory from New Jersey to Florida, and used an annual motorcycle raffle to fund their activities.

But defense lawyers maintained that prosecutors mischaracterized events as violent or potentially violent, such as traveling to Portsmouth, Ohio, to strip members of the Road Disciples Motorcycle Club of their cuts or colors, as jean vests with patches indicating membership and club status are known in the biker world.

The members of the Road Disciples, tired of the Pagans' heavy-handed rule, voluntarily surrendered their cuts, defense lawyers argued, removing the possibility of violence -- and any criminal activity -- from the encounter.

Many defendants also objected to the suggestion that carrying money from the sale of raffle tickets into West Virginia from out of state constituted a racketeering crime. Seventeen of those defendants, some of whom spent almost six months in jail while the case was pending, pleaded guilty to a state misdemeanor in Kanawha County Magistrate Court, paid a $5 fine and court costs, and had the federal charges against them dropped.

Prosecutors also charged a handful of Pagans of being employed as bodyguards for Moore, a convicted felon, by carrying guns on his behalf. In July, Johnston ruled that "employ," as used in the law, meant hire rather than use.

As a result, prosecutors conceded that they could not prove that Moore paid his subordinates to protect them, and dropped that count, pending an appeal of Johnston's ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond.

The use of confidential informants also has been a contentious issue during the case, complicated by the fact that Wes Hudnall, an informant who posed as a prospective Pagans member while being paid by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, died in June of an apparent suicide.

Ronnie Howerton, the FBI's main informant, a Pagan who rose to the position of personal sergeant-at-arms to Moore while he was on the government's payroll, wrote a letter to Johnston in June. Howerton complained that prosecutors were mishandling the case by not charging all the crimes for which they had evidence.

During the handful of trials in the Pagans case in August, the FBI informant testified twice for the defense, and not for the prosecution.

Defense attorneys have assailed the credibility of Hudnall, who had a history of mental illness and drug use, and Howerton, who was previously convicted of second-degree murder in state court, accusing him of instigating and escalating crimes to bolster and protect his position with the government.

Reach Andrew Clevenger at acleven...©wvgazette.com or 304-348-1723.

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