CHARLESTON, W.Va. Last Rebel gets home confinement in jackets incident

OFF THE WIRE
By Andrew Clevenger
The Charleston Gazette
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A member of the Last Rebels Motorcycle Club who helped take jean jackets from members of a family-oriented riding club in a Boone County parking lot in 2008 was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to four months of home confinement.
Donald T. Massey Jr., 48, of Patriot, Ohio, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting a violent crime in aid of racketeering in January. Massey admitted that he was one of five Last Rebels who confronted members of the Next of Kin in the parking lot of an IGA in Racine in April 2008.
Massey said that he knew that Floyd B. "Jesse" Moore, the national vice president of the Pagans Motorcycle Club, had ordered the Last Rebels to take the "cuts" belonging to the Next of Kin, a riding club formed by two married couples. As a support club aligned with the Pagans, the Last Rebels were obligated to carry out directives handed down by Pagans officers.
In court and in written filings, defense attorney Paul Farrell maintained that Massey had no intention of following through on the order when he went for a casual ride with four other Last Rebels. But when the group spotted members of Next of Kin in the parking lot, he went along and got off his motorcycle as Last Rebels James Edward "Big Jim" Lyttle and his son, Eric Wayne "Tree" Lyttle, confronted the two couples.
"Massey recognizes that his presence, with the other members of the [Last Rebels], constituted a 'show of force' that supported the Lyttles' actions in the actual taking of the patches and jackets," Farrell wrote. "He knew it was unlawful conduct to take others' property but feared physical reprisal from the Lyttles or Diamond Jesse [Moore] if he did anything to stop the taking of the 'cuts.'"
When one of the women said she might call the police, Massey said something like, "That would be a bad idea" or "That would be the worst thing you could do," Assistant U.S. Attorney Miller Bushong said.

Massey told U.S. District Judge Thomas E. Johnston that he wished he had stepped in and stopped the Lyttles from taking the jackets, but he didn't.
"I didn't intend to put the victims in harm's way. I'm sorry that I was a member of [the Last Rebels]," he said.


Within months of the incident, Massey left the group. He hadn't been associated with them for more than two years when he was arrested in October 2009, Farrell said.






Johnston described the incident as "a tense encounter that could have turned violent."





"The five of you seriously frightened these people and took their property. These people were not outlaw bikers," he said.





Johnston placed Massey on three years' probation, with the first four months to be spent on home confinement. He also fined Massey $250, and said that he would have ordered restitution if the victims had asked for any.





James and Eric Lyttle, who have both pleaded guilty for their roles in the incident, are set to be sentenced today.





The two other Last Rebels involved, Jeffrey Wayne Jett, of Clarksburg, and Anthony Wayne "Big Daddy" Peters, 38, of Bloomingrose, have cut a deal with prosecutors where their charges will be dropped if they stay out of trouble for a year.





While many of the 55 defendants charged in the sweeping 44-count indictment against members and associates of the Pagans have been convicted of felonies, the vast majority have pleaded guilty to vastly reduced charges.





Seventeen pleaded guilty to a gambling misdemeanor in Kanawha County Magistrate Court, paid $5 fines and had their federal charges dismissed. Others, like Jett and Peters, entered into pretrial diversions.

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