California - Redding motorcycle shop owner arrested on chop-shop charges

OFF THE WIRE
Ryan Sabalow
 redding.com
A Redding motorcycle shop owner has been arrested on charges he was running a chop shop for an outlaw motorcycle gang.
Gary’s Motorcycle Services Center owner Gary William Kenerson, 61, was arrested Thursday on drug- and theft-related charges.
Kenerson since has been released from jail. He said today that he maintains his innocence, just as he has since May when officers first served a search warrant on his California Street shop.
“I still don’t know why they’re doing it,” he said. “I guess we’ll find out when we go to court.”
In July, California Highway Patrol and Redding police investigators asked the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office to file charges against Kenerson.
In May, CHP investigators and members of the Redding Police Department gang task force served a search warrant on Kenerson’s business and his girlfriend’s Palo Cedro home.
The searches came after Redding police and CHP investigators did a routine business inspection on the bike shop looking for stolen motorcycles and stolen parts.
CHP officer Steve Rauch wrote in an affidavit requesting a search warrant that Kenerson has long been suspected of being an associate of the Vagos motorcycle gang.
Rauch said Vagos often are seen at the shop. His affidavit said that Vagos’ black and green colors adorn the shop’s sign and that the colors also are on Kenerson’s employee uniforms.
The affidavit describes the club as “an outlaw motorcycle street gang” whose members were implicated this spring in the attempted murder of police officers in Riverside County.
Officers seized a number of motorcycle parts they said were stolen and a switchblade knife from the store. A .22-caliber rifle, a .22-caliber pistol, a baggie with trace amounts of methamphetamine and two bottles of pain pills were seized from the home, according to search warrant returns.
Kenerson has said the guns were registered to his girlfriend and her son. The baggie contained just a dusting of old meth, left behind by a former boyfriend of his girlfriend, he said, and the pills belonged to the woman’s sick mother.
Kenerson maintains that none of the seized bike parts were stolen.
He has said in the 13 years he’s run the business, he’s abided by the law, and he’s adamant he’s not running a chop shop.