Joining Outlaws Motorcycle Club earned deputy his job

Off the Wire News
MCs in the News Socializing with Outlaws cost a Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputy her job. Joining them netted an ex-bouncer one.
“I have information another member of the sheriff’s department was fired for hanging out with the motorcycle club,” defense attorney Mike Whalen said at a preliminary hearing for two Outlaws Motorcycle Club leaders accused of robbing and kidnapping a bouncer turned undercover deputy. “What I want to know is: Did (KCSO Deputy Joseph Linger) join the motorcycle club so he could get hired?”
It took two rounds of aggressive cross-examination to get that answer.
Linger
“So you were happy with your career in bouncer world?” Whalen asked at one point. “Other than joining the motorcycle club, had you developed some other skill qualifying you for the job?”
Linger finally conceded he joined the Outlaws in August 2008 after a KCSO buddy told him the agency “would be interested” if he could infiltrate the group.
Sheriff Jimmy “J.J.” Jones acknowledged after the hearing that a female deputy who sometimes rode with the Outlaws resigned after being confronted about violating the agency’s policy against socializing with suspected criminals.
Linger was hired a short time after he joined the Outlaws and began secretly recording the goings-on at the group’s clubhouse on Clifton Road. Outlaws commanders Mark Lester and Kenneth Foster are accused of robbing Linger of his Outlaws vest in a confrontation at the clubhouse in December.
After Thursday’s hearing, General Sessions Judge Patricia Long sent charges of aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping against the pair to a grand jury for review.
The decision did not come without a fight. Whalen, who represents Foster, and attorney Phil Lomonaco, who represents Lester, contend there was no robbery or kidnapping. Instead, they contend the pair confronted Linger after hearing from Linger’s wife that Linger was working undercover for KCSO and essentially de-vested him.
Prosecutor Leslie Nassios called the defense theory of a de-vesting “asinine.”
Linger testified that an angry Lester demanded his vest, took his service weapon, unloaded it and threatened to hit him with it when he balked at giving up the garment. He said Lester searched him for a body wire and rifled through his wallet in search of identifying information.
“He made it clear to you, ‘I ain’t taking your money?’ ” Whalen asked. “He wanted everything to do with the club.”
“Correct,” Linger said.
Linger acknowledged the two Outlaws leaders told him they were merely “holding” his vest and Outlaws shirt pending a probe of the wife’s claims and that they gave him back his gun and bullets. But he insisted both men had guns within their reach and said he felt “threatened.”
Authorities later raided the clubhouse but came away with only a small amount of marijuana.
Whalen argued that Linger knew he had to give up the vest if he ran afoul of the club rules. The two leaders’ angry handling of the de-vesting shouldn’t have surprised Linger, Whalen said.
“He didn’t join the Boy Scouts,” Whalen said. “He joined the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. There’s not a kidnapping and there was no robbery, and this ought to stop right here.”
Lomonaco said the pair were understandably angry.
“If you find out someone’s spying on you … you get a little upset,” he said.
But Nassios said it didn’t matter if the vest and shirt belonged to the Outlaws.
“Under the letter of the law, Joseph Linger had property taken from him by two men who had weapons within their reach,” she argued.
Jamie Satterfield may be reached at 865-342-6308.
Original article...
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/feb/18/joining-outlaws-motorcycle-club-earned-deputy-his-/