OFF THE WIRE
http://www.redding.com/news/2010/jul/20/chp-seeks-charges-against-motorcycle-store-owner/ California Highway Patrol investigators have asked the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office to file charges against a Redding motorcycle shop owner accusing him of running a chop shop for an outlaw motorcycle gang.
CHP spokeswoman Erin Giglio said Tuesday that investigators have finished their investigation and have asked prosecutors to charge Gary Kenerson, the 60-year-old owner of Gary’s Motorcycle Services Center on California Street.
Giglio said the allegations include auto theft, possession of stolen vehicles, possession of drugs and operating a chop shop. Prosecutors are weighing what charges to file, she said.
Kenerson denies the allegations.
“They don’t have anything to go on,” Kenerson said Tuesday by phone.
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 are often 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.
