OFF THE WIRE
BY: Frank Green
Source: timesdispatch.com
Richmond, Va. --
For 26 months, Jeffery Grabman, a federal agent, lived as a renegade biker named "Gringo" and played the role so well that he established a chapter of the Outlaws motorcycle gang in Petersburg staffed by other undercover agents and paid informants.
The 20-year veteran of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had a fictitious identity complete with a fake history and a false driver's license and credit cards, a shaved head and a goatee.
"Basically, I was another person. . . . You never came out of your role," he testified yesterday.
Grabman, now neatly groomed and wearing a suit, was on the witness stand all day yesterday, on the second day of the trial for four members of the Outlaws, including their national president, Jack "Milwaukee Jack" Rosga, 58, on conspiracy and other charges in federal court in Richmond.
Grabman is expected to be back on the stand for cross-examination this morning.
Also on trial are Outlaws Mark "Lytnin'" Spradling, 52; Leslie Werth, 47; and William "Rebel" Davey, 46. Each is charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering and conspiracy to commit violence in the aid of racketeering.
Davey and Werth also are charged with violence in the aid of racketeering and firearms violations.
Grabman and another undercover agent initially infiltrated the Mongols motorcycle club, which sent them from Baltimore to open a chapter in the Richmond area in 2008. However, in October 2008, an undercover operation against the Mongols in California resulted in more than 100 arrests there.
The Outlaws wanted to expand in this area and invited Grabman and the other undercover officer to become probationers for their club.
The agents started a chapter in Petersburg with Grabman as president. It wasn't the first time Grabman had infiltrated a club, a situation that led to some close calls in the months that followed.
"You never knew who knew somebody else," he said. "We lived in sort of a nightmare, worried about being compromised." A motorcycle club he had infiltrated years earlier had posted his photo on the Internet, though he had long hair and a beard in the photo.
Once, in his role as an Outlaw, he ran into a biker who complained about an undercover agent -- Grabman -- who had infiltrated the Warlocks. The biker did not recognize him.
Neither did a group of Pagans, allies of the Outlaws, and Outlaws at a party who he heard complaining "about all the Pagans I had thrown in jail in the mid-1990s. I'm thinking, 'I've been compromised. They're trying to see my reaction.'"
Yesterday the government played video and audio surreptitiously recorded by Grabman and the other agents who wore wires at times and had the Petersburg clubhouse and their residence wired.
The recordings -- many heavily laced with profanity-- were at times difficult to hear but caught Outlaws making threats, plotting attacks and otherwise implicating themselves.
Grabman also testified about a number of show-of-force confrontations with Hells Angels or their allies. A carefully planned confrontation to intimidate the Desperados at the Cockades Bar led to 14 stitches when he was hit in the face with a bottle.
"It broke the bottle, and there was blood covering everything," Grabman said.
"'This is now an Outlaws town. This is an Outlaws state, and this is an Outlaws bar,'" said one of the Outlaws to an approaching Desperado. Had police not arrived, Grabman said, things would have ended in a gunfight.
Grabman and the undercover agents were made full members of the Outlaws, or "patched," on July 4, 2009, at a meeting in Hickory, N.C., also attended by Rosga.
The next day, Rosga accompanied Grabman and the others to the Petersburg clubhouse on Crater Road. Grabman said he considered it an honor.
"I liked Jack Rosga. He was good to me at times during the case," he said.
At the Petersburg clubhouse that July 5, Grabman complained to Rosga about problems with area Hells Angels. Grabman said Rosga clearly told him: "The best way to stop that is to put a cap in'em."
Under cross-examination, Grabman conceded that a transcript of the record said Rosga's words were unintelligible. Nevertheless, Grabman said, "I believe he was telling me I should shoot the Hells Angels in the area."
One of the patches worn by Outlaws says, "Snitches Are a Dying Breed." Grabman said, "It means if you snitch or talk on the Outlaws, you will be killed."
Before leaving Petersburg, Rosga "asked if we had our snitch patches," Grabman said.
"We said, 'No.'"
"He handed one to each of us," he said.
Contact Frank Green at (804) 649-6340 or fgreen@timesdispatch.com.
