Daniel Horrigan They shot at him, stabbed him, got him in wrecks, said... (Courtesy of Bigisgood.tv)
In the end, death didn't come from the hands of gangsters he helped put in prison, nor from the enemies who'd stabbed him, shot at him, or ran him over with a truck.Nature, perhaps aided by years of hard living, claimed the life of Daniel Horrigan, 58, a Monterey native who infiltrated the Mongols and Hells Angels motorcycle clubs and for years worked as an undercover informant for the FBI, ATF and DEA.
His death Monday morning came just weeks after the last guilty plea in "Operation Black Rain," the government's largest racketeering case against the Mongols, an investigation Mr. Horrigan helped launch.
Physically, Mr. Horrigan was a giant of a man whose charity strength demonstrations often included splitting stacks of boards or smashing coconuts with his bare hands.
According to law enforcement records, he once held his own in an unarmed brawl with more than a dozen Hells Angels.
"They shot at him, stabbed him, got him in wrecks," said his childhood friend, Mike Amader of Pacific Grove. "You'd never think he'd die this way."
On Monday, Mr. Horrigan's girlfriend, Shellie Stewart, watched him work some 20 feet in the air, cutting branches for his Carson City, Nev., tree-trimming business.
Strapped to a tree trunk, Mr. Horrigan told Stewart he felt dizzy. While she and a friend scrambled to get him some Gatorade, Mr. Horrigan passed out, Stewart said.
He never woke up.
An autopsy is scheduled for this week, Stewart said.
Friends many still in shock Tuesday, remember his staunch loyalty.
"Good- hearted" was term that came up often.
"He looks rough, but he's just a good-hearted person. He'll help anybody. He's there to protect you," Amader said.
Scars and metal plates
Over the years, Mr. Horrigan had been in so many accidents and attacks that he walked with a visible limp and often pointed out the many scars and locations of metal plates in his body.
He was 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 250 pounds, a "great big hunk of a man," Stewart said. "The doctor told him his body was perfect" when he went for a checkup last week.
He had a large appetite and in restaurants often started his order with two large glasses of milk before devouring his meal.
"I called him Danimal," Stewart said. "But he was just the most caring, giving, spiritual man I've ever known. Superman."
"I'm in shock," said childhood friend William Bunch of Seaside. "Knowing how strong he is, you just wonder what happened."
Mr. Horrigan grew up on the Peninsula, where his father was a master sergeant at Fort Ord.
At Monterey High School, "everybody was kind of scared of him," Amader said. "People didn't want me to bring him to parties. But then he became really popular as a bouncer."
Bunch said he's known Mr. Horrigan since elementary school.
"He wasn't my friend. He was my brother," Bunch said. Through many years, the men stayed as close as family.
"When we talked on the phone we always said we loved each other. My wife would look at me, or his girlfriend, and they'd say what the heck? But we considered ourselves as brothers."
Although Mr. Horrigan was known as a tough guy who eventually got into trouble with drugs, "he never picked a fight with anybody. But he'd help somebody if they got in trouble," Bunch said.
After a stint with the Marines, Mr. Horrigan hoped to become a police officer and took law enforcement courses at Monterey Peninsula College. But in his early 30s during the 1980s, he was arrested on drug and robbery charges. He got it down to a cocaine conviction with a plea deal.
Before he went to prison, Mr. Horrigan said the late Manny Ameron of the Monterey County District Attorney's Office told him, "Let's sit down and talk."
After he served his time, Mr. Horrigan began working for the DEA with Ameron's help, and his decade-and-a half career as an undercover operative began.
Eventually, Mr. Horrigan infiltrated the Hells Angels for the FBI, and then, in an unprecedented switch, joined their rivals, the Mongols, working for ATF.
During the 19 years Mr. Horrigan worked as what he called a "regulator," — he hated the term informant — he could not carry a gun because he was a convicted felon.
"For a while I didn't know where he was," Bunch said. "He was undercover for years."
Credible intelligence
Mr. Horrigan's undercover career ended in 2008, when Operation Black Rain and related investigations led to the takedown of nearly 100 Mongols and associates — including the club's leaders — on racketeering charges.
His handler, Special Agent John Ciccone, wrote in a sworn affidavit that Mr. Horrigan (referred to as "Cl-6" by Ciccone) was providing credible intelligence, documenting Mongols' crimes, and bought guns and drugs from club members to help ATF make its case. Mr. Horrigan's information, like that of several other informants, was all corroborated by law enforcement, Ciccone wrote.
Mr. Horrigan had planned to one day reveal through a memoir or news interviews the details of how he infiltrated the club's important final meetings that included Hector "Flaco" Gonzalez and then-president Ruben "Doc" Cavazos Sr.
But he kept waiting for the lengthy Black Rain trial to conclude, because he might have been called to testify.
With the case's final defendant Gonzalez pleading guilty last month and scheduled to be sentenced in December, Mr. Horrigan never got his chance to tell the full tale.
He did describe many details to The Herald, explaining that he had provided tapes of Mongol meetings to Ciccone. Those tapes were among the evidence showing that each month, Gonzalez was collecting $15,000 to $17,000 in cash from the club's members for the organization.
Gonzale z also admitted in his plea agreement that he took part in planning meetings with Cavazos, where the groups' leaders planned the club's expansion and decided how they would collaborate with the Mexican Mafia prison gang.
Gonzalez is expected to receive five to 12 years in prison — perhaps more if his criminal history warrants it — according to the plea deal.
Before his death, Mr. Horrigan was working with Los Angeles film producer Lauren Lloyd to get his life story into a book and on screen.
"He really wanted that, to explain why he did what he did," his friend Amader said.
Mr. Horrigan liked to say he was, at heart, just a cop without a badge and gun.
As he once put it, "It's a wild ride."
A viewing, funeral and charity fundraiser are planned for Carson City on July 21, 22 and 23. Arrangements are being handled by Fitzhenry's Funeral Home.
http://www.montereyherald.com/local/ci_18467590
