St. Louis indictment accuses motorcycle club members of murder, other crimes

OFF THE WIRE
www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_6acf95ca-9717-5049-a83d-988eb593e8c5.html
St. Louis indictment accuses motorcycle club members of murder, other crimes


 St. Louis indictment accuses motorcycle club members of murder, other crimes BY ROBERT PATRICK • rpatrick@post-dispatch.com > 314-621-5154 STLtoday.com | Posted: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 12:12 am |

 ST. LOUIS • Eighteen current or former members of a national motorcycle gang have been indicted on federal racketeering charges and accused of a series of murders, drug sales and other crimes.
Three others face gun charges here and in Chicago, and 18 of the 21 have been arrested, U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan said Tuesday.
The 40-page indictment unsealed here Tuesday called the gang Wheels of Soul a "criminal organization" and details a laundry list of crimes primarily spawned by feuds with rival clubs such as Outkast, Sin City and Hell's Lovers.
Those indicted with area ties are St. Louis chapter president Dominic Henley, 33, of St. Louis; former chapter vice president Lawrence Pinkston, 42; former chapter secretary Norman Vick, 44, of north St. Louis County; club member Timothy Balle, 58, of St. Louis; and Sean Jackson, 42, of St. Louis, described as a former enforcer.
Callahan said that six defendants were arrested in Chicago, three in Youngstown, Ohio, three in Denver, one in Milwaukee and one in Philadelphia, where the club is based. It has hundreds of members in 20 chapters nationwide, authorities said.
Callahan said that the investigation started in the St. Louis area, then "got legs and the legs took us around the country."
Prosecutors quote frequently, and explicitly, from club meetings in St. Louis and elsewhere, suggesting that investigators either had inside information or were recording those meetings.
In one meeting in May 2009, members were told to be armed at all times and that they should retaliate for a threat by robbing rivals of their "colors," meaning the patch identifying their club affiliation, by "any means necessary."
Wheels of Soul members wear a patch featuring a winged wheel.
In a July 2009 meeting, members were told that it was "open season" on rival clubs the Sin City Desciples and the Sin City Titans, and the chapter president told a recently disciplined member that he could earn back his colors by killing the head of the Desciples, the indictment says.
The next month, two Wheels of Soul members, Balle and Henley, robbed two members of the STL Riders club of their colors at gunpoint, the indictment says. (Riders is spelled in other court documents as Ryderz.)
Five days later Balle, Henley and Pinkston were involved in a shooting in which a Sin City Titans member was killed, the indictment said. That incident appears to match the killing of Kelvin Berry, 35, of the 8800 block of Blewett Avenue in St. Louis, about 2:30 a.m. outside a club in the 7800 block of North Broadway. Police said two other men, 31, and 56, were wounded.
At an Oct. 3, 2009, meeting, Midwest regional president Myron Farris talked to members about the need to raise money for members facing criminal charges. "Do you know how many (expletive) murders we have on our hands?" Farris asked, according to the indictment. Farris was later fatally shot in Chicago.
Callahan would not comment on whether investigators used wiretaps, recording devices or informants to make the case.
But he did acknowledge that law enforcement prevented planned attacks. The indictment says that six Wheels of Soul members planned to shoot and kill members of a rival bike gang, Outkast, at a dance in East St. Louis but called it off when they spotted local and federal law enforcement nearby.
A Wheels of Soul member was apparently overheard telling another in February that he was headed to Chicago with a "present." That present, the indictment says, was a pipe bomb meant for the Hell's Lovers gang, but the member was caught by police three days later with explosives and a stolen pistol.
The indictment also accuses members of drug sales, a murder and another shooting in Chicago, a shooting in Gary, Ind., a drive-by shooting at a Hell's Lovers property in Denver and a shooting at a party in Marion, Ohio, in March that wounded three.
Balle and Henley face robbery and armed criminal action charges in St. Louis stemming from the 2009 incident with the STL Riders. Balle's public defender declined to comment on the case. Henley's did not return a call seeking comment.
The others do not appear to yet have attorneys, according to court documents.
FEATURED IN FILM
Randall Wilson, a documentary filmmaker from Los Angeles, spent eight weeks in Philadelphia with the Wheels of Soul filming a documentary about them. Wilson said he wasn't surprised by the indictment, although he didn't know any of the men charged.
"It's a hard and violent world they live in," Wilson said. "I've never seen an outlaw like that shy away from anything."
Wilson's documentary, which aired in 2005 on PBS, offered this description of the club: "These bikers do not push drugs, terrorize small towns or lie in wait for little old ladies. Instead, they terrorize pushers, pimps and gang members who plague their inner city neighborhoods."
The club is also described as the only racially mixed outlaw motorcycle club.
He said the group had been praised by some local police officers for maintaining control in bad neighborhoods.
"They were old school," Wilson said. "It was in the worst part of Philadelphia you could imagine. They were really concerned about their neighborhood."