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Michael Christopher “Mesa Mike” Kramer has been one of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ most important assets for more than a decade and he has been paid like it.
From December 2001 through December 2008, the last year for which The Aging Rebel has obtained figures, Kramer was paid or reimbursed an average of almost $60,000 a year to assist in the infiltration, entrapment and prosecution of members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in Arizona and California. Kramer continues to assist in the prosecution of two former club brothers named Kevin Augustiniak and Paul Eischeid.
Augustiniak pled guilty to second degree murder in October 2011. He later unsuccessfully attempted to withdraw that guilty plea. He will probably be sentenced in March. Paul Eischeid was arrested in Argentina in February 2011 and is fighting extradition. Both men were implicated by Mike Kramer for the notorious, October 2001 murder of a woman named Cynthia Yvonne Garcia
Cynthia Garcia
Mike Kramer was one of many members of the Dirty Dozen Motorcycle Club who patched over to the Hells Angels in 1996. He was also a methamphetamine addict who murdered Garcia in an apparent drug induced rage on the evening of October 25, 2001.The extent to which Augustiniak and Eischeid participated in the crime is unknown. The only witness to the crime who has spoken about it is Kramer. A fourth eyewitness to the murder was an Angel named Richard Hyder. In May 2002, Kramer who was driving a truck, ran over Hyder, who was riding a motorcycle, and Hyder died. The event was officially determined by police to be an accident. A person with knowledge of the accident calls it “suspicious.”
Kramer has stated that Augustiniak knocked Garcia down and that Augustiniak and Eischeid then began licking her face. He has also alleged that Augustiniak and Eischeid together stabbed the woman more than 20 times and that Augustiniak tried to sever the woman’s head.
America’s Most Shocked
America’s Most Wanted described the crime as: “A group of HAs” was loitering at the Mesa clubhouse “when they decided to send somebody out to scour the streets for some women to bring back for the party. Cynthia Garcia, was a 44-year-old mother of six who happened to be out and about that night when she got the invite to party with the bikers back at their clubhouse. Cynthia, a mother of six, had been through some rough times. She had been in abusive relationships with men, and had struggled with alcohol problems. But, by all accounts from her family, she was a sweet person at heart…. As the party continued inside the club house that night, an inebriated Cynthia started ‘mouthing off’ to some of the Hells Angels. Police say the bikers warned her to keep quiet. When Cynthia kept talking, one of the Hells Angels allegedly knocked her off of a barstool. Then, a confidential informant told police that he, Eischeid and another biker began beating and kicking Cynthia until she was bleeding and unconscious. Then, police report, they tossed the woman into a car trunk, and drove out to the desert where they took turns stabbing the woman until she was nearly decapitated. The gang left their victim’s corpse to rot in the desert.”Sources with indirect knowledge of the crime have alleged that Kramer was the principal aggressor in the murder, that Kramer knocked the woman down and tried to kill her, that he ordered Eischeid (who was a prospect) and Augustiniak to beat the woman and that Kramer then ordered his “accomplices” to put the unconscious woman into his car.
In A Jam Call John
Cynthia Garcia’s body was found on October 31. Kramer approached ATF Special Agent and full time biker investigator John Ciccone on November 26. Ciccone immediately debriefed Kramer. Both men would later state that Kramer did not mention the Garcia murder until months later.Since Kramer was a felon he could not legally carry a gun. So, Ciccone immediately contacted Assistant United States Attorney Rod Castro-Silva to obtain a waiver for Kramer. Kramer transferred his membership from the Hells Angels Mesa, Arizona charter to the Angels San Fernando Valley charter. And, on December 1, 2001 he became a registered ATF Confidential Informant and the principal ATF asset in an investigation of the SFV Angels called Operation Dequiallo.
During Operation Dequiallo Kramer collaborated with ATF undercover agents Darrin Kozlowski and John Carr. In April 2002, Ciccone, Kozlowski and Carr followed Kramer to the annual River Run in Laughlin, Nevada where Kramer met an ATF Agent named Jay Dobyns. After a well publicized and deadly fight between Hells Angels and members of the Mongols Motorcycle Club during the Laughlin event, the ATF began an adjunct investigation of Hells Angels in Arizona. That investigation was called Phoenix ATF 7805040-02-0049. The lead undercover agent in 7805040-02-0049 was Dobyns. Both of those investigations and three associated investigations were later renamed Operation Black Biscuit for a segment about Dobyns on America’s Most Wanted.
Anger Issues
Because of his violent and volatile nature, Kramer was a difficult snitch for Ciccone to control. Although, the extent to which Ciccone actually tried to control Kramer is now impossible to judge.Two incidents illustrate the extent to which Ciccone enabled Kramer’s worst instincts. A month before Laughlin, on March 28, 2002 Kramer saw bouncers drag a man out of a bar. Kramer, who was drunk at the time, ran to the man and kicked and stomped him. “He was screaming like a little bitch,” Kramer later bragged. The beating was captured on an ATF recording device hidden inside a cell phone battery.
In another incident, Ciccone ordered Kramer to buy four machine guns from a man in Woodland Hills, California for $3,000. Two of the guns turned out to be replicas and the other two were completely inoperable. After Ciccone chided Kramer for buying junk Kramer returned to the gun dealer’s house and stole a motorcycle from a man named Peter Joseph who was staying at the residence. When Joseph complained, Kramer beat Joseph with a baseball bat.
Ciccone covered for Kramer throughout Operation Dequiallo. Although he was a raging alcoholic and crank addict, Ciccone formally reported that Kramer “has never used methamphetamine in the past while working on behalf of the ATF, does not have a drug history and has never been convicted of a drug offense.”
One ATF internal report states that Kramer and Ciccone had “daily contact,” that Kramer “learned by trial and error” and that “he did what he could to make John happy.”
Reward And Retirement
After Black Biscuit ended, Kramer was paid a secret sum by the ATF and was enrolled in the United States Marshall’s Witness Relocation program. Kramer was also given a sentence of five years probation for the murder of Cynthia Garcia.Excluding performance bonuses, the ATF officially paid or reimbursed Mike Kramer $197, 220.05 for his contributions to the (largely unsuccessful) infiltration of the Hells Angels in Arizona and California.
The Marshall’s Service spent $99,079 to relocate Kramer in March 2004 and protect him for the rest of that year. Of that amount $29,572 was spent on the actual relocation, $6,931 was spent on “documents” and $14,644 was spent on travel. From January 2005 through December 2008 the Marshall’s Service spent an additional $118,776 to preserve and protect Kramer.
This page has not yet learned the amount the United States of America spent to preserve, protect and defend Mesa Mike Kramer for the years 2009, 2010 and 2011. The official federal bill for Kramer from December 2001 through December 2008 totals $415, 075.05.