OFF THE WIRE
agingrebel.com
The way federal racketeering cases against motorcycle clubs typically proceed
is by first accusing the defendants of everything and then using everything as
evidence against them. The current case against the Devils Diciples Motorcycle
Club illustrates the way the Department of Justice uses confusion, chaos and the
threat of punishment to punish presumably innocent defendants before they are
tried.
The Case
The Devils Diciples case is called United States v. Scott William
Sutherland, et al. It began in March 2011 and has been engorged by
superseding indictments in May 2011 and last July and by two related cases
called United States v. Jeff Garvin Smith, et al. and United States
v. Smiley Villa.
It is impossible to describe what this endlessly metastasizing case is
actually about without being rude. Rudely put, it is about total victory by
effete government bureaucrats over the alpha males of the DD. The government
argues that in the last 50 years members of the club have murdered; beaten the
disabled; produced, consumed and sold drugs; gotten in fights; lied to the
police; participated in non-government sponsored lotteries; owned functioning
slot machines without a casino license; bribed corrupt judges and cops; managed
strippers; beaten their wives and girlfriends; belonged to the Devils Diciples;
and ridden “powerful Harley-Davidson” motorcycles all on behalf of the Devils
Diciples “racket.” There are 38 counts in all.
The charges against the defendants are so disparate and unrelated that the
government has assigned all the defendants to one of four “groupings.” If you
have a friend or relative caught up in the case you will want to know who is in
which “group.” So:
Group One includes Jeff Smith, Paul Darrah, Cary Vandiver, Michael
Mastromatteo, Vernon Rich, Victor Castano, Michael Rich, Dean Jakiel, Edward
Taylor, William Lonsby and Keith McFadden.
Group Two includes Scott Sutherland, Ronald Roberts, David Roberts, Patrick
McKeoun, Vincent Witort, John Riede, Gary Nelson, Raymond Melioli, Timothy Downs
and Tony Kitchens.
Group Three includes David Drozdowski, Smiley Villa, Slyvester Wesaw, Howard
Quant, Scott Perkins, Clifford Rhodes, Christopher Cook, Jason Cook, Salvatore
Battaglia and Wayne Werth.
Group Four includes Ronald Preletz, David Delong, Michael Palazzola, Danny
Burby, Ronald Lambert, Lauri Ledford, Jennifer Cicola, Dean Tagliavia, Alexis
May, Paula Friscioni and John Scudder.
The prosecution has blatantly divided the “case” into four pieces in
preparation for four sequential trials. It has nothing to do with seeking
justice. It simply increases the odds that the government will win. It is like
buying four lottery tickets instead of just one. The judge has not yet decided
whether he will allow the defendants to be tried by group. He will decide that
after the defendants eventually see the evidence the government will use against
them.
In one procedural memorandum, attorneys wrote the judge, “the responses of
Group 3 are limited by their lack of understanding of the criteria by which the
Government has assigned defendants to the four groups.”
Discovery
Five months after the third indictment was unsealed there is still no
agreement on the volume of the evidence the government has against the
defendants, let alone what that evidence actually is. One good estimate of the
volume of that evidence is: 111 gigabytes of recorded conversations and other
wiretaps; 3,000 pages of requests for wiretaps; 12,000 pages of search warrant
affidavits and inventories; 500 pages of laboratory reports; 5,000 pages of
“Grand Jury Subpoena related documents and testimony;” and 13,000 pages of
investigative reports and other gossip.
Defense attorneys can only guess at the volume of information because none of
them have yet seen any of it. The defenders are so overwhelmed by all this
information and noise that they convinced the judge, Robert H. Cleland, to
appoint a New York lawyer named Emma M. Greenwood as “Coordinating Discovery
Attorney for the defendants.” Greenwood’s job will be to hire her own staff to
organize and oversee the distribution of all of the potential evidence in an
“effective and cost-efficient manner.”
There is still no trial date for the case. The next status conference is
scheduled for January 7, 2013.
