OFF THE WIRE
agingrebel.com
The two remaining defendants in the Christie case, George Gus Christie, Jr.
and Kyle Douglas Gilbertson agreed to plea deals late Friday afternoon that will
allow both men to stay free and get on with their lives. Christie pled guilty to
two counts of conspiracy and left the courthouse without his ankle bracelet.
Gilbertson pled guilty to one charge that may allow him to keep his job as an
air traffic controller.
The agreements were reached after the second day of what promised to be the
most informative and amusing biker trial ever. “Motorcycle gang expert” Jorge
Gil-Blanco was scheduled to testify for the prosecution. Former Bandidos
Motorcycle Club Presidente George Wegers and former Mongols Motorcycle
Club member Al Cavazos, two men who both believed they were entrapped by federal
police, were going to testify for the defense.
The presiding Judge in the case, The Honorable George H. Wu, seriously wanted
to avoid trial. He allowed jury selection to linger for two full days. During
that time Wu repeatedly encouraged the prosecutors, Jay Robinson and Carol Chen,
and the defenders, Michael Mayock and Larry Bakman, to settle the case. On
Friday Wu resorted to bribing the opposing parties with homemade cake if they
would agree to a settlement.
Stakes High
The stakes were high for both sides. The government was probably about to
lose. The defense intended to expose the essentially corrupt nature of federal
motorcycle club cases. Worse, the loose and unconventional Wu was perilously
close to establishing case law precedents that might ruin the prosecution of
dozens of other motorcycle club cases present and future. In a pretrial hearing
earlier in the week Wu had forbidden Gil-Blanco, who seemed star struck by
Christie, to use the words “gang” and “outlaw” in his testimony. However Wu then
continued to refer to “gangs” when he questioned prospective jurors. Even Larry
Bakman made repeated references to “motorcycle gangs” when challenging juror
prospects.
Christie faced two charges that carried minimum sentences of 30 years each
and another charge that carried a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
Gilbertson faced similar penalties.
The settlement was negotiated by another federal district judge, John Walter,
during one three hour sit down after the trial recessed for the week. A
sentencing date has not yet been set.
Throughout the course of the case the defendants and their relatives have
been specifically forbidden to talk to The Aging Rebel. The prohibition
remained in effect on Saturday and neither Christie nor Gilbertson nor Mayock
nor Bakman have contributed to this story in any way. Multiple sources speaking
on conditions of anonymity have contributed and verified the facts stated here.
Christie and Gilbertson’s plea and sentencing agreements have not yet been filed
with the court.
The Christie Sting
George Christie was a long-time President of the Ventura charter of the Hells
Angels Motorcycle Club before he retired from the club in the Spring of 2011.
Because he is a bright, reasonable and charming man he became a frequent
spokesman for the Angels. And, because his demeanor and appearance undermined
law enforcement efforts to demonize the Angels as mythic villains Christie
himself became a federal law enforcement target from about 1980 onward.
Federal police go after Christie about every ten years. In 1987 he was tried
and acquitted of solicitation to murder. In 1998 he was arrested and thrown into
solitary confinement until he pled guilty to conspiracy to sell prescription
drugs and no contest to a charge of filing a false tax return.
The Department of Justice went after Christie again in 2007. The most recent
attempt to get George Christie was roughly contemporaneous with an ATF
undercover investigation of the Mongols Motorcycle Club called Operation Black
Rain. Black Rain began with the recruitment of a Mongols patch holder in Ventura
named T.J. Stansbury in June 2005. Stansbury was well acquainted with the tattoo
business in Ventura County. One of the first persons Stansbury entrapped was a
tattoo artist named William “Target” Owens. Owens was President of the Mongols
Ventura chapter. The first ATF undercover agent introduced to the Mongols by
Stansbury was Greg Giaoni. Giaoni has “Dirty White Boy” tattooed on his chest.
The tattoo was put there by Target Owens.
Mongols And Angels
When Black Rain began, three years after a well-publicized fight between
Mongols and Hells Angels in Laughlin, Nevada, relations between the two clubs
were very tense but less so in Ventura County than elsewhere. Owens knew
Christie and has spoken glowingly about him. Christie was a participant in one
of the first altercations between Mongols and Hells Angels in 1978 but
eventually, for both pragmatic and idealistic reasons, he became a dove in the
often violent dispute between the two clubs. Throughout the first decade of the
new millennium, federal police provably welcomed conflict between Mongols and
Angels.
For example, the fight between the clubs in Laughlin was clearly preventable,
but was allowed to escalate over a period of two days by undercover federal
agents. The hour-long, immediate prelude to the fight between the clubs was
observed by federal agents in the video surveillance room at Harrah’s Laughlin.
The ATF apparently had confidential informants among the Mongols when the fight
began. And, the fight itself became the rationale behind a massive undercover
effort to destroy the Mongols and the Hells Angels that included both Operation
Black Rain and an investigation of the Hells Angels that came to be called
Operation Black Biscuit. It was in that context that Christie became the target
of an investigation by the FBI.
The operation that originally targeted Christie was a sideshow in a grand
government strategy to encourage violent crime between motorcycle clubs. Federal
police could then take credit for saving the public from a situation those
saviors had created.
Until yesterday’s settlement was reached, Christie was being tried for
conspiring to firebomb two Ventura tattoo shops named Scratch the Surface and
Twisted Ink. Until he sold the business last month, Christie was the owner and
proprietor of a tattoo parlor called The Ink House. The prosecution in the
recent case has alleged that Christie had the two shops firebombed because he
wanted to drive his competitors out of business. However, if the prosecution had
not thrown in the towel yesterday, the defense attorneys would have offered the
jury an alternative version of what was actually going on.
FBI Tattoos
Several of the artists who worked at the firebombed tattoo shops had ties to
the Mongols. The extent to which the government actually created those
firebombed shops is still unclear. Christie probably would have testified that
his interest in the shops was not about destroying his competition but about
keeping what peace he could between Mongols and Hells Angels in Ventura. The
defense might have been able to prove that the two shops were opened just down
the street from Christie’s business in order to provoke Christie and the Ventura
Hells Angels. Surveillance video cameras in the two shops were supplied by the
FBI. The cameras were maintained by the FBI and supplied much of the evidence
the prosecution hoped to use.
In a court document filed last December, prosecutors bragged that they had
video evidence of Gilbertson’s participation in the alleged conspiracy.
“Consequently, on or about June 4, 2007,” one passage begins, “Co-conspirator
One met with defendant Gilbertson and relayed defendant Christie’s orders to
him. Later that night, at 9:27 P.M., defendant Gilbertson walked into “Scratch
the Surface,” accompanied by Brian Russell, Rick Russell, Benji Hurtado, and an
unidentified male. Once inside the business, defendant Gilbertson, B. Russell,
and R. Russell walked up to the two employees working at the time of the
incident and each said the following: ‘There is only one tattoo shop in this
town.’ ‘Pack up your stuff.’ ‘Your time is up.’ ‘Pass it on to the owner.’
‘We’ll be back.’ Defendant Gilbertson and the other individuals then walked out
of Scratch the Surface. The entirety of this incident was captured on the shop’s
security camera.’
The Christie Sting
Of course it was. That’s why the FBI put the cameras in the shop in the first
place. That was why the FBI hired two of the co-conspirators in the case, James
David Ivans, Jr. and Jared Ostrum “Crash” Plomell, and paid them at least
$60,000. The FBI wanted to inflame passions between Mongols and Hells Angels in
Ventura and get George Christie at the same time. The FBI cameras failed to
operate only once during the “investigation.” That was the night, according to
prosecutors, “Defendant Christie personally walked into Scratch the Surface in
February 2007 (and) asked employees if they knew who he was.” Christie went
there to try to encourage peace between Mongols and Angels. The mysteriously
malfunctioning video could have proven that.
Interesting though a trial would have been, there is no certainty that
Christie and Gilbertson would have won. If the questioning of prospective jurors
this week proved anything it was that at least 20 percent of good citizens in
Southern California have seen the biker drama Sons of Anarchy and most
of them think the show reflects the reality of motorcycle clubs. The opinions of
prospective jurors about outlaw clubs has also been significantly effected by
reality shows like Gangland. And, nobody can or will stop calling the
Hells Angels a “gang.”
The Christie trial could have forever changed American attitudes about the
ongoing war between cops and outlaws. Or, it could have simply ruined the lives
of two more innocent men. In the end Christie and Gilbertson, after almost two
years of extra-judicial punishment, decided to give the prosecution a paper
verdict and walk away free.
And, Judge Wu made good on his promise of free cake. And the prosecutors, by
the way, didn’t get any.
