OFF THE WIRE
By Van Smith
Hey there, Philip. So, this happened: http://blogs.citypaper.com/Best, Van
When news broke in February that two Maryland men, including the president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club (OMC), had been indicted in a methamphetamine conspiracy after the FBI had infiltrated the club, one knowledgeable observer, who writes a blog called “Aging Rebel,” predicted there may be other shoes yet to drop. Yesterday, they did, when an April 17 Pennsylvania indictment of Robert Mansfield, a Marylander, and another man named Joseph “Timber” Malcolm, was unsealed. The two are charged in federal court with participating in a conspiracy to distribute meth and “collect an extension of credit by extortionate means.”
Mansfield appeared in U.S. District Court in Baltimore yesterday and was ordered detained and transferred to Philadelphia to answer to the indictment. It is not clear whether or not Malcolm is currently in custody.
The indictment describes the same series of events that resulted in the earlier one, which charged two Maryland men – Ronald L. “Bugs” Sells of Churchville, Md., near Belair in Harford County, and Michael James “Maniac” Privett of Baltimore – with the same crimes. Sells and Privett entered guilty pleas on May 2, according to court records, and both are scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 6. Privett was released on $50,000 bond on April 2, with the condition that he remain on 24-hour home confinement with electronic monitoring at a residence in the Graceland Park neighborhood of Baltimore. Court documents say that prior to being arrested in the case, Privett “had long-standing, full time employment as a pile driver in and around the Chesapeake Bay.”
According to court documents, Sells was paroled in 1978 after a 1972 second-degree murder conviction in Ohio and Privett, who was the “Warlord,” or enforcer, for the OMC’s Philadelphia chapter, has a criminal background that includes convictions for assaults, drug possession, and accessory after the fact. On the night in April 2008 when Norman Stamp, a 44-year Baltimore police veteran, was killed during a brawl at the Haven Place strip club in Baltimore during a gathering of the Chosen Sons Motorcycle Club, which Stamp co-founded, a man with the same name as Privett’s was being initiated to the club, according to press accounts at the time.
The events prompting the two Pennsylvania indictments are as follows, according to the indictment against Malcolm and Mansfield – which attributes to them statements that in prior court documents had been attributed to Privett:
On Jan. 17, Malcolm and Mansfield gave about two pounds of meth to Sells and an undercover FBI agent posing as an OMC prospect, on credit, expecting to be repaid quickly. On Jan. 22, Malcolm and Mansfield went to Sells’ home in Churchville to be paid, and Sells told them he’d given the drugs to the undercover prospect, who had not yet sold them, so Malcolm and Mansfield told Sells to give them the undercover prospect’s contact information so they could find him and collect the money. The same day, Malcolm and Mansfield had Privett threaten Sells and the undercover prospect, and Privett told the undercover prospect to pay up or “people are going to die.”
On Jan. 29, Mansfield left a voicemail on the undercover prospect’s phone, saying: “Believe you have something that belongs to me. I’d like to get it back. I got your motorcycle, I got your trailer. I got your girlfriend’s address, where your kid goes to school and I’m, got your trailer too, I’m, I got, I got the tag to the Florida address. I’m gonna have that today, have to pay your son a visit. I’m gonna take the chopper and the truck. You have to get a hold of me and give me what is mine.”
On Feb. 1, Mansfield left another voicemail on the undercover prospect’s phone, saying: “Now I don’t have time for games, man. You want your bikes back, you need to come up with the money. Can’t get a hold of [Sells]. Guess I have to start taking people apart, that’s all. See you around.”
The same day, Malcolm left a voicemail on the undercover prospect’s phone, saying: “You can believe one thing. You can fuck with me all you want to but motherfucker, trust me, your whole family is in danger. Fuck you.”
Also on Feb. 1, Mansfield left yet another voicemail on the undercover prospect’s phone, giving “the purported address” of the undercover prospect’s family members and saying: “I’ll have the address for your son’s house … this week. I got the tag numbers, I got your bike, I got your trailer. I want my money. Your whole family is going to be in danger if not. You need to pick up the fucking phone. You’re supposed to meet [Sells] today, now he’s not answering the phone either. As far as I’m concerned, both you all in the same boat.”