California officers arrested a complete chapter of the Hells Angels motorbike membership on a number of expenses in an ongoing felony road gang investigation.
All seven Hells Angels members, who’re from Bakersfield, are dealing with expenses of kidnapping, first-degree theft, felony threats, false imprisonment, assault with a firearm, participation in a felony road gang, felony conspiracy, intimidating a witness or sufferer and elder abuse.
Kern County Sheriff’s Workplace introduced on Tuesday the arrests of Ricardo Alvarez, 42, Armando Villasenor, 55, Joseph Soto Sr., 57, Joseph Soto Jr., 33, Joshua Zavala, 31, and John Seeger, 57. A seventh suspect, 37-year-old Joshua Vaughn, was already in custody on different expenses.
The suspects had been booked into the Kern County Sheriff’s Workplace Lerdo Facility.
The joint investigation was performed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Kern County Sheriff’s Workplace and California Freeway Patrol.
Over 150 regulation enforcement personnel participated within the effort, seizing round 25 firearms, ammunition, a number of high-capacity magazines and gang affiliate paraphernalia. Eight search warrants had been performed at a number of areas all through Bakersfield.
Kern County Sheriff’s Workplace
Officers stated Alvarez, Villasenor, Soto Sr., Soto Jr. and Zavala are “lively, patched members” of the Bakersfield chapter of the Hells Angels Motorbike Membership. Vaughn and Seeger are members of the Sons of Hell Motorbike Membership, which is affiliated with and takes orders from the Hells Angels, in accordance with the sheriff’s workplace.
The sheriff’s workplace stated the investigation will proceed, and the costs will likely be referred to the Kern County District Legal professional’s Workplace.
The information comes practically two weeks after three Hells Angels members had been sentenced to life in jail for murdering one other member. Jonathan Nelson, Brian Wayne Wendt and Russell Taylor Ott had been sentenced in U.S. Federal Court docket in San Francisco on June 14, the Press Democrat reported. The three had been discovered responsible within the 2014 homicide of Joel Silva, a fellow member of Hells Angel Sonoma County.
The Hells Angels Motorbike Membership was based in 1948 in California. The group has round 6,000 members throughout 467 charters in 59 international locations.
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The U.S. Department of Justice classifies the group as an outlaw motorbike gang (OMGs).
“OMGs are extremely structured felony organizations whose members have interaction in felony actions corresponding to violent crime, weapons trafficking, and drug trafficking,” the company states on its web site.
The company lists Hells Angels as one of many gangs that “pose a severe nationwide home risk and conduct nearly all of felony exercise linked to OMGs.”
In Hunter S. Thompson’s groundbreaking novel Hell’s Angels: The Unusual and Horrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorbike Gangs, the Gonzo journalist gives a gritty, firsthand account of his time spent with the infamous biker gang throughout the Nineteen Sixties. Thompson’s immersive journalism revealed the rebellious life-style and violent popularity of the Hells Angels, providing an unflinching have a look at their influence on American tradition.
The Department of Justice additionally named the Mongols, Bandidos, Outlaws, and Sons of Silence as different harmful OMGs.
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