Biker’s Run-Ins Typical of Some Recruits, Police Say

Onetime Pierpont Rat Todd Eugene Martin, 25, is one of at least 10 young Hells Angels admitted to the Ventura chapter as it has expanded rapidly over the last three years.

“Martin is the kind of street gang recruit that the Hells Angels have been looking for lately,” said Cpl. Quinn Fenwick, a Ventura gang detective. “And he’s typical of a portion of them who are continually having run-ins with law enforcement.”

Since joining the Angels in 1995, Martin has been convicted of a series of misdemeanor crimes and is currently charged with felony assault.

Martin, convicted of assault with a deadly weapon as a teenager, pleaded no contest to fighting in public in September.

He also was convicted of refusing to comply with an officer’s orders after he allegedly slapped a policeman’s hand, shoved him with his body and challenged him to fight during a traffic stop in December, police and court records show.

Shortly after that arrest, and after counseling on the scene by the Hells Angels’ Ventura chapter president, George Christie Jr., Martin “apologized for his behavior and stated that he loses his temper quickly,” according to a report by Ventura Police Officer Douglas Driver.

Since October, Martin has received eight traffic citations and had his Harley impounded for riding it with a suspended license, court records show.

Now Martin, who attended Ventura High School and operates a Nyeland Acres used-car lot, faces trial this summer on a charge of felony assault with a deadly weapon.

Martin allegedly sent O’Neil Wood, 22, to the hospital with serious head injuries in June by smashing a bottle on the unemployed Ventura man during a midnight party on San Buenaventura State Beach.

He is charged with slashing Wood’s left ear after the man had been kicked in the head repeatedly by a group of unidentified assailants.

Since the attack, Wood has disappeared, and prosecutors are trying to find him and compel him to testify. Officer David Wilson Jr., who responded to the June 7 incident, said Wood was reluctant to identify Martin from the start.

Martin’s attorney, Robert Sheahen, insisted in court that Wood, who had been drinking alcohol, ignited the beach incident by grabbing the testicles of a juvenile.

Wilson said he found Wood lying on the beach covered with sand and blood. And Wood’s former landlord said in an interview that he could hardly look at Wood when he saw him the next day.

“His head looked like it was warped at the eyeball level, swollen off to one side,” said Keith Paradis, manager of the Mission Hotel.

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In another incident last year, a Ventura auto dealer also claimed that Martin assaulted him during an argument over Martin’s alleged nonpayment for a car, according to a police report.

The dealer claimed that Martin ended the argument by threatening to beat him up, then shoving the older man in the chest.

“I’m going to . . . drop you in the desert where nobody can find you,” the dealer said Martin told him. Martin pleaded no contest in October to a charge of fighting in public.

Martin also suffered a life-threatening stab wound during a street fight two years ago. While lying in a Ventura hospital awaiting surgery, Martin told police that he was stabbed in the chest after he jumped from a car to confront a man he said was “dogging him.” Police reports also said that Martin claimed to have hit the man three times with his fists before he was stabbed.

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Another young Angel, George Christie III, dropped Martin at the hospital emergency room. But when police tried to interview him, Christie’s father, the chapter president, came to the Fix Way clubhouse door.

“George Christie . . . stated that he had spoken with his son and that he was familiar with the incident,” Fenwick reported. “He said, however, that his son would refuse to give a statement to the police and that it was not in the Hells Angels’ tradition to speak to the police [in reference to] incidents like this.”

Martin refused requests by The Times for an interview.

“I don’t talk. I never talk. Talk to Mr. Christie,” he said when questioned in a courthouse hallway.

The senior Christie, who has accompanied Martin to court recently, refused to discuss Martin.