Hells Angels Inquiry Goes to Grand Jury

Capping a three-year investigation into national Hells Angels spokesman George Christie Jr. and the Ventura chapter of the motorcycle club, the Ventura County district attorney’s office has taken its drug-and-racketeering case to the county grand jury.

The secret proceeding concludes the investigative phase of the case and begins a closed-door probe into allegations of theft, fraud, tax evasion, drug sales to teenagers, and the use of a street gang in a criminal conspiracy--a violation of a state organized-crime law.

The case against at least two dozen Hells Angels and their associates is the largest in number of suspects and time spent by law enforcement in recent Ventura County history and is expected to take several months to present to the grand jury.

Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury refused comment. But law enforcement officials said Christie and his local chapter have been targets in two parallel investigations--by county prosecutors and the Sheriff’s Department--for nearly three years.

At least 15 suspects have been arrested since January 1998, but only five have been charged--four on unrelated offenses--as prosecutors have tried to weave an array of alleged crimes into a single conspiracy case.

“The case is finally moving ahead,” Sheriff Bob Brooks said Monday. “It went on for a considerable period of time, trying to get people caught in the web. Then it was delayed until they got a new grand jury impaneled [this month]. Now the D.A. is taking the case forward.”

Brooks said he could not comment about specifics--such as when his investigators will testify. “They haven’t kept us in the loop,” he said of prosecutors. “There’s a lot of security concerns.”

Brooks said his department’s part of the case primarily deals with a drug distribution network that relies on young Hells Angels operatives--or “HA Cub Scouts”--who targeted students as they left middle and high school campuses.

“Our case deals with both methamphetamine and pharmaceuticals that were stolen and distributed all the way down to local schools,” Brooks said. “The Hells Angels try to put a positive spin on their charitable activities, but the fact is we are dealing with criminals who distribute drugs and, for the most part, are people with long rap sheets and violent backgrounds.”

Undercover agents bought drugs 25 times from Hells Angels or their associates, sheriff’s investigators said after arresting several club members last year. Suspects typically peddled plastic bags containing two or three Valium pills to teenagers for $1 a pill, or sold so-called designer drugs--Vicodin for $3 a tablet and Ecstasy for $20 a tablet, investigators said.

But the overall case is far broader--focusing on Christie, 53, and also including his estranged wife, adult son and 28-year-old daughter, a Ventura attorney who represents Hells Angels in court.

Prosecutors will attempt to prove that Christie--operating out of a Main Street tattoo parlor--oversees a criminal gang that not only peddled drugs to kids but evaded employee taxes and hid large amounts of money in secret bank accounts.

Christie said Monday that the grand jury investigation is “business as usual”--just the latest in a series of federal and state investigations over 20 years that have led to nothing more serious than a misdemeanor assault conviction. He was acquitted in 1987 in a federal murder-for-hire case.

“It’s all ridiculous,” Christie said. “I’ve done nothing criminal.”

Most disturbing, he said, are allegations that the Hells Angels are involved in the sale of drugs to teenagers. He said he would never allow it. But local investigators are now trying to justify the time and money they’ve wasted investigating him, he said.

“And it’s a shame they have to go after my family, because they have a problem with me,” he said.

In an attempt to end the lengthy inquiry, Christie said he met with Bradbury last year. “I tried to find out what they wanted. They didn’t respond.”

Christie said no Hells Angel has been subpoenaed yet. And law enforcement sources said that prosecutors usually call investigators to testify first.

Authorities say the Hells Angels case is massive, involving tens of thousands of pages of evidence, much of it seized during raids over the last 2 1/2 years.

Early in the investigation, in May 1998, authorities arrested Christie on suspicion of narcotics possession and Christie’s estranged wife, Cheryl, a bookkeeper for the club, on suspicion of possessing drugs for sale.

The initial raids focused on whether Christie had paid taxes for employees of his Ink House tattoo parlor in downtown Ventura.

Officers seized thousands of pages of documents and found a small amount of cocaine in Christie’s bedside stand and a large amount of cash and Vicodin, an addictive narcotic painkiller, in his wife’s hillside condo. Another $30,000 in cash was seized from Christie’s Ventura Avenue house.

Christie said he had broken no laws and paid no employee tax because his workers are contract employees, similar to those in beauty salons. Such workers are self-employed and pay their own taxes, he said. “I’ve done the same thing for 20 years and the IRS never had a problem with it, and my tax attorney never had a problem with it,” he said. “Now the district attorney has a problem.”

No charges were filed.

Then in 1999, prosecutors stepped up their inquiry of Christie, seizing personal and business records from the Ventura home of his 79-year-old mother and the house and law office of his daughter.

In separate raids in 1999, the Sheriff’s Department arrested nine club members, most on drug-related charges. Authorities seized $27,000 in cash and 15 weapons, including a “sniper rifle,” semiautomatic shotgun and a machete.

Veteran Hells Angel Edward Gregory of Thousand Oaks has been the only club member convicted of a drug offense during this period, pleading guilty to possession of 4 1/2 pounds of cocaine.

Three young Hells Angels recently pleaded guilty for assaulting an associate who fell asleep without turning on a Jacuzzi for a party, as his colleagues requested.

And another former club member who faced a three-strikes felony charge in 1998 is now in prison for using counterfeit money in Florida, where he had fled after cooperating with authorities in the case against Christie.

“I don’t think he’ll make a very good witness,” Christie said Monday.