Hells Angels Sold Drugs From Air Base, Indictment Says

A narcotics ring led by local Hells Angels funneled large quantities of so-called designer drugs from the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo to high school students in Ventura and Ojai, according to a grand jury indictment released Wednesday.

According to the indictment, Hells Angels allegedly recruited a group of juveniles dubbed “The Outfit” to sell hundreds of thousands of doses of Valium and Vicodin supplied by an Air Force clinic worker.

One young drug seller was allowed to celebrate his 15th birthday at the fortified Hells Angels clubhouse in Ventura, then helped sell as many as 2,250 Valium tablets to students, the indictment says.

According to the document, the drug pipeline began with Joshua Adams, 23, an airman who worked in a medical squadron at the Los Angeles Air Force Base.

Adams, now in military custody on 15 criminal counts, ordered at least 700,000 Vicodin and Valium tablets as a purchasing clerk at the base clinic, then sold them to Rogelio Botello, 24, of Ventura, a Hells Angel associate, the indictment says.

The drugs allegedly were stored in Ventura at the Hells Angels’ clubhouse in an industrial section of the city, at a tattoo parlor on Main Street and at the hillside condominium of Cheryl Christie, 53, who was the Angels’ accountant.

At that condo, authorities recovered 29,500 pills in sealed bottles from batches ordered by Adams, the indictment says. One of the bottles allegedly had Botello’s fingerprint on it. In addition, about $107,000 in cash was found, packaged in envelopes in the condo’s locked safe, according to authorities.

The drug sales continued from 1997 to 1999, when a series of raids by district attorney investigators and a flurry of Sheriff’s Department arrests broke the ring, the indictment says.

The 197-page indictment, one of eight handed down last week by the Ventura County Grand Jury, ended a four-year drug and -racketeering probe that resulted in hundreds of criminal charges, including 57 against national Hells Angels spokesman George Christie, Jr., his estranged wife Cheryl and two of the Christies’ adult children.

In all, 28 Hells Angels and associates were indicted. All but three have been arrested.

Prosecutors charge that George Christie oversaw a criminal gang that not only peddled drugs to teenagers but evaded employee taxes and hid large sums of money in secret bank accounts.