Indictment Alleges Hells Angels Drug Pipeline

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

The indictment details for the first time how 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 up to 2,250 Valium tablets to students at Ventura High School, the indictment said.

The boy’s favored status was solidified when chapter president George Christie Jr. allowed him to attend the Hells Angels’ 50th anniversary celebration at the clubhouse in March 1998, the indictment said.

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 said. Sales were allegedly made at or near high schools in Ventura and Ojai as well as at or near the E. P. Foster Elementary School in Ventura.

Christie and his attorney could not be reached for comment.

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 Christie, his wife and two adult children.

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

Prosecutors charge that the senior Christie--operating out of a Main Street tattoo and body-piercing parlor--oversaw a criminal gang that not only peddled drugs to teenagers but evaded employee taxes and hid large amounts of money in secret bank accounts.

He is also charged with fraud, tax evasion, firearms possession and the use of a street gang in an organized crime activity.

According to the indictment, 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, according to the indictment.

The drugs were stored at the Hells Angels’ clubhouse in an industrial section of west Ventura, at the Ink House tattoo parlor on Main Street and at the hillside condo of Christie’s estranged wife, Cheryl, 53, the Angels’ accountant, according to the indictment.

At Cheryl Christie’s condo, authorities recovered 29,500 pills in sealed bottles from batches ordered by Adams, the indictment said, and one of the bottles had Botello’s fingerprint on it. About $107,000 in cash packaged in envelopes was also found in the condo’s locked safe.

During a simultaneous raid on the Ink House in May 1998, authorities also found several bottles of prescription drugs. A few dozen prescription pills were seized from George Christie’s home near the clubhouse. About $35,000 in cash was found in envelopes in his bedroom safe.

Much of the lengthy indictment outlines more than 400 alleged criminal acts, most of them small-time sales of Valium or Vicodin, some on school campuses but most between friends or acquaintances.

Drug handoffs took place at locations as everyday as fast-food restaurants and automotive stores.

The drugs were given code names: When Hells Angel Kenneth Collins was allegedly discussing a sale in 1998, he dubbed Vicodin pills “white bicycles” and the Valium pills “blue bicycles.”

One sale in August 1998 was between Collins, 48, and a woman authorities do not identify, the indictment indicates. Collins allegedly committed 10 criminal acts while negotiating a deal, picking up a plastic bag from Hells Angel William Wolf, 30, then handing a brown paper bag with 476 Vicodin tablets to the woman, who paid $800.

During another transaction with the same woman, Botello allegedly told her that the Hells Angels “were the only people he knew selling [Vicodin] and that the cheapest he could hope to get it for was $700 a bottle.”

Botello went to the west Ventura home of Mary Carlisle, who is also charged in the case. There, he apparently retrieved two bottles of prescription drugs that had come from the Air Force clinic and sold them.

Authorities began tape-recording Botello’s telephone conversations in the fall of 1998. In a conversation with airman Adams, the two discuss an apparent drug purchase, referring to drug deals as “paintings.”

At one point, Botello said he needed “maybe like two.”

“Two hundred?” Adams asked.

“Two paintings,” Botello replied.

In another conversation, Adams asked, “So you think George and those guys could do a big load right now?”

Botello replied, “I don’t see why they couldn’t.” Over 16 months in 1998 and 1999, authorities said they seized from local Hells Angels 2 kilograms of cocaine worth $27,200; 300,000 tablets of Valium worth $300,000; 800 tablets of Ecstasy worth $16,000; about 1 pound of methamphetamine worth $12,800; 300 tablets of Vicodin worth $9,000; and 2 ounces of marijuana worth $1,000.

Vicodin is a prescription pain medication. In recent years it has become popular on the illegal drug market. Authorities say the drug, popular with teenagers, has become a relatively cheap way for addicts to get high.