A violent barroom attack in 2012 involving people affiliated with Outlaws Motorcycle Club remains the subject of legal action in McHenry Co...
A violent barroom attack in 2012 involving people affiliated with Outlaws Motorcycle Club remains the subject of legal action in McHenry County.
The criminal charges against the men arrested in the fight are not at issue. Rather, a lawyer for Outlaws Motorcycle Club wants the courts to return the leather vests and club badges that were confiscated from the alleged attackers during the investigation.
Prosecutors say the patches should not be returned because they are emblems of a notorious gang — traditionally considered a main rival of the Hell's Angels — whose members have been involved in other criminal activities. McHenry County officials called a gang crime expert to the stand Friday who said the attack at Lizard Lounge outside Wonder Lake, some of which was caught on video and shown in court, was intended to show the group's dominance of the bar.
But Joel Rabb, a lawyer for the Outlaws, repeatedly insisted in court that the group is not a gang but a club and civic organization that also goes by the name American Outlaw Association. He asserted that the attack at the Lizard Lounge was not a gang-related crime.
About a half-dozen people who were in the bar that night testified Friday that everyone was having fun, singing karaoke and dancing until several men wearing leather vests with patches walked in and, one man said, the mood changed "drastically." Witnesses said men attacked four people without provocation.
Two men testified that they ended up on the ground being punched and kicked by the bikers. One said he was attacked when he tried to intervene after the bikers surrounded his sister.
The sister testified that a woman wearing a leather vest spat beer in her face and threw her across the bar. Another woman took the stand to say the bikers took her boyfriend behind the bar and severely beat him.
Yet Rabb said the fight was not gang-related. He said there was no proof that the three vests he's seeking to get back from the McHenry County sheriff's department had anything to do with the events at the Lizard Lounge on Nov. 30, 2012.
But James Duffy, an investigator for the DuPage County State's Attorney's Office who has worked with the Midwest Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association, testified that the Outlaws are a known gang that has engaged in criminal activity.
Some members wear patches that read "1 percenter" — a reference, Duffy said, to the one percent of motorcycle clubs who "engage in criminal activity." Other common club patches say, "G.F.O.D." and "O.F.F.O.," which he said stand for "God Forgives, Outlaws Don't" and "Outlaws Forever, Forever Outlaws."
Duffy said there are 14 chapters of the Outlaws, and more than 150 members in Illinois. He said that violence is "systematically approved by higher-ups" and used by the gang to intimidate, recruit and establish territory.
The patches, which the club is fighting to have returned, are used to project dominance, intimidation and reputation, Duffy said.
Rabb insisted the fight at Lizard Lounge was not ordered by the club's hierarchy.
McHenry County Sheriff's Deputy Kyle Mandernack disagreed, saying: "The vests are directly related to facilitat(ing) street gang-related crime."
Judge Sharon Prather did not rule yet on whether the badges will be returned.
After 27 alleged members of the Outlaws were charged in 2010 in a wide-ranging criminal indictment, federal authorities called the group "a highly organized criminal enterprise with a defined, multi-level chain of command" and "a gang whose entire environment revolves around violence."
In 2000, a federal jury in Milwaukee convicted an alleged Outlaws member in one of McHenry County's most notorious crimes: the 1993 bludgeoning deaths of Morris and Ruth Gauger at their Richmond farm. Another alleged club member was found to be responsible during the same trial for the execution-style murder of a member of the Hell's Angels in Chicago in 1995.
The criminal charges against the men arrested in the fight are not at issue. Rather, a lawyer for Outlaws Motorcycle Club wants the courts to return the leather vests and club badges that were confiscated from the alleged attackers during the investigation.
Prosecutors say the patches should not be returned because they are emblems of a notorious gang — traditionally considered a main rival of the Hell's Angels — whose members have been involved in other criminal activities. McHenry County officials called a gang crime expert to the stand Friday who said the attack at Lizard Lounge outside Wonder Lake, some of which was caught on video and shown in court, was intended to show the group's dominance of the bar.
But Joel Rabb, a lawyer for the Outlaws, repeatedly insisted in court that the group is not a gang but a club and civic organization that also goes by the name American Outlaw Association. He asserted that the attack at the Lizard Lounge was not a gang-related crime.
About a half-dozen people who were in the bar that night testified Friday that everyone was having fun, singing karaoke and dancing until several men wearing leather vests with patches walked in and, one man said, the mood changed "drastically." Witnesses said men attacked four people without provocation.
Two men testified that they ended up on the ground being punched and kicked by the bikers. One said he was attacked when he tried to intervene after the bikers surrounded his sister.
The sister testified that a woman wearing a leather vest spat beer in her face and threw her across the bar. Another woman took the stand to say the bikers took her boyfriend behind the bar and severely beat him.
Yet Rabb said the fight was not gang-related. He said there was no proof that the three vests he's seeking to get back from the McHenry County sheriff's department had anything to do with the events at the Lizard Lounge on Nov. 30, 2012.
But James Duffy, an investigator for the DuPage County State's Attorney's Office who has worked with the Midwest Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association, testified that the Outlaws are a known gang that has engaged in criminal activity.
Some members wear patches that read "1 percenter" — a reference, Duffy said, to the one percent of motorcycle clubs who "engage in criminal activity." Other common club patches say, "G.F.O.D." and "O.F.F.O.," which he said stand for "God Forgives, Outlaws Don't" and "Outlaws Forever, Forever Outlaws."
Duffy said there are 14 chapters of the Outlaws, and more than 150 members in Illinois. He said that violence is "systematically approved by higher-ups" and used by the gang to intimidate, recruit and establish territory.
The patches, which the club is fighting to have returned, are used to project dominance, intimidation and reputation, Duffy said.
Rabb insisted the fight at Lizard Lounge was not ordered by the club's hierarchy.
McHenry County Sheriff's Deputy Kyle Mandernack disagreed, saying: "The vests are directly related to facilitat(ing) street gang-related crime."
Judge Sharon Prather did not rule yet on whether the badges will be returned.
After 27 alleged members of the Outlaws were charged in 2010 in a wide-ranging criminal indictment, federal authorities called the group "a highly organized criminal enterprise with a defined, multi-level chain of command" and "a gang whose entire environment revolves around violence."
In 2000, a federal jury in Milwaukee convicted an alleged Outlaws member in one of McHenry County's most notorious crimes: the 1993 bludgeoning deaths of Morris and Ruth Gauger at their Richmond farm. Another alleged club member was found to be responsible during the same trial for the execution-style murder of a member of the Hell's Angels in Chicago in 1995.
More: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-motorcycle-club-patches-met-20150216-story.html
