RICO Charges Dismissed In Biker Case
On November 3, 2010, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Federal RICO charges were dismissed against William Davey, a member of the American Outlaw Association also known as the “Outlaws”. In this case argued by Horace F. Hunter of the law firm of Hunter & Lipton, the jury acquitted Davey of all charges and sent a striking message to the government.
The case stemmed from a two and a half year investigation of the American Outlaw Association Motorcycle Club. The club was infiltrated by three undercover DEA agents as well as three FBI informants. At the time of the infiltration, the DEA agents had been posing as members of the Mongols Motorcycle Club. The agents befriended members of the Outlaws and were subsequently offered an opportunity to “patch over” into the Outlaws from the Mongols. This is an important fact because the Outlaws were not the original targets of a federal investigation based on reports of illegal activity. They were first given the opportunity to become Outlaws, then they began looking for illegal activity. This certainly explains some of the actions the agents. Once given the opportunity to join the Outlaws, the DEA agents recruited three confidential informants already working with the FBI and they started a chapter of the American Outlaw Association in Petersburg, Virginia.
Once they became members of the Outlaws, the agents began gathering evidence and building cases against individuals within the organization. The cases the agents were building were for a variety of crimes including drug distribution and illegal gaming. However, early in the investigation the decision was made (probably by senior level officials within the Justice Department) to not simply prosecute individuals within the organization for specific criminal conduct, but to attempt to label the entire organization a criminal enterprise and prosecute as many members as possible under RICO and conspiracy charges. The problem with this decision was it changed the entire dynamic of the case. Now, the government did not simply have to find individuals within the organization committing criminal offenses, they could look to prosecute individuals for simply being members of the organization based on the theory of conspiracy. The problem for the government was that membership alone in the American Outlaw Association is not a crime.
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