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Started By
Message
Feds Take Aim at Biker Gang’s ‘Colors’
Posted on 7/25/15 at 5:30 pm
Posted on 7/25/15 at 5:30 pm
quote:
The case against the Mongols dates to 2008, when federal prosecutors charged dozens of members with crimes ranging from murder to weapons trafficking to money laundering, after undercover agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives infiltrated the group. Prosecutors won convictions against members including former president Ruben “Doc” Cavazos.
quote:
Mongols, acting under the authority conveyed by the gang’s name and logo, “murdered, attempted to murder, assaulted, and threatened those who posed a threat to the Mongols Gang.”
quote:
federal prosecutors in 2013 indicted the entire Mongol Nation, charging the group with a racketeering conspiracy.
quote:
In a pending racketeering trial in Los Angeles, the Justice Department will attempt to legally seize the black-and-white emblem worn on leather jackets by members of the Mongols Motorcycle Club
LINK
These "harmless, misunderstood individuals" as some here would have you believe seem like swell guys. I hope the feds win this legal battle and not only strip the Mongols of their colors, but continue to all the OMGs and one by one remove theirs as well. We can only hope for another Waco type situation to get some scum off the street. Unfortunately June 1st the judge recused himself from the case so it's delayed.
Obligatory....
Posted on 7/25/15 at 6:07 pm to OleWarSkuleAlum
quote:
These "harmless, misunderstood individuals" as some here would have you believe seem like swell guys. I hope the feds win this legal battle and not only strip the Mongols of their colors, but continue to all the OMGs and one by one remove theirs as well.
Cool. What if we did this to all groups with criminal issues? Unions, frats, churches, government...
Posted on 7/25/15 at 6:09 pm to RogerTheShrubber
So if they do take away the gang colors, won't the gang just choose another cool to replace it? Am I missing something here, or do biker gangs quit being biker gangs when they lose their 'colors'?
Posted on 7/25/15 at 6:13 pm to RogerTheShrubber
quote:
Cool. What if we did this to all groups with criminal issues? Unions, frats, churches, government...
Don't do these things and you'll be fine...
quote:
crimes ranging from murder to weapons trafficking to money laundering
Posted on 7/25/15 at 6:15 pm to DawgGONIT
quote:
do biker gangs quit being biker gangs when they lose their 'colors'?
Apparently their shootout amongst each other in Waco that forced the police to protect the general public was over their "colors."
Posted on 7/25/15 at 7:07 pm to OleWarSkuleAlum
quote:Unions and the US Government should be next, no?
crimes ranging from murder to weapons trafficking to money laundering
Posted on 7/25/15 at 7:36 pm to Roaad
quote:
Unions and the US Government should be next, no?
What trademark does the U.S. Government own that they would seize from themselves?
Posted on 7/25/15 at 7:41 pm to OleWarSkuleAlum
LOL, this is nothing more than a desperate and ultimately doomed fishing expedition by two rouge US Attorneys. I've been following this story for a while now and only an idiot would think this has a chance of happening.
LINK
LINK
quote:
Christopher Brunwin and Stephen R. Welk made a token effort to stop the inevitable dismissal of the Mongols Nation racketeering case yesterday. It is obvious from the motion they filed that they don’t expect to win.
The document is 58 pages and 17,266 words long. It cites 70 federal cases, 28 federal rules and statues, the Congressional record and two related cases: The 2008 racketeering case against 80 Mongols Motorcycle Club members titled U.S. v. Cavazos at al. and a civil case called Rivera v. Melson et al. Everybody except Brunwin and Welk thinks those two Mongols cases obviated the Mongols case they are still trying to win now.
The motion drips contempt for the Mongols’ current attorneys, Joe Yanny and Elliot Min. Early on the prosecutors opine: “Defendant’s Renewed Motion is long on rhetoric and argument but, as explained in detail below, mostly devoid of any actual legal authority that suggests defendant is entitled to any of the relief it seeks, particularly with respect to the sentencing issue and the request for sanctions.”
Lost Cause
It seems obvious that Brunwin and Welk anticipate a dismissal so they tried to load as many excuses for an appeal into this terrible, unreadable motion as possible. The document contains no actual narrative or argument, just lots of objections to what the other attorneys just said in their motion to dismiss two weeks ago. At one point the motion calls one of the Mongols’ contentions, “so vague that it is impossible to craft a meaningful response.” So therefore Brunwin and Welk don’t have “to craft a meaningful response.” If only all of life’s problems were that easy to solve.
Lay observers must guess what the point of this case has ever been. Yesterday’s motion suggests that Judge David O. Carter must, must, must allow Brunwin and Welk to conduct a three month long trial at significant public expense and catastrophic expense to the Mongols.
The point of the indictment that supports this case has always been to seize the Mongols’ identifying marks as a sort of prelude to seizing the identifying marks of all motorcycle clubs. That is the whole point. As Judge Carter noticed about a hundred times in the one hearing he has held on this case, “Nobody goes to jail.” There are really only four possible outcomes.
1) The case is dismissed
2) The case goes to a three month trial and the word “Mongols” and the patch Mongols wear are declared guilty of racketeering and the word and the patch are filled with shame for their misdeeds.
3)After a three month trial the word and the drawing are found innocent because, you know, a word and a drawing can’t actually stab anybody or smoke a bone.
4) After a three month trial which ends with a jury of Sons of Anarchy fans convicting the word “Mongols” and the patch Mongols wear of racketeering Welk enters a motion to formally seize the patches which actually, legally, can not prevent anybody from uttering the sound Mongols, or writing it, or thinking it, or from wearing the Mongols patch.
That’s it.
Must Have Trial
In their motion, Brunwin and Welk insist over and over that there must be a trial. In one of the motion’s few clear declarations, the prosecutors state, “it is legally impossible to make any determination of the criminal forfeiture issues without a trial.”
In a less clear but representative passage the two prosecutors make an irrelevant citation that requires “the adjudication of the criminal forfeiture issues only after a defendant’s conviction.”
The Mongols have made the obvious argument that prosecution is itself a form of punishment. Yanny and Min don’t work for free. The issue of whether the government can seize the Mongols patch has gone on for seven years. Three federal judges, including Carter, have ruled that the government can’t seize the patch. Brunwin and Welk expect to win by making the Mongols go broke. It its motion to dismiss, the Mongols argues that if Judge Carter rules now that it is unconstitutional to seize the Mongols membership marks, “there is a high likelihood that the prosecution would not even continue, and the taxpayers, the Court, and this defendant could be spared abusive waste by overzealous prosecutors with an unlimited budget.”
The prosecutors riposte is the snotty, “Defendant’s concern for the taxpayers and the court is touching, but this statement is ridiculous. Defendant obviously has no basis for its bizarre prediction about the likelihood of the prosecution continuing in the absence of a forfeiture allegation, a decision that would be made solely by the government.”
The Government Suggests
Then they try to rough up the judge and opposing counsel a little with : “Should the court decide to take the unprecedented step of actually attempting a pre-trial determination of the merits of the criminal forfeiture allegation, the government suggests that it must assume that the defendant will be convicted of the substantive offenses and that all of the allegations of the indictment will have been proven to be true. Since the defendant will have been convicted of violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1962, it must also be assumed that the evidence that will have been presented by the government during the course of the imaginary trial leading to the imaginary conviction will have been sufficient to establish a nexus between the Marks and the underlying criminal activity. Defendant certainly offers no clue as to how such an analysis should proceed, and cites no example of any court ever having engaged in such an exercise before in a criminal case.”
Joe Yanny has asked the judge to make Brunwin and Welk pay his legal fees, both to spare the Mongols his expense and as a warning to all the other vile, bullying federal prosecutors. Brunwin and Welk appear not to care. They are going to appeal whatever Judge Carter rules anyway. That’s how the game works. “In the final section of its 51-page memorandum,” the prosecutors sniff, “defendant asks that the court sanction the government, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the individual prosecutors working on this matter for selective prosecution, and under 28 U.S.C. § 1927, 18 U.S.C. § 3006A, and the Equal Access to Justice Act. These frivolous requests should be rejected out of hand.”
The Mongols have a week to respond. There will be a hearing on the proposed dismissal on August 3. Carter should file his written decision on the dismissal before Labor Day. Brunwin and Welk will probably file an appeal to the Ninth Circuit by Halloween. Nobody knows when this case will actually end.
Posted on 7/25/15 at 7:42 pm to OleWarSkuleAlum
This is a bad idea. If a criminal organization (which all reasonable people can admit the Mongols are) is nice (ie stupid) enough to ID themselves by wearing colors/patches that show themselves to the world, why stop them?
Posted on 7/25/15 at 7:44 pm to Darth_Vader
quote:
catastrophic expense to the Mongols.
Perfect win, win situation. Either win and seize their colors or lose and financially ruin them.
Posted on 7/25/15 at 7:45 pm to LSU0358
I had two Mongols from the Arkansas chapter pass me with their vests on yesterday. You could read Mongols as plain as day
Posted on 7/25/15 at 7:46 pm to OleWarSkuleAlum
quote:
Perfect win, win situation. Either win and seize their colors or lose and financially ruin them.
Until they sue the ever loving shite out of these two idiots.
This post was edited on 7/25/15 at 7:46 pm
Posted on 7/25/15 at 7:48 pm to Darth_Vader
quote:
Until they sue the ever loving shite out of these two idiots.
Yeah sue two US attorneys with what money?
Posted on 7/25/15 at 8:28 pm to OleWarSkuleAlum
quote:
Yeah sue two US attorneys with what money?
It's funny how ignorant and stupid you are.
Posted on 7/25/15 at 8:31 pm to Darth_Vader
They will litigate with their meth money, no?
Posted on 7/25/15 at 8:32 pm to Darth_Vader
Not really sure if the dude was legit, but ol boy at the bar had a mongols nomad shirt on..
Posted on 7/25/15 at 8:38 pm to iliveinabox
quote:
Not really sure if the dude was legit, but ol boy at the bar had a mongols nomad shirt on..
He's one of four things.
1. Legit
2. Crazy
3. Stupid
4. Stupid & crazy
Posted on 7/25/15 at 9:18 pm to Darth_Vader
quote:
It's funny how ignorant and stupid you are.
Oh yeah I'm sure the Mongols defense is pro Bono, or atleast pro Bono in the sense their attorneys are under threat of their lives and their families lives to represent these criminals for free.
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