55 linked to motorcycle club indicted in W.Va.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) – National leaders of the Pagans Motorcycle Club and more than 50 members and associates of the outlaw biker gang have been indicted on federal charges including conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The defendants include national Pagans President David Keith Barbeito of Myersville, Md., and national Vice President Floyd B. Moore of St. Albans. Prosecutors said both were in custody but did not know if they had attorneys. Also named are members and associates in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Florida.
A federal indictment unsealed Tuesday in Charleston charged that Barbeito, Moore and others conspired in September 2005 with a prison guard to kill an inmate suspected of cooperating with law enforcement.
Moore also is accused of ordering a member of the motorcycle gang to kill the president of a local chapter of the Avengers Motorcycle Club.
No one died as a result of the murder plots, said Charles Miller, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia.
Forty-nine people named in the indictment were in custody by midday Tuesday, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said.
The 44-count indictment also accuses Pagans members of trying to extort smaller biker gangs and running raffles for nonexistent motorcycles, Miller said.
“Sometimes they’re called like farm teams,” Miller said of the smaller biker gangs. “Many of them are at least fringe outlaw biker gangs.”