[motorcycle engines rumbling] ♪ (male narrator)
The Hells Angels
are one of the world's most infamous
outlaw motorcycle clubs. Notorious for their
bloody rivalries. ♪ Only a few people alive know the truth
about the inner workings of the Angels, but no one has ever
been willing to break the club's code of silence until now. George Christie led the Ventura,
California, Hells Angels charter from 1978 to 2011. Now, after being excommunicated
by his former brothers, he is revealing the secrets
of the Hells Angels, telling the true story of who they are, what they stand for, and how they have spent decades battling the law because of it. ♪ (Christie)
Look, the Hells Angels do live
outside the law, you know? We don't adhere to all the laws
that society throws down to us, but as an organization, we are not a criminal entity. Law enforcements makes
all these wild accusations, says all these
incredible things, and nobody responds, so I want to tell
my story my way and how I perceived it
because, you know, it's a mighty thin slice of ham
that doesn't have two sides. Well, this is my side. [hard rock music] ♪ When I first started riding
as a outlaw biker, the police didn't have
the same interest in us that they do now. Their interest wasn't
about you being a part of a criminal element
or criminal organization. They were just interested in
what you were doing in that town and, you know,
were you gonna pay for your gas when you stopped
in the gas station? You know,
as long as you kept moving, the cops didn't bother you. ♪ (Sher)
For the longest time, the Hells Angels
really just exist on the outskirts of society
in Southern California. (man)
We don't want
the public to be with us. We don't want the law
to be with us. When we go down the highway, it's all we want--
to be left alone. (Tresmontan)
The civilian population
saw them as a bunch of motorcycle riders,
beer drinkers, occasionally hell-raisers, and law enforcement
didn't take them seriously. Things were a lot
different back in those days. Back in those days, if you're breaking
the speed limit or, you know, you're rolling
through a stop sign, there was a understanding
between the two factions that if a cop
put on his red lights and you got away from him, they didn't cry about it, and if you get caught,
you don't cry about it either. You stand there
and you take your medicine. It turned into
a cat and mouse game. Unwritten rules of the road, I guess is what you'd call 'em. The cops saw the Hells Angels
as kind of bothersome and maybe a bit rowdy. They were probably
a little jealous of all the fun the bikers were having. That all changes
in the late '60s and the 1970s. The Hells Angels
got seriously involved in drugs. That was around
the hippie movement. The law enforcement
are trying to play catch-up, so they form special squads of cops that are gonna go
after the Hells Angels. Biker cops from the ATF,
the FBI, local sheriff's departments. These guys
know the Hells Angels. They understand
the Hells Angels, and so you have this war
between bikers and biker cops. And once in a while,
the cops win, and once in a while,
the Hells Angels win. ♪ (Christie)
The first time
I took part in a battle between the Hells Angels
and the cops was also my first raid. I had just become member
of the LA chapter. One of the prospects one day
was out riding... [police siren wailing] And the cop puts on his lights, and this prospect decides
he's not gonna pull over, and he throws it in low gear,
takes off. The chase is on. Now he's sitting on top
of this 1,200 cubic inch motor with straight pipes. You know,
you can barely probably hear the siren behind you
if he's got it turned on. What he doesn't realize is this young cop
called in for chopper support. So he slowly loses the cop, and he's not hearing the--
this chopper hovering behind him and over him. And the chopper follows this
prospect right to the clubhouse. ♪ The cops are starting
to pull up. Of course
he runs into the clubhouse, which gives the police the right
to run in there and pursue him because they have a pursuit
going on, and, you know, the next thing you know,
we've got complete chaos. [all shouting] Half the guys went out the back. Some of the guys stayed in
the house and didn't come out. And it was a standoff for hours, and ultimately, you know what? We lost. Some of us got arrested, and the prospect not only
got a ticket, but later, Old Man John, president
of the Los Angeles chapter, gave him a little bit
of a ass-kicking. That was the first raid
I was ever in. It seemed like that broke
this unwritten law between Hells Angels
and the local police, and anything went after that. Nothing would ever be the same. The game we were playing
with cops was no longer a game. It was either kill or be killed. ♪ (Sher)
In the '70s, the Hells Angels
are the world's leading outlaw motorcycle gang. They're the champ. No one's better. No one's more recognized.
No one's bigger. (Comisky) I don't view them
as just motorcyclists anymore. They have their criminal
enterprise, be it narcotics or prostitution
or what have you. (Christie)
The problem with drug dealing was that it immediately
attracted the attention of the feds. (narrator)
The Hells Angels are a target
of the US Department of Justice. Unable to catch the Angels
red-handed, they turn to a law
enacted in 1970 by President Richard Nixon aimed at taking out the Mafia: the RICO Act. (male reporter)
There were simultaneous raids
on the homes of the Hells Angels in several
Northern California cities. Arrested at the headquarters
of the Hells Angels, long-time leader
Ralph Sonny Barger and his wife Sharon. Over the next couple of days, 32 members of the gang
or associates were arrested. Charges ranged from murder
to drug dealing. (Christie)
In the late '70s,
the feds wanted to show that we were the same type
of organization as the Mafia. In fact, they called us
the Mafia on wheels, and they came at us
with a RICO trial. (Sher)
When people hear RICO, they think of Mafia
or organized crime, and that's what it's about. It's a way
to get a wider network of criminal conspirators so that just being part
of a planning meeting, just participating, facilitating a crime,
can impose stiffer penalties. (Christie)
The feds' position
on the RICO trial was that we were doing business
as a illegal enterprise, so their main goal
wasn't just taking down Sonny or other Hells Angels. What they wanted to do
is decimate the club like they had done
to the mob before. (Griffin)
If our members are convicted, the Hells Angels in America will
become an illegal organization. (Christie)
The 1979 RICO trial
targeted the Oakland chapter, and specifically Sonny Barger. But make no mistake. This was a battle for survival
of all the Hells Angels. We didn't ask for this fight, but the government
had decided to bring it to us, and we were ready for it. (narrator) The Hells Angels
have always maintained they are nothing
more than a group of free-spirited
motorcycle enthusiasts, but law enforcement
is determined to prove they are in fact
a criminal organization whose leaders profit
from the illegal activities of their underlings. The Angels' first trial
under the RICO Act is about to begin. If convicted, the Oakland
chapter could be disbanded. (male reporter) The trial
began on October 4th, 1979, at San Francisco's
federal courthouse. 18 members of the gang
were charged with racketeering and a conspiracy to violate
federal racketeering laws. (Christie)
They thought this RICO law
was a new weapon. They had decided
to take us down with it, and they went to town when it came to listing
all of our alleged crimes. (reporter)
The charges range from murder
and attempted murder to bribery
of law enforcement officers to large-scale distribution
of methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine. ♪ (Sher)
If you want to go
after the Hells Angels or anybody else under RICO, in effect,
you've got a double burden, because you
have to prove the crime-- you have to prove the drug deal, the cocaine shipment, or the murder-- but then you have to prove that
this was part of a conspiracy, that this was part
of a criminal plan. (Tresmontan)
It's a matter
of putting crimes together and proving that a syndication
or organization exists for the purpose
of criminal acts. ♪ (Christie)
It didn't sell to the jury. It was something
they just couldn't prove. Unlike the Mafia, the Hells Angels
have a structure and code within each chapter. ♪ We are not structured
nationally. In fact,
we're actually disorganized. The autonomy of each charter
is so great that we're all heading
in different directions. Money doesn't go up
in the Hells Angels. Money stays where it's made, and people do their best not to let anybody know
what they're doing. The feds an the cops
don't want to grasp the fact, and they won't swallow
their pride and go, "Hey, you know what? Let's indict these guys
on an individual basis." They want to paint this picture that we're
this criminal organization and this criminal entity. You know what? If everybody's involved
and you can prove it, they're gonna go down at once, but they just couldn't prove
that because most of the members are so damn greedy, they're not sharing anything
with anybody. (reporter)
Building the prosecution case cost an estimated $3 million. The trial took ten months and resulted in a hung jury. (Dobyns)
The Hells Angels
have an incredible structure of attorneys and defense teams who are brilliant in
legally avoiding accountability, and ultimately, that might be
their biggest trick. That failure, in 1979, had an effect
for years and years, because federal prosecutors were
extremely shy about using RICO to go after any organization. Not just motorcycle gangs, but other organizations as well. (narrator) The feds'
embarrassing loss only escalates the tension between them
and the Hells Angels. The stage is set
for a dramatic confrontation with George Christie himself, who by the early '80s is one of the most
powerful Angels in America. The feds time their next attempt
to take down the Angels to the 1984 Olympics next door to Christie's Ventura
chapter in Los Angeles. (Connie Chung)
The summer Olympics begin
in Los Angeles next Saturday. The Olympic torch arrived today. (Christie)
The 1984 Olympics were turning into this
really huge worldwide event. I wasn't sure that I
would have even had an interest to go or participate, but something happened. (narrator)
The late '70s and early '80s had seen several
terrorist strikes against the US
interests overseas, including bombings
of US embassies in Lebanon and Kuwait. The feds are on red alert, and the Los Angeles Olympics
are considered a prime target for a terrorist attack. (Christie)
The ATF unit from Ohio
started nosing around town, and they were making allegations
and cavalier comments that we would supply weapons
to terrorists to disrupt the Olympics. ♪ They had been showing
these different merchants pictures of dead bodies and petitioning them
to keep their ears open, and had they heard anything
about us moving any weapons? But there's something
that they didn't know. They didn't realize that we were very integrated
into the community, and I started getting
phone calls from some of the merchants
in town. I knew that we had to get
in front of this, but I didn't know how. (narrator)
Before Christie can act,
the feds strike first. [indistinct radio chatter] (Christie)
One particular afternoon, this unit of ATF guys
shows up at the clubhouse. They want everybody's name. They want pictures of everybody. They want to be
able to identify them. I immediately start demanding where in the hell
the warrant is. What's going on here? Next thing you know,
the Ventura police show up. The Ventura police are going,
"What are you guys doing here? "How come we didn't get
a phone call? "Where's the warrant? "Is this a federal warrant? Is it a local warrant?" And you know what? There's no warrant. (narrator)
The ATF has no choice
but to back down, but Christie decides it's time
to take the offensive. ♪ (male reporter)
The Olympic torch spirit
has captured many people. One of them is 36-year
old George Christie, a tattooed veteran
who is also leader of the Ventura,
California, Hells Angels. (Christie)
There was a torch relay being
run from Greece to Los Angeles. We thought
that would be something for us to show
that we not only were patriots, but we had no intentions
of disrupting the Olympics, and in fact, we were gonna
participate in the Olympics. (reporter)
Christie qualified to carry
the torch after he and the group collected $3,000 for
the Special Olympics charity. (Christie)
We're not terrorists,
we support the Olympics, and we're not out
to cause anybody a problem. (reporter)
The group left the local
clubhouse in formation, headed toward the event that would make
Hells Angels history. At the site, Christie took off
with the crowd's approval. (all)
USA! USA! (Christie)
And at the beginning of
this tunnel of American flags, it says "America
salutes the Hells Angels," and that says it all. What started out
to be a propaganda tool for the government comes back
and bites 'em in the ass. (reporter)
By the end of the run,
George Christie was a star with people
wanting to meet the man who had carried the torch. (Christie)
I think one of the things
that really aggravated me about the ATF was that,
you know, they questioned our sincerity
in the torch relay. They were appalled
that we would have the audacity to participate
in such a patriotic event. (narrator)
Once again, George Christie
and the Hells Angels have managed to thwart
the federal government's plan to take them down. But it won't be long
before they try again, more aggressively than ever. ♪ (Christie)
The torch relay came and went. Everything
was getting back to normal, and I get a phone call. [phone ringing] It came in from the clubhouse, and they're saying
I got to get down there. What had happened is David Ortega and a couple
of the other guys are standing around
in the clubhouse. David said he hears a sound of metal hitting the floor. And then he sees this object. He said he followed it across
the floor of the clubhouse, and he's thinking to himself, "Why would anybody throw a trailer hitch
into the clubhouse?" Well, it wasn't a trailer hitch. It was a grenade. And then it exploded. (narrator) The Hells Angels are
proving to be even more elusive than they are notorious. After fighting off
several indictments by the federal government, the Hells Angels
are riding high, until an attack
puts them on edge. (Christie)
You know, it's normally
about a ten-minute ride from my house at that time
to the clubhouse, but I made it there
in about half the time, and when I got there, David
Ortega was all bloodied up, probably going into shock. The thing that saved David--
there was a steel chair. It redirected the explosion
in the clubhouse. The grenade,
just by coincidence, blew up under the chair, and it sprayed each wall. David was severely injured. He spent several days
in the hospital, and he took metal out of
his body for years after that. It was a scene. The sheriff's bomb squad
was there. The ambulance was there. The fire department was there. And who else shows up
on the scene? The ATF agents show up as well. (narrator)
The authorities are unable
to uncover any leads, but the Hells Angels,
led by Christie, begin their own investigation. (Christie)
Part of the evidence
that was found was a spoon from that grenade. A spoon is a device that comes
down around the grenade. You pull the pin out,
the spoon has a spring. It separates from the grenade
and starts the timing device. So the spoon was laying there
right in front of the clubhouse, and on this spoon
is a lot number of where this grenade
comes from. I hired a private investigator, a former FBI agent. He starts tracing the lot number, and where do you think the serial numbers were
traced back to? An armory in Akron, Ohio, where the ATF unit
had come from. ♪ When people from
the news media asked me, "Do you have
any suspects, George?" I said, "Yeah,
I got a lot of suspects, and law enforcement's right
at the top of the list." I mean, it's a personal opinion. Do I know? No, I don't know. But what's gonna stop
some rogue ATF agent from throwing a grenade
in the clubhouse? Nothing. [indistinct radio chatter] (narrator)
The feds' next attempt
to take down the Hells Angels is part of a focused and more
coordinated investigation. ♪ (male reporter)
In the drizzle at dawn, the FBI stormed down
a Manhattan street, led by agents in an armored van, carrying sledgehammers
and shotguns to raid
the New York headquarters of the Hells Angels
motorcycle gang. (Christie)
Several Hells Angels
on the east coast got caught
in Operation Roughrider. (Tresmontan)
Operation Roughrider was
a case that started from the FBI out of the New York area, and it expanded to California. (narrator)
The raid captured $2 million
worth of narcotics, and more than 125 arrests
were made. (Tresmontan)
The goal of Roughrider
was to interdict members of the Hells Angels
that may have been involved in methamphetamine sales
and distribution throughout the country. ♪ (Christie)
Having learned a hard lesson
from the 1979 RICO fiasco, the feds started
coming after individuals so they could get
their convictions. (Tresmontan)
The case involved
an undercover FBI agent who came out here
to buy methamphetamine from several members
in the Oakland chapter. The organization that I worked
for had fairly significant funds to purchase drugs, and we provided surveillance
and assistance to the FBI on that matter. (Christie)
The feds made the money
and the drugs available to the individuals that they ultimately
wound up indicting. Without the participation
of the feds and the money
that they made available, the members wouldn't have been
in the position to purchase the narcotics. No crime would have been
committed. That's my perspective on
the whole Operation Roughrider. ♪ (narrator)
One of the detained
is Sandy Alexander, the New York Hells Angels
chapter president. (male reporter)
The east coast gang leader
climbed down a fire escape right into the arms of the FBI. Sandy Alexander
was very visual, and he was very vocal, and when he got busted, it made me come to terms with the fact
that if they could bust him, they could bust me. That means any Hells Angel
leader could get indicted. (narrator)
Christie escapes
Operation Roughrider's sweep through California. He's safe, but the overly cautious leader
is anything but in the clear. ♪ (Christie)
It's now about 1986. This guy shows up
at the clubhouse. His name is Mike Mulhern, and I'm not sure who he is, but he seems like somebody I should probably
pay attention to. So I make some inquiries, and I find out
who Mike Mulhern is. Mike Mulhern is one
of the top three guys at this particular point in time
in La eMe. For the people
that don't know what La eMe is, it's the Mexican Mafia,
and they control the prisons. They run the prisons. (narrator)
La eMe is one of the world's most violent
and notorious gangs. Their motto is
"Blood in, blood out," meaning you must kill
to be admitted to the gang, and also to get out. (Christie)
Well, this was a dangerous guy, and if he was talking,
I should be listening. So, you know,
he came by a few times, and we interacted socially. No big thing. One of these afternoons,
he stopped by, and he asked me if I knew a guy
named Tom Chaney, and I did. He had been a hang-around for the Ventura Hells Angels
for a short period of time. ♪ So Mike explained to me that this guy had
run a bill up with them, and they wanted us
to stand good for the bill. It was $10,000, and I said, "I'm not paying his bill," and I go, "Nobody
from Ventura's paying his bill, "and I can assure you
nobody outside of Ventura's gonna pay his bill." ♪ Mike approached me-- I would say close to 20 times. One of my final conversations
with him is, "You know what, George? "I wanted to say
it one last time. It's a debt,
and it needs to be paid," and I said, "We are not gonna pay that debt. It ain't gonna happen,"
and he goes, "You know what that means." He goes, "That means
I'm gonna kill him." Now I'm exasperated, and I say something
that I'm gonna live to regret. I said, "Well, you know,
if he was here, I'd kill him myself." With that, Mike gets a smile on his face,
shakes hands with me, walks out the door, and he says, "Hey, George, thanks." A couple of weeks pass and I get a phone call. "Hey, just so you know, man.
Chaney's dead." And within several days, I'm arrested by the FBI. [motorcycle engines rumbling] (narrator)
George Christie
is a top Hells Angel official whose careful strategies
have kept him out of jail. But that could change soon. He has inadvertently
given the okay for the execution of Tom Chaney,
a former associate. He is taken to a federal prison
to await murder charges. (Christie)
I was charged with conspiracy
to commit murder. I was facing 20 years
on one count and life on the other count, and I was given... no bail. ♪ When I got my paperwork, I was shocked to find out
who had set me up, 'cause it was Mike Mulhern. For ten years, he'd been
playing both sides of the fence. Everything we'd been
talking about had been recorded. (narrator)
Michael Mulhern, a member
of the Mexican Mafia, is also an informant
on the US Government payroll whose mission
is to obtain evidence that will convict
George Christie. The feds have actually staged
the death of Tom Chaney, who's alive and
in a witness protection program, and they're trying
to pin the murder on Christie. (Christie)
These guys are elaborate. They actually went
to all the trouble of acting like they killed
him somewhere in the prison. They called an ambulance.
They shut the yard down, and then they put this show
on for all the inmates. They wheeled him out
and loaded him into an ambulance and drove him out of the prison, and that was his exit
from the prison. ♪ During the trial, Barry Tarlow,
who was my lawyer at the time, started trying to figure out how much money
Mike Mulhern had been paid. It was about $250,000, and he admitted on the stand
that he had a bonus coming if he could get
a conviction against me. Tarlow turns to the jury. He goes, "Not only
are you paying this rat to entrap my poor client," he goes, "You're
giving him a bonus!" And the jurors are
looking at each other, and they're looking
at the US attorney, and they're looking
at the agents that are sitting next
to the US attorney, and then Tarlow drops the bomb. He goes, "The money
comes from you. It's the taxes you pay." ♪ (narrator)
Christie's defense is able to get all the charges
against him dismissed. (Christie)
There's a lot of people
that didn't understand how I beat that case, and, you know,
what they don't realize is I had no intent
on this guy being murdered, but if they
wanted to murder him, I wasn't gonna shed a tear
over it. I said, "Yeah, I was gonna
let this guy die," but I said "What I did was not against the law." So, in the eyes of the law, he's innocent. I just think people
have to look at his own words and make up their own minds. (Christie)
Look, if Mike Mulhern had never been
brought to the clubhouse by the feds, none of this
would have ever happened. They tried to drag me into
a scenario that they created, and you can't do that. That's entrapment. ♪ After a year-long trial,
I get found not guilty, and I was a free man again. ♪ (narrator)
Victorious once again, Christie wastes no time
celebrating his good fortune. [hard rock music] (Christie)
I jumped on my bike, rode back to Ventura,
100 miles per hour, and I start organizing
a party for the jurors. You know,
I wanted to thank the people that saw right through
the government's BS, and I wanted to do something that was really gonna
rub raw on the feds. So I talked to the lawyers
about it, and we sent invitations
out to everybody. About half
of the jurors showed up, and we had a hell of a party. Law enforcement was not happy. (narrator)
The feds continued
to go after the Hells Angels by any means necessary, and the club knows it. (Christie)
We were at a level of paranoia that I had never
experienced before. People were starting
to mistrust each other. People were looking
at each other funny. Some of the individuals
were having their houses swept. We actually came up
with stickers. We used to put 'em
on all the phones in all the clubhouses, you know, "Watch what you say
on this phone. Someone else is listening." But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean
they're not watching you. (narrator)
But what's really making
the Hells Angels nervous are the feds' attempts to turn members
facing prosecution or jail time into rats who will report on their brothers'
illegal activities. The club has to find a way
to fight back. ♪ (Christie)
One of the old ways to find out if somebody was
working for the cops or not was throw some drugs
out on the table and tell 'em to stick their nose
in those rails. Was it foolproof? No, but if somebody
was an informant or somebody was a cop, they would have
to explain in a courtroom at some later date
why they were snorting drugs. ♪ (narrator)
One strategy
for identifying informants is to appoint security officers. (Christie)
We went through several
security officers, but it's kind
of a thankless job. It's not a romantic job because
you're constantly on guard, and you're questioning people, and you have to give them
the benefit of the doubt because they're your brothers. (narrator) Christie chooses a
former high-ranking eagle scout named Marty Cada to be his security officer. He's charged with sniffing out
possible informants. (Christie)
We've got this one individual
we're focusing on. He's not behaving properly. He's acting very strange. He would come into a room, and he would engage and open up
a topic of conversation, and then get up and leave and leave his cell phone there because it was a microphone. We were positive
he was an informant, but being positive
is not good enough. ♪ (narrator) After scoring
several high-profile victories against law enforcement
in the 1980s, the 1990s are proving to be more dangerous times
for the Hells Angels. The feds are planting informants everywhere
to gather information, and in leader George Christie's
stronghold in Ventura, he and security chief Marty Cada grow suspicious
of one particular prospect. They devise a plan
to uncover the truth. (Christie)
Between Marty and I,
we came up with some pretty ingenious stuff. We number every member
in the club. We write the numbers, and you put 'em
into the fishbowl, and then,
right before the meeting, Marty pulls a number
out of the fishbowl. ♪ And then he takes 'em
into the bathroom, and then he strip searches them. So that creates a lot
of controversy, and, you know, I tell everybody, "Well, you know what? "You want
to eliminate the rats? That's what we do." We call his number every week. ♪ One particular night, he went from member to member
trying to buy drugs, which made no sense whatsoever, because this guy
had always had his own drugs. I was out of state, so they
put him on the clubhouse phone, and I said,
"I'm flying back in town. I'll be back at 8:00 tonight." I said, "I want you
at the clubhouse." I go, "You got
some questions to answer." ♪ That was the last time
we saw him. He went out of the clubhouse
and took off. (narrator)
Despite these small victories, it's not a good time
to be a Hells Angel. According to federal law
enforcement agencies, the war on drugs
is boiling over in the 1990s, and the Justice Department identifies outlaw bikers
with over 300 clubs, 5,000 members, and at least 10,000 hang-arounds
as a criminal network responsible for trafficking $1 billion worth of drugs and other illegal activities
each year. Ventura president George
Christie has so far avoided being caught in the federal
government's waves of arrests, but that's about to change. ♪ (Christie)
I'm over at the clubhouse, and a local newspaper
comes over. They said, "We're doing some
stories on local businessmen, "and we thought it'd be
interesting, you know, to take a couple
pictures of you." I thought it was kind of funny.
I go, "Sure." And about a week,
week and a half goes by. I get my copy... And who's on the cover but me? And I open it up, and there it is. I'm the number one mover
and shaker in Ventura County, and who's number two? Michael Bradbury, the district attorney who has
huge political aspirations. And the story is interesting
because it says, "Is George Christie "a legitimate businessman, or does he really run a vast
criminal underground empire?" I was told by more than one
law enforcement source that Michael Bradbury
came unglued, and as the story goes,
that Monday morning, Mike Bradbury calls
a special meeting in his office, and on his desk is the article, and slams his fist
down on the table and said, "Bring me
George Christie's patch. I watch that son of a bitch." (Sher)
George Christie's
biggest trial, not just in front of the courts, but in terms of his life, happens because of his dream of trying to make
the Hells Angels hipper, younger, and it starts
by recruiting his own son. A bunch of other younger members
start following, and at the same time, a huge
amount of prescription drugs are showing up among young kids
in the high schools. The police were beginning
to notice a couple of the kids that they busted
or they approached said that they were
connected to the Hells Angels, that they were partying
at the Hells Angels' clubhouse. (Christie)
They got a warrant
to go into the clubhouse, to the tattoo shop, to my house, and to my ex-wife's house. ♪ In my ex-wife's house,
my son had a room with a closet, and in the closet
they found 40,000 Vicodins. They were there. I think
they speak for themselves. I'm not gonna try
to make any excuses. (narrator)
Investigators claim the Vicodin are part of a major theft
of 750,000 pills from a local air force base. On February 23rd, 2001, the police
round up more than 20 suspects. George Christie is among them. (Christie)
They wound up arresting me, my son, my ex-wife, and it was a long,
expensive battle. (narrator) Ventura Hells Angels'
president George Christie has inadvertently made an enemy of Ventura District
Attorney Michael Bradbury. In 2001, Bradbury has Christie
and nine club members arrested for trafficking
stolen narcotics. (Christie)
The district attorney's office launched a investigation
that went on for several years. I quit counting the search
warrants when they got to 50. (narrator)
Christie's case is heard
before several grand juries. The third one finds grounds
to indict him. (Sher)
This is a very, very dark day for George Christie,
'cause think of the image. It's not
just Hells Angels' leader who carried the Olympic torch, the man about town
being charged with a crime. It's a drug crime, and part of the allegation
is selling drugs to kids. (Christie)
There were 59 charges. It was conspiracy. Conspiracy to sell Vicodin. Conspiracy to possess Vicodin. Conspiracy to sell Vicodin
within 500 yards of a school. Not paying taxes
in a timely manner. You couldn't keep track of 'em. (Sher)
Trial's about to start, and the California
Court of Appeal says that grand jury panel,
the same panel that indicted George Christie, was not valid because it wasn't representative
enough of the population. So according to the prosecution,
on that technicality, they decide to seek a deal. (Christie)
I wanted to fight the case. I didn't think they could prove
what they were trying to prove, but I was locked up
in solitary confinement when all this stuff
was taking place. ♪ (narrator)
In solitary, Christie is unable to communicate
with his fellow Angels, and his request
to be transferred to the general
prison population is denied. (Christie)
They are the ones who decide
whether you're in isolation or if you're
in general population, and they use this as a way to negotiate
their cases to end. ♪ You're confined to a-- what really
is a large walk-in closet. It's got a toilet in it, a sink, a small desk, a bed, and you're
in there by yourself, you know, at least 23 hours a day, sometimes more. ♪ It's one of the worst things
I ever encountered in my life. I've had people shoot at me, I've had people chase me, I've had murder contracts on me, but nothing compares to
spending that year in isolation. It's a terrible,
terrible experience. When they offer me
the plea bargain and it seemed like it
was gonna resolve the situation for everybody, I jumped on it. It didn't take my lawyers
long to convince me. I wasn't involved
in any direct sales of Vicodin. I knew what was going on. I'd be lying if I said didn't, but I thought that
for the benefit of my family and some of my friends
I would take a plea bargain, and that's what I did. So after it's all over, March 2002, George Christie
pleads guilty to one count of conspiracy
to possess Vicodin for sale. In the end, he and his family,
who were facing more than 100 charges, get it all down
to just five felony counts. (Christie)
They had promised time served,
no questions asked, and everybody
goes their separate ways. The day of the sentencing, who comes walking
down the hallway but Mr. Bradbury. He was making
a personal appearance, which he hadn't done in years, and he said that they never
put anything in writing, so as far as he was concerned,
there never was an agreement. It was a suggestion. (Sher)
The prosecution,
almost as a last gasp, asks for something
like seven years. (Christie)
The way I remember it, Judge Clark
stopped the proceedings, and he said, "Mr. Christie,
do you mind taking a seat? I'd like to sentence you later." He sentenced my ex-wife. He sentenced a couple
other people. They sentenced my son
to time served probation, and then the judge
looks at Mike Bradbury, and he goes, "Why do you want
to send Mr. Christie to jail, "the person I think "has least culpability in this? "You want to punish him,
but you're willing to let everybody else
have probation." He goes, "I don't understand." He said, "Explain it to me. I want you to tell me why
I should send him to prison," and they didn't have
a good explanation. ♪ In the end,
they dropped 57 counts and let me plead to 2, and as much as I hated to do it, I did it. I have no animosity
towards Mike Bradbury. He had a job to do, and that's what he did. He retired. I saw him one time
on the street. I extended my hand out,
shook hands with him, and he looked up and saw it was
me and kind of turned white, and I turned around
and went the other way, and he turned around
and went that way. That's the last time I saw him. In 2002, when I walked
out of that prison, there was something
different about me. I was now a convicted felon. I've always taken pride in
the fact that I wasn't a felon, but after 35 years
of playing cat and mouse with law enforcement, when they finally got me, it wasn't just a traffic ticket. But no matter how defeated I
felt walking out of that prison, I was still
a Hells Angel leader. Before long, I was pulled right
back into the outlaw lifestyle. (narrator) Christie will
continue to battle the feds, but he is about to find
that things have changed in the years
he's been in prison. A new, even more deadly battle
is about to begin.
