Biker Gang Leader (Outlaws) Sought Dominance of Florida

TAMPA -- The man considered the top Outlaw Motorcycle Club member in the world set out to claim Florida and other states as territory in a decades-long "campaign of terror," federal prosecutors told a jury Tuesday.

Through killings, bombings and intimidation, Harry "Taco" Bowman commanded his legions of bikers and lived by the credo, "Snitches are a Dying Breed," Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Kunz told jurors in opening statements at Bowman's racketeering trial.

"What this case is not about is individuals who have chosen a different lifestyle, wear long hair, ride motorcycles and want to be left alone," Kunz said.

"It's not going to be about a bar brawl. ... These acts were thought out, they were planned. They were part of a campaign of terror."

Bowman, a 51-year-old family man from the upscale Detroit neighborhood Grosse Point Farms, is being tried on 10 counts of racketeering stemming from what prosecutors describe as his 20-year reign over the Outlaws.

The biker club, symbolized by a skull and crossed pistons, has chapters throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.

Bowman's attorney, Henry Gonzalez, reserved his opening statement for when the defense begins its case. The trial could take more than six weeks.

The twelve jurors and four alternates are serving anonymously to protect their safety, and security at the courthouse was tight in anticipation that many of Bowman's fellow gang members would turn out for the trial.

Bowman was on the FBI's most wanted list before his arrest in 1999 in Sterling Heights, Mich.

Prosecutors said Bowman ordered some of the Outlaws most violent acts, but did not actually carry them out himself.

Three slayings are alleged in the indictment, including the 1991 slaying of a rival club member in the Florida town of Edgewater. Raymond Chaffin was shot in the back of the head as he worked on his motorcycle; his 12-year-old daughter found him when she came home from school.

Kunz said Bowman was determined to claim Florida and other states as Outlaw territories and would strike out against other motorcycle gangs who crossed the Outlaws' path.

Bowman built a sophisticated information network, sending Outlaws into trials to take notes on witnesses against the club, collecting search warrant affidavits and newspaper clippings that told of law enforcement efforts against the Outlaws, jurors were told.

He was so adamant in enforcing the Outlaws power that even the slightest alliance between other clubs would bring the Outlaws wrath, Kunz said.

Bowman once became enraged at seeing a newspaper photograph of a member of the Fifth Chapter Motorcycle Club, a group of "clean and sober" bikers, comforting a Hells Angel member at a funeral, Kunz said. Bowman ordered the destruction of the Fifth Chapter's clubhouse and its members robbed and beaten, Kunz said.

Also among the crimes Bowman is accused of ordering are two 1994 bombings, one of the Orlando clubhouse of the rival Warlocks and the other a car bomb that exploded outside the Chicago clubhouse of Hells Henchmen. Bowman thought the Henchmen were aligning with the Hells Angels, the Outlaws' arch enemies, Kunz said.

More Outlaws info from BrewTown . . .

3 Outlaws file suit against Summerfest
Men say they were wrongly booted for wearing logo

Summerfest smiley face, meet Charlie.

That's the nickname of the skull above a set of crossed pistons on the Outlaws Motorcycle Club patch that's at the crux of a civil rights lawsuit filed Monday by three of the club's members.

In the federal free-speech suit filed Monday against Milwaukee police and Summerfest, the Outlaws claim they wrongly were booted from the music festival July 2 because they refused to take off or obscure their "colors" showing the toothy logo.

The three, Chris Gunderson of Greenfield, Jack Daugherty of Elkhorn and Jim Sworske of Hubertus, were each issued $150 trespassing tickets by Milwaukee police and eventually left without incident.

Summerfest officials declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Milwaukee City Attorney Grant Langley said in a telephone interview that, from the police standpoint, it was a trespassing issue, and not a lofty First Amendment case.

Michael Hupy, the Outlaws' attorney, said, in fact, it was.

"After they paid admission and were admitted they were kicked out . . . for wearing their colors," he said at a news conference at the Summerfest gate, flanked by Gunderson, Daugherty and their Harleys. "We still have free speech in this country."

Hupy denied that, as some law enforcement officials have suggested privately, that the Outlaws purposely tried to get arrested.

He also challenged Summerfest to come up with other instances of anyone being bounced or cited for wearing gang logos at the festival.

Summerfest is run quasi-publicly; the city-owned land is leased by Milwaukee World Festival Inc. Nevertheless, Hupy said, "It's a public event."

Daugherty, who produced his combat medals from his Army tour in Vietnam, said police humiliated him when they told him to take off his colors in front of 15 friends.

"I fought in Vietnam," he said. "I have a right to be in this place."

J.D. Davies, an Outlaws member also at the news conference, but not party to the lawsuit, said that it was just the latest in a long string of harassment of Outlaws by law enforcement. He said he thought the tickets were issued to send a message to the Outlaws before the Harley-Davidson 100th birthday celebration this week.

Since the late 1990s, a Hydra-headed investigation of the Outlaws in the Midwest produced 23 racketeering convictions and implicated members of the club in bombings, executions and narcotics trafficking.

Monday's news conference reflected the familiar relationship between the burly Outlaws and their law-enforcement minders.

At the Summerfest main gate, a Milwaukee sheriff's detective captain chatted amiably with the Outlaws. A television reporter tried to ply an Outlaws member for a tour of the club's south side clubhouse.

The Summerfest grounds, Harley says in promotional materials, will be the "epicenter of the celebration" for its 100th birthday party. Amy Alarupi, a Harley spokeswoman, said that members of biker gangs wearing their colors would not be prohibited from official events.

Several law enforcement agents have said they anticipated trouble in the days ahead between the rival Hell's Angels and the Outlaws, as well as with other of the hard-core biker gangs coming into town.

But Alarupi said that there were no problems among the gangs at the 90th and 95th birthday bashes here, and neither has there been any violence on the road leading up to this week's events.

"We have good relationships with (the biker gangs) and we're pretty confident that they understand that this is a fun and safe event that everyone is going to attend," she said.

Davies, the Outlaws member, said that in the ramp-up to the Harley festivities, local tavern owners have been asked by police not to serve Outlaws and he said that Outlaws members have copiously been given parking tickets by undercover cops.

"This kind of stuff happens all the time," he said.

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