Posts Tagged ‘Jeffrey Pike’

Waco Biker Trials Update Update

Thursday, April 5th, 2018

Somehow, when compiling the info for this piece on Waco biker trial news, I missed this update, which notes the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office dismissed cases against Cody Ledbetter and George Bergman.

Ledbetter, who has said he has been ready to go to trial for almost three years because he didn’t commit a crime, witnessed his stepfather, Daniel Boyett, get shot during the May 2015 brawl at the former Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco between two rival biker groups. Boyett died from his wounds.

“Give me a break,” [Ledbetter’s attorney Paul] Looney said Monday after learning of the dismissal. “Cody never should have been filed on in the first place. He has had this case hanging over his head for three years and when we finally get a trial setting, they say never mind. That is just cruel beyond description. My client has lived with the thought of 15 years to life in prison for nearly three years on a case I guess they never prepared for trial or never intended to prepare for trial.”

Neither McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna nor Jarrett returned phone messages Monday.

Looney, who called the Twin Peaks cases “the most bizarre saga in the history of American criminal law,” added that he is happy for Ledbetter but “just repulsed at the system.”

“It looks like they have mishandled this case to the point that nine people died and nobody gets prosecuted. How bizarre. This is an impossible outcome. That can’t be the case, but it looks like they are going to end up there,” he said.

In other Waco biker trial news, “Senior U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, of Austin, conducted a status conference Monday in a portion of the 133 Twin Peaks civil rights suits and extended by at least 90 days a stay that has been in place for almost two years.”

Meanwhile, in San Antonio, Bandidos members John Xavier Portillo and Jeffrey Fay Pike are on trial for federal racketeering charges.

Waco Biker Shootout Update: Top Bandidos Arrested

Wednesday, January 6th, 2016

Three of the top Bandidos leaders have caught federal charges.

National leaders of the Bandidos biker gang were arrested Wednesday on charges of racketeering and waging a deadly “war” on the rival Cossacks gang, federal authorities said.

An indictment announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio accuses three Bandidos leaders of sanctioning a three-year fight that included violent clashes with rival gangs and distribution of methamphetamine.

The accusations focus on a rivalry that came under renewed attention in May, when a meeting of biker groups at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, ended in gunfire that left nine people dead.

Authorities believe that the fatal confrontation began when members of the Cossacks crashed a meeting of a confederation of biker clubs that included the Bandidos at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. The dispute ended in gunfire between the bikers and police standing nearby.

The federal indictment accuses John Portillo, the Bandidos’ national vice president, of using dues and donations to pay legal expenses of its members days after the Waco shooting. Portillo, along with national president Jeffrey Pike and national sergeant-at-arms Justin Cole Forster, are charged with racketeering, drug distribution and other crimes.

None of those three shows up on the list of bikers arrested at the Waco shootout.

“Using dues and donations to pay legal expenses of its members days after the Waco shooting…” Is that illegal? I’m actually asking here. I’m not aware of that violating any specific law, but I could be wrong.

Federal charges are heavy, as Uncle Sam has essentially unlimited resources with which to investigate and make the case. As the Bandidos have been involved in drugs in the past, that may be the easiest charge to make stick. But it’s still mighty curious that no one has been charged with murder for a shootout that left nine dead….