Features

Hells Angels charged in drug ring

The Associated Press
Monday February 26, 2001

VENTURA — A national Hells Angel leader and nearly two dozen others, including his son and daughter, have been arrested for allegedly participating in an extensive drug ring. 

Investigators arrested George Gus Christie Jr.; his 24-year-old son, George Gus Christie III; his 29-year-old daughter, Moriya Christie and 21 others Friday during sweeps in Ventura and Orange counties. Altogether, the Christie family faces nearly four dozen criminal charges. 

Law enforcement officials said Christie, his family and the Ventura chapter of the motorcycle club had been the target of parallel investigations by county prosecutors and the sheriff’s department for four years. 

The arrests, which end the probe, included 24 of 28 suspects, nine of which are Hells Angels. 

Prosecutors say Christie, 53, assembled a drug distribution network that relied on young Hells Angels operatives – or “HA Cub Scouts” – to sell drugs to teen-agers as they left four middle and high school campuses in Ventura and Ojai. 

Suspects typically peddled plastic bags containing two or three Valium pills to teen-agers for $1 a pill, or sold Vicodin for $3 a tablet and Ecstasy for $20 a tablet, investigators said. 

It took eight months to present the case to the grand jury, which indicted the suspects Friday on 132 criminal counts of theft, fraud, tax evasion, firearms possession, drug sales to minors and the use of a street gang in a criminal conspiracy. 

The senior Christie is charged with 23 criminal offenses that carry potential penalties of 15 to 20 years in prison.  

He and the other suspects were being held in Ventura County Jail over the weekend with bail amounts ranging from $10,000 to $1 million 

“I don’t know what the D.A. wants from me,” Christie said. “Am I a threat to this community? No.” 

Christie, his son, and three other men – William “Gunner” Wolf, 30, of Oxnard and Leonardo Martinis, 33, and Joshua Adams, 23, both of Ventura — are each being held on $1-million bail. 

“An organized criminal enterprise has been stopped from selling drugs to our children and victimizing other citizens through violence, theft, fraud and intimidation,” District Attorney Michael Bradbury said Saturday in a statement. 

Christie has always denied any wrongdoing. Earlier last week, anticipating the indictments, he told the Los Angeles Times: “I“ll save my comments for the courtroom. My lawyer and I will handle everything in the courtroom.” 

Christie, who hosted the motorcycle club’s 50th anniversary celebration in 1998, describes the Hells Angels as a recreational club. Although some members may have broken the law, the Hells Angels have never been involved in crime as an organization, he has previously said. 

Christie was acquitted in 1987 in a federal murder-for-hire case.