Sonny Barger
[4][12] After that club disbanded, he started riding with another group of bikers, one of whom, Don "Boots" Reeves, wore a patch that belonged to a defunct Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels in North Sacramento.[17] The founding members of the Oakland Hells Angels were "basically honest blue-collar or unskilled workers looking for excitement", according to George "Baby Huey" Wethern, who became the chapter vice president in 1960.[24] The Oakland chapter, with Barger serving as its president, assumed an informal position of authority within the Hells Angels that began following a confrontation with local police and the California Highway Patrol in the aftermath of an outlaw motorcycle meeting in Porterville in September 1963.[30] Oakland police sergeant Edward "Ted" Hilliard testified in 1972 that he accepted guns, dynamite, and grenades from Barger personally in return for deals on arrests during at least fifteen separate meetings, the most recent of which occurred in the spring of 1971.Concert goers and musicians alike were subjected to violence from the Hells Angels, including Marty Balin of Jefferson Airplane, who was knocked unconscious, and audience member Meredith "Murdock" Hunter, who was stabbed to death.[51] He blamed the Rolling Stones' extended delay before making an onstage appearance for worsening the hostility of the crowd, and said the Hells Angels refused to act as bodyguards for "a bunch of sissy, marble-mouthed prima donnas" when the band asked the bikers to escort them to the stage.Barger temporarily resigned as president of the Oakland chapter in June 1970 to fight the charges, but returned to the position within months after his successor, John "Johnny Angel" Palomar, was sentenced to a ten-year prison term for shooting a bartender.Various objects were thrown from the Cadillac during the pursuit, including four handguns, a shotgun, surgical gloves, and a belt with an ammunition pouch and a silver buckle engraved with the caption: "Sonny Barger Jr., 1957–67 president, Hells Angels Oakland.[26] Amidst claims by the Hells Angels' attorneys, Jack Berman and Herman Mintz, of insufficient evidence and an illegal search by arresting officers, all five defendants pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of unlawful imprisonment.[64] According to Barger's chief attorney James Crew, Ivaldi himself was involved in the conspiracy to kill Agero and, knowing he was a prime suspect and fearing retaliation from the "Texas Mafia", he tried to shift the blame to the Hells Angels.Three men — drug dealers Kelly Patrick Smith, Willard Thomas and Gary Kemp, an acquaintance of Ivaldi — were found shot to death in a house near San Leandro the day after Agero's murder, and the body of a woman, Karen S. Long, was discovered in the trunk of a car in Oakland on May 26, 1972.[7][29] In December 1972, police bypassed a six-foot fence and Doberman Pinscher guard dogs to raid Barger's home in the Oakland Hills, finding eight guns throughout the house and an unidentified human skull on a dresser.[31] His acquittal in that case made him eligible for parole as the California Supreme Court ruled that a five-year waiting period – attached to his sentence due to the prior marijuana conviction – was unconstitutional.[31] The RICO case against the Hells Angels was the most substantial effort in federal history against the club at the time, and charged the defendants with various crimes dating back to 1971, including manufacturing and distributing methamphetamine; conspiring to commit murder; assault; use of false identification; intimidation; and bribery.[74] The prosecution team, representing the federal government, attempted to demonstrate a pattern of behavior to convict Barger and other members of the Hells Angels of racketeering offenses related to illegal weapons and drugs.[77] Over a two-year period starting in 1980, the Melbourne chapter of the Hells Angels led by Peter John Hill shipped three hundred liters of P2P (a chemical necessary to manufacture amphetamine) to the United States.[79] Hill and the rest of the Melbourne charter received no share of the profits and were told that this was their contribution to helping Barger and the other Hells Angel leaders pay the legal fees related to the RICO case."[7] In the late 1970s, Barger and other senior Hells Angels ordered James "Buddy" Caronite, the president of the club's East Coast chapters, to organize a peace conference with Outlaws leaders.[7][90] Anthony "Taterhead" Tait, the sergeant-at-arms of the Hells Angels chapter in Anchorage, Alaska, volunteered to become a paid informant for the FBI in 1984, commencing a three-year nationwide Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation known as Operation Cacus.[103] On September 18, 1987, two members, Kenneth "Kenny" Yates and Andrew Shission, and a "prospect", John Ray Bonds, of the Cleveland chapter were ambushed by Outlaws when they stopped in Joliet, Illinois to repair a defective motorcycle while en route to an East Coast officers meeting in Minneapolis.[107] Barger was among thirteen people taken into custody in the Bay Area, where over 400 FBI, ATF, and California State Police personnel carried out 26 raids on homes and other properties, seizing more than 100 weapons, approximately $1 million in cash and drugs, and three methamphetamine laboratories.[114] On the day of his release, Barger took a flight to Oakland International Airport and attended a homecoming party at the Mountain House, a bar at Altamont Pass in Livermore, at which Johnny Paycheck performed."[117] In an attempt to quell the increasing tensions between the clubs, Ventura Hells Angels chapter president George "Gus" Christie twice attended peace talks with Bowman in Florida, firstly in December 1992 and again in May 1993.The proposed peace treaty ultimately broke down, however, when Bowman suddenly withdrew from the negotiations on the advice of one of his lieutenants, Kevin "Spike" O'Neill, who thought agreeing to a ceasefire would make the Outlaws appear weak.[144] The talks began on July 18, 1998, in the Copacabana strip club in the Illinois town of Alsip with Edward "Shock" Anastas, the president of the Outlaws Milwaukee chapter, serving as their lead negotiator.[161] While Noel was being treated for her injuries at the hospital that night, she told the FBI agent Stephen Smith that Barger had a STAR 9mm semi-automatic handgun at his ranch, which would be a violation of Arizona law, which forbade felons from owning guns.[165] One police officer stated that the Hells Angel leaders in California disliked the way that Barger refused to step aside as he said: "You can't be the heir apparent if Sonny continues to keep calling the shots and running things.[170] On November 30, 2010, Barger made a guest appearance as Lenny "The Pimp" Janowitz on the season 3 finale of the FX television series Sons of Anarchy, about a fictional outlaw motorcycle club, allegedly based on the Hells Angels.[173] The Norwegian anthropologist Tereza Østbø Kuldova described Barger as a man who had turned himself into a brand, having become a global icon who symbolized a very ruggedly tough, macho definition of American masculinity, which explained the large crowds of Parisians who wanted him to autograph copies of his autobiography.[174] Barger kept a low profile in his final years, although his 81st birthday — the numbers 8 and 1 are used by the Hells Angels to refer to their corresponding letters of the alphabet, H and A — was celebrated in a major event hosted at the Oakland chapter clubhouse in October 2019.
Ralph H. BargerModesto, CaliforniaLivermore, CaliforniaSacramento Valley National CemeteryOutlaw bikercrime bossOaklandHells Angels MCConviction(s)ConspiracyOakland, CaliforniaHells Angels Motorcycle ClubincorporatedcountercultureHunter S. ThompsonPhoenix New TimesheroinOutlawsracketeeringorganized crimeGermanItalianPentecostalpost-war eraU.S. Armymotorcycle clubNomads chapterHells AngelsNorth SacramentoHaywardWorld War IISouthern CaliforniaGypsy JokersSan BernardinoFederal Witness Protection ProgramcolorsAmerican Motorcyclist AssociationCalifornia Highway PatrolPortervillemarijuanamotorcycleEast Oaklandanti-communistsubversiveOakland TribuneUniversity of California, Berkeleyanti-Vietnam WarBerkeleyArmy TerminalAllen GinsbergJerry RubinSacramentoSan Jose State UniversityVietnam Day CommitteeLyndon B. JohnsonViet Congoutlaw biker filmsRoger CormanThe Wild AngelsHells Angels on WheelsHell's Angels '69Tom WolfeThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid TestKen KeseyLa HondaOmaha, NebraskaLowell, MassachusettsEast CoastSummer of LoveSan FranciscohippiesBay AreaFederal Bureau of InvestigationcocainemethamphetamineRoyal Dutch ShellShreveport, LouisianaClevelandOakland Police DepartmentBlack Panther PartyWeather Undergroundcoin collectionkangaroo courtbarbituratesEast BayraidedM16 rifleM1 carbineLondonZürichNew YorkRochesterNortheastthe Rolling StonesAltamont Free ConcertMarty BalinJefferson AirplaneMeredith "Murdock" HunterKeith RichardsSympathy for the DevilMick JaggerGimme ShelterAquariusfund drivesSenate Judiciary CommitteecontractRednecksMr. AmericaStudio CityRedwood Regional ParkPontiacCadillacpark rangerspoachinghazingMcAllen, TexasSan LeandrohandlerDistrict AttorneyDoberman PinscherOakland HillsSan JoseBass LakeamphetaminesFolsom State PrisonCalifornia state prison system