LAS VEGAS (AP) – A Vagos biker club leader stood silently Thursday in a federal courtroom in Las Vegas while his lawyer urged a jury to acquit him of criminal racketeering charges so he can return to his family and his movie studio job in California.
“This is Al. He’s a good man,” attorney Mark Fleming said of Albert Lopez, a former U.S. Army Ranger, acknowledged Vagos international officer and married father of two who lives in the Los Angeles-area city of Santa Clarita.
Lopez didn’t testify during six months of trial, nor did seven other accused Vagos co-defendants who each face the possibility of life in prison in a broad conspiracy case stemming from a deadly casino gunfight in 2011 with rival Hells Angels in northern Nevada.
Jeffrey Pettigrew, then-president of the Hells Angels chapter in San Jose, California, was killed in the shooting. Two Vagos were wounded, including defendant Diego Garcia.
A sweeping criminal indictment accuses the Vagos of being part of a criminal enterprise that since 2005 relied on threats and violence to wage turf battles with Hells Angels and others in California, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Nevada.
Vagos members’ attorneys say prosecutors botched a flimsy case built upon accounts of unreliable witnesses, and they failed to prove Vagos did anything other than defend themselves in the shootout at the Nugget casino in Sparks.
“Defense of others and self. That is the singular simple truth of this case,” attorney Michael Kennedy told the jury on Wednesday. His client, admitted Vagos member Ernesto Gonzalez, shot Pettigrew after Pettigrew threw a first punch during an argument with former Vagos member Gary “Jabbers” Rudnick.
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Source: Washington Times