HELLS ANGELS LEADER HELD IN PROBE OF DRUG SALES

Crime: He And 23 Others Are Indicted After 8-Month Grand Jury
Investigation. He Is Accused Of Running A Gang That Sold To Youths.

VENTURA--A national Hells Angels leader, who for two decades cultivated the
image of an upstanding citizen, has been charged with heading a criminal
gang whose activities include the sale of drugs to high school students.

The arrest of George Gus Christie Jr., his two adult children and 21 others
Friday night tarnishes his long campaign to portray the notorious
motorcycle gang as free-spirited but law-abiding citizens harassed by law
enforcement.

Instead, prosecutors say, Christie assembled a drug distribution network
that relied on young Hells Angels operatives--or "HA Cub Scouts"--to sell
drugs to teenagers as they left four middle and high school campuses in
Ventura and Ojai.

Neither Christie nor his lawyer could be reached for comment Saturday.

While the Hells Angels have generally fallen from public view in recent
years, they have been a growing presence in Ventura.

Christie hosted the Angels' 50th anniversary celebration here in 1998 and
angered police and public officials by posing for a group photo with
hundreds of bikers on the steps of City Hall.

The Ventura chapter tripled its size to about 20 members, recruiting young
street toughs who roared around downtown Ventura on flame-emblazoned
Harley-Davidsons and allegedly engaged in a flurry of criminal activity
that prompted investigations by police, sheriff's intelligence officers and
the district attorney's organized crime unit.

It took eight months to present the current case to the grand jury, which
on Friday indicted the suspects on 132 criminal counts.

Investigators arrested 24 of 28 suspects--including nine Hells Angels--in
sweeps in Ventura and Orange counties on Friday night, ending a four-year
investigation. Officers acted on eight Ventura County Grand Jury
indictments on charges of theft, fraud, tax evasion, firearms possession,
drug sales to minors and the use of a street gang in a criminal conspiracy.

The suspects were being held in Ventura County Jail late Saturday with
bails ranging from $10,000 to--for Christie, his son and three other
principals--$1 million each. Arraignment is set for Monday.

"An organized criminal enterprise has been stopped from selling drugs to
our children and victimizing other citizens through violence, theft, fraud
and intimidation," Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury said in a written release
Saturday.

Christie has denied any wrongdoing. Earlier last week, anticipating the
indictments, he said: "I'll save my comments for the courtroom. My lawyer
and I will handle everything in the courtroom."

Christie is represented by Barry Tarlow of Los Angeles, a high-profile
former federal prosecutor who gained Christie's acquittal in a 1987 federal
murder-for-hire case.

The indictments represent the first time Christie, 53, the reputed heir to
Ralph "Sonny" Barger as the Angels' leader nationwide, has been charged
with a serious crime since a Los Angeles jury acquitted him in the
murder-for-hire case.

Since the early 1980s, the Angels have presented Christie as a
representative of a new generation of members who are law-abiding and raise
money for charities such as Toys for Tots.

After running a leg in the Olympic torch relay in 1984, he spoke in college
and high school classes about the ethics of prosecutors and journalists. He
hosted a fund-raiser for an Oxnard children's museum in 1997. He even sold
his life story to Hollywood as a tale of a modern-day folk hero who
withstood the abuse of power by federal authorities.

He was one of six Hells Angels leaders profiled in a story in The Times in
1983 that described the "mellowing" of some members of the motorcycle gang.

"Being a Hells Angel," Christie said, "means that people listen to you when
you talk, and they move out of your way when you walk down the street.
There's a lot of power and you want to make sure that guys that get into
the club aren't going to abuse it."

Wearing baggy pants and flannel shirts popular with teenagers, Christie is
regularly seen at his Ink House tattoo and body-piercing parlor on Main
Street in Ventura, talking on the sidewalk with Angels, tattooed employees
and skinheaded hangers-on.

Undercover Investigation

He is calm and precise in his speech. Acquaintances describe him as smart
and articulate--even gentlemanly--and nearly always in control of himself
and those around him.

A Ventura native, Christie is unusually well educated for a local Hells
Angel. He attended two years of college and was employed as a high-voltage
electrician for the U.S. Defense Department and a cable splicer for General
Telephone.

Although Christie was the prosecutors' chief target, the case includes his
24-year-old son, George Gus Christie III, and 29-year-old daughter, Moriya
Christie, a Ventura attorney who represents Hells Angels in court.
Altogether, the family faces nearly four dozen criminal charges.

The senior Christie--who still rides his motorcycle and whose left arm is
heavily tattooed--is charged with 23 criminal offenses that carry potential
penalties of 15 to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors say he not only oversees a criminal gang that peddled drugs to
teenagers but that he carried a gun while committing crimes, evaded
employee taxes, stole valuable property and hid large amounts of money in
secret bank accounts.

As part of the current investigation, undercover agents bought drugs 25
times from Hells Angels or their associates, sheriff's investigators said
in 1999, after arresting several club members. Suspects typically peddled
plastic bags containing two or three Valium pills to teenagers for $1 a
pill, or sold Vicodin for $3 a tablet and Ecstasy for $20 a tablet,
investigators said.

Indictments were delayed until Friday as prosecutors tried to weave an
array of alleged crimes into a single conspiracy case.

Of the 24 named suspects--four were not identified because they had not
been arrested--Christie and his son, plus William "Gunner" Wolf, 30, of
Oxnard and Leonardo Martinis, 33, and Joshua Adams, 23, both of Ventura,
are being held on $1-million bail.

Five suspects were already in jail or prison for crimes ranging from
assault with a deadly weapon to drug sales.

Christie has repeatedly said the Angels pose no threat to the community. He
describes his group as a recreational motorcycle club. Some members may
have broken the law, but the Angels have never been involved in crime as an
organization, he has said.

"I don't know what the D.A. wants from me," Christie said recently. "Am I a
threat to this community. No."

In previous interviews, Christie said this case is just the latest in a
series of federal and state inquiries that targeted him because of his
prominence but that had led only to a misdemeanor fighting-in-public
conviction in 1993.

He's being harassed again, Christie has said, because he hosted the Angels'
50th anniversary celebration.

He is most disturbed, he has said, by charges that the Hells Angeles are
involved in the sale of drugs to teenagers, something he said he would
never allow. Prosecutors are trying to justify the time and money they've
wasted investigating him, he said.

"And it's a shame they have to go after my family because they have a
problem with me," he has said.

Authorities say the Hells Angels case is massive, involving tens of
thousands of pages of evidence, much of it seized during raids over the
last three years.

Tax Payments Under Scrutiny

Early in the investigation, in May 1998, authorities arrested Christie on
suspicion of possessing narcotics and they arrested his estranged wife,
Cheryl Christie, a bookkeeper for the Angels, on suspicion of possessing
drugs for sale.

The initial raids focused on whether Christie had paid taxes for employees
at his tattoo parlor.

Officers seized thousands of pages of documents and said they found a small
amount of cocaine in Christie's bed stand at his home in an industrial area
of west Ventura. About $30,000 in cash was seized. They said they also
found about $100,000 and a large amount of Vicodin, an addictive narcotic
painkiller, in his wife's hillside condo. She was not arrested Friday.

Christie has said in previous interviews that he had broken no laws and
paid no employee taxes because his workers are contract employees, similar
to those in beauty salons. Such workers are self-employed and pay their own
taxes, he said.

"I've done the same thing for 20 years and the IRS never had a problem with
it, and my tax attorney never had a problem with it," he said. "Now the
district attorney has a problem."

Then in 1999, prosecutors stepped up their investigation of Christie,
seizing personal and business records from the Ventura home of his
79-year-old mother and the house and law office of his daughter.

In raids in 1998 and 1999, the Sheriff's Department arrested nine club
members, most on drug-related allegations. No charges were filed, however,
until Friday. Over 16 months, authorities said they seized $27,000 in cash,
drugs valued at $364,000 and 15 weapons, including a "sniper rifle," a
semiautomatic shotgun, a sawed-off shotgun, a hunter's rifle with a bayonet
and a machete.

"The Hells Angels like to portray themselves as misunderstood recreational
bikers who are harassed by the police," Sheriff Bob Brooks said last year.
"The Hells Angels try to put a positive spin on their charitable
activities, but the fact is we are dealing with criminals who distribute
drugs and, for the most part, are people with long rap sheets and violent
backgrounds."