BAD TO THE BONE

Don't Be Fooled By The Hells Angels' Attempts To Clean Up Their Image;
Authorities Say They're Still Murderous, Drug-Dealing Outlaws

What happened to Donny Magnussen is just one example of what the Hells
Angels are all about.

On May 23, 1998 Magnussen's bound, decomposed body was pulled out of the
St. Lawrence Seaway. Magnussen was the bodyguard for Scott Steinert, a
flamboyant, high-ranking Montreal Hells Angel and would-be porn star.

It's believed on Nov. 4, 1997 Steinert called on Magnussen to go to a
meeting. Both were later beaten to death with a ballpeen hammer, wrapped in
plastic and dumped in the seaway. Steinert's body wouldn't surface until
about a year later. No one knows why the two were killed, although it's
believed to have been part of an internal gang purge.

"They say he cried before it happened," says Yves Lavigne, a Toronto
journalist who has written several books on the Hells Angels in Canada.
"That's the thing. They all know what's going to happen before it happens.
But they still go."

Magnussen, about 30 years old, died about three years before a Hells Angel
chapter was set up in Manitoba, yet he plays a central part in the gang's
expansion to the Keystone Province and its continued presence.

He was originally from Thunder Bay, but was no stranger to Winnipeg.

He was shot in the legs outside the Windsor Park Inn Dec. 15, 1993. He was
waiting for a cab at about 2:30 a.m. when someone opened fire on him from a
pickup truck. Ten to 15 shots from a weapon believed to be a
nine-millimetre semi-automatic handgun were fired.

The truck was found a short distance away behind Pierre Radisson Collegiate
in St. Boniface. Police said then that the truck belonged to a member of
the Los Brovos Motorcycle Club. The Los Brovos, at the time, were at war
with the recently reorganized Spartans Motorcycle Club. Both gangs have
their roots in the 1960s, and at the time of the Magnussen shooting, the
Spartans had reformed after several years of inactivity, incorporating
themselves under the leadership of Darwin Randall Sylvester.

Of all the shots fired at Magnussen, only one bullet hit him, apparently
passing through both legs as he ran for cover back in the hotel. He later
discharged himself after treatment at St. Boniface General Hospital,
refusing to speak to police.

Former Insp. Ray Johns said at the time Magnussen was a known associate of
the Hells Angels. Five months earlier he was charged along with Walter
"Nurget" Stadnik, the national president of the Hells Angels, and another
man with the beating of two off-duty Winnipeg police officers on Aug. 20.
The two officers had been apparently taunting the bikers, one even climbing
on one of the biker's motorcycles.

The two plainclothes officers were treated in hospital for facial cuts and
bruises after three bikers beat them up in the parking lot of VJ's Drive-in
on Main Street.

On May 20, 1994, the Crown dropped assault charges against Stadnik,
Magnussen and another man because of a lack of evidence.

Back in 1993, Magnussen was Stadnik's muscle, accompanying the
Hamilton-based biker as he worked to establish the Hells Angels in
Manitoba. Stadnik is now in a Montreal jail cell, facing 13 murder charges
in relation to several gangland slayings during the war between the Hells
Angels and the former Rock Machine in Quebec.

In the scheme of things, Magnussen was a little fish in a big sea. But he
does signify a link to what we see today on the streets of Winnipeg.

For example, Lavigne says members of the Manitoba Hells Angels were trained
by Stadnik and the Quebec Hells Angels, which in his view explains why
there have been several gang-related firebombings and other attempts to
intimidate witnesses in Winnipeg, one involving an aborted attack on a city
police officer's home last Feb. 12. The Quebec HA have a reputation for
being quick to resort to violence, while Angels on the West Coast prefer to
lay low and make lots of money. So, in the slow and sometimes deadly
evolution of the Hells Angels in Manitoba, the work Magnussen and Stadnik
did a decade ago, the connections they made and the people they put in
place are, for the most part still there, still hard at work, still taking
care of business.

Walter Stadnik is the main guy who's credited with bringing the Hells
Angels to Manitoba, Ontario and Alberta, the guy with the vision of seeing
the Hells Angels established from coast to coast.

Winnipeg was his second home for about six years during the '90s, as he put
together a network of bikers and businessmen to expand the Quebec drug
pipeline westwards and stave off expansion of rival outlaw motorcycle gangs
- -- the Outlaws, the Rock Machine and the Bandidos. That network would
eventually call itself the Redliners, a short-lived third motorcycle gang
to compete with Los Brovos and Spartans for membership in the new Hells
Angels Manitoba chapter.

Stadnik had been visiting Winnipeg from Hamilton and his base in Sorel,
Que. since the late 1980s. He had a girlfriend here, and the couple even
had a baby boy. Both still live in Winnipeg. Stadnik would eventually serve
eight years as the club's national president, and would be one ofthe nine
founding Nomads chapter members. The group, led by Maurice "Mom" Boucher,
comprised the club's elite members. Their ultimate goal was to establish
Hells Angels chapters in Ontario, in the Golden Horseshoe region.

On Jan. 16, 1992, Stadnik was arrested by city police and charged under the
Narcotics Control Act with possession of the proceeds of crime -- suspected
drug profits. He was picked up at the Winnipeg International Airport with
more than $80,000 in a bag.

On Jan. 23, 1995, the Crown stayed the charge after an agreement was
reached that he forfeit the money to Revenue Canada to pay any outstanding
tax or penalties. The end of the case merited just a few paragraphs in the
paper, but it highlighted a problem law enforcement had then and continues
to have now in investigating and prosecuting members of outlaw motorcycle
gangs.

How do you make charges against gang members stick? Meaningful
investigations of outlaw motorcycle gangs, involving wiretaps and
clandestine surveillance, take a lot of time, a lot of dedicated people and
a lot of money.

And the sad truth, Lavigne and police sources say, is that for a variety of
reasons -- unfocused police investigations, a lack of political will and
the belief the Hells Angels were not a threat -- the gang's expansion
across Canada was allowed to remain unchecked. It was only after
11-year-old Daniel Desrochers was killed when a car bomb exploded Aug. 9,
1995 near the Montreal park where he was playing did politicians and police
in Quebec and than in the rest of the country sit up and take notice of
what the Hells Angels were doing.

What they were doing was operating more as an international corporation
than a bunch of white-trash street thugs.

They had evolved into a tightly-knit group of committed individuals that
had connections throughout most of the world.

High-ranking gang members had succeeded in isolating themselves from the
day-to-day goings on, but were earning the most money. The dirty work was
being done by low-ranking people in so-called puppet clubs, who agreed to
kill or beat people up so they could impress their bosses and move up the
biker gang hierarchy. Police say the chief business of the Hells Angels is
cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy distribution and drug debt collection. The
goal of the Hells Angels is to control the market. They set prices for
narcotics and try to oversee as much as much distribution as possible.

Street sources say those who don't fall in line and agree to sell
Angels-supplied drugs must pay a "tax" if they wish to continue. That means
they're allowed to import their own drugs, but must pay the Angels part of
what they earn if they want to stay in business.

Police believe those who don't agree to pay the tax have their businesses
set on fire or are killed.

The Hells Angels also hire the best legal advice and work the criminal
justice system as well as any Broadway lawyer.

"They've spent the last 50 years fighting the rest of society," Lavigne
says, adding it's not too late for police to catch up.

What police must do is dedicate experienced officers to gather intelligence
and investigate the bikers over a long period of time.

Lavinge said in many Canadian police agencies, officers are routinely
transferred out of gang units every three or four years, taking what
they've learned with them. "They need more brain power," Lavigne said. "You
can have 24 Tie Domis on your team and you're still not going to win a
Stanley Cup. You need a few Steve Yzermans and Sergei Federovs, too."

On Jan. 29, 1999 there was a meeting of sorts at the Ichi Ban Japanese
Steakhouse in downtown Winnipeg. It had nothing to do with food.

Nine members of the Los Brovos, a lone Redliner and three Spartans sat in
the same room with nine representatives from Western Canadian chapters of
the Hells Angels. The three Spartans sat separately from the other two
groups, spectators more than participants.

It was a meeting held to begin the process of bringing the Angels to
Manitoba. Walter Stadnik wasn't there; the work he had started years
earlier had to be finished by members of the Western Canadian chapters of
the Hell Angels.

Lavigne says that's because the Quebec Angels were too busy dealing with an
increasingly violent turf war with the former Rock Machine to oversee the
"patch over" in Manitoba.

Donny Magnussen had been dead more than a year.

In Manitoba, four other people were dead due to biker violence. And Darwin
Randall Sylvester, the charismatic leader of the Spartans, had been missing
since May 28, 1998. It's believed he was killed.

Ten days before the Ichi Ban meeting, Spartans gang member Robert Glen
Rosmus was found face-up shot dead on a snow-packed Transport Road east of
the Perimeter Highway

At the time, a source said Rosmus had driven Sylvester to a meeting in
Winnipeg on the day he vanished. It was also reported Rosmus planned to
start a new gang in Winnipeg.

In any event, several members of the Los Brovos got the nod from the West
Coast Hells Angels to become part of their expanding world empire,
nicknamed The Big Red Machine.

For all intents and purposes, the Spartans and Redliners ceased to exist at
that moment. People went their separate ways, although a couple of
associates of the Redliners went on to be associates of the Manitoba Hells
Angels.

The Los Brovos were officially designated a Hells Angels prospect club on
July 21, 2000. That Dec. 22, the 11 members of the club got their full club
status. One Redliner, a member of a short-lived motorcycle gang in Winnipeg
set up by Stadnik, also became a member. The speed of the "patch-over" --
it's supposed to be a year's probation -- was considered to be an
aggressive countermeasure to the Bandidos patch-over of the Rock Machine in
Ontario and Quebec.

The Los Brovos were also no more. A gang that got its start in the late
1960s as an alternative to the Spartans -- you had to be 21 to join the
Spartans in 1967 -- had been taken over by a new crew of people in the late
'90s who were eager to join the Angels and not stay an independent
organization.

Today, the 10 remaining members of the Manitoba chapter of the Hells Angels
- -- a founding member was expelled last January and another was deported to
Portugal -- are now full members in one of the world's most visible
criminal organizations.

Some of the 10 Manitoba Hells Angels have also cleaned up their acts,
keeping low profiles and staying out of trouble, despite the best efforts
of police to lock them up. They've cut their long hair and started shaving
more regularly. Some started wearing long-sleeved shirts in public to cover
up their tattoos. Some also have honest jobs.

Police say that shouldn't fool anyone.

The Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, in its 2001 annual report, says
the Hells Angels are involved in money laundering, intimidation, assaults,
attempted murder, murder, fraud, theft, counterfeiting, loan-sharking,
extortion, prostitution, escort agencies, strip clubs, booze cans (selling
alcohol illegally),the possession and trafficking of illegal weapons,
stolen goods, contraband, alcohol and cigarettes.

It also says members of the Hells Angels continue to be involved in the
importation and trafficking of cocaine, the cultivation and exportation of
high-grade marijuana and, to a lesser extent, the production and
trafficking of methamphetamine, the trafficking of ecstasy and other
synthetic illicit drugs.

City police say there is also now growing evidence the local Hells Angels,
with help from cash-rich B.C. chapters, have started taking over at least
two local hotels and are now moving into controlling the local stripper trade.

Members of the gang also want to open a store at 44 Albert St. to sell
mail-order custom motorcycle parts and do tattoo and body-piercing. They
also want to sell Hells Angels clothing, so-called "support gear."

Lavigne says the store should concern Winnipeggers, as it could become a
possible target.

He says two recent violent incidents in the United States by rival gangs
against the Hells Angels are a sign the world's largest motorcycle gang is
open for attack, even here.

In April, in Laughlin, Nev., two Hells Angels and a Mongol Motorcycle Club
member were killed during a gun and knife battle in Harrah's casino, and a
third Hells Angels member was shot and killed while leaving town. In
February, a group of Pagans clashed with Hells Angels at the Angels' annual
Hellraiser Ball on Long Island, N.Y. The incident left one Pagan dead and a
Hells Angel charged with murder.

Lavigne says because the Hells Angels are so big and so visible, they've
become easy targets by those competing against them.

"They're cocky and arrogant," Lavigne says. "They defy their enemies to
come after them, and those enemies do."