LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A judge ordered the Las Vegas chapter leader of the Hells Angels to be taken into custody Monday on upgraded charges of racketeering and other offenses connected to the shooting of six people on a Las Vegas-area highway.
Richard Devries, 67, had already posted $75,000 bail in June connected to the May shooting on U.S. 95. Judge Tierra Jones ordered Devries held on $250,000 in court Monday on new charges connected to a superseding indictment filed Sept. 23.
As the 8 News Now Investigators first reported last week, seven of eight Hells Angels members or affiliates face more than 30 charges of conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, further or assisting a criminal gang, battery and racketeering charges, among others, documents revealed.
Devries, and gang prospects, Stephen Alo, 46, and Russell Smith, 26, already faced charges, including attempted murder, for the Memorial Day weekend shooting that shut down the major freeway outside of Las Vegas. The area is also marked as Interstate 11.
Police said the May shooting was between the Hells Angels and rival gang, Vagos. Prosecutors alleged the shooting may have been in retaliation for a previous murder in California involving the two groups.
The indictment filed on Sept. 23 also named Aaron Chun, 32, a club prospect; Rayann Mollasgo and Roneric Padilla, 39, two associates also called “hangarounds,” Taylor Rodriguez, a prospect who later became a member; and Cameron Treich, 34, a member. Mollasgo was himself shot in the shootout, court documents said.
Chun, Padilla, Smith and Treich all appeared in court Monday. Alo was detained at the Henderson Detention Center on an unrelated charge. An attorney for Rodriguez was in court and told Jones his client would surrender to authorities.
Mollasgo remained out of custody Monday.
Padilla was not indicted for charges related to the shooting but faces accessory to felony charges for allegedly “[harboring] and/or [concealing]” Chun, Mollasgo, and Smith and destroying evidence, prosecutors said.
The racketeering charges accuse the group of being part of a “criminal syndicate,” prosecutors said.
In court Monday, attorneys for the defendants asked Jones not to change their bail conditions, pending the new indictment. Prosecutors disagreed.
“What we do have is a massive change in circumstances as far as now all of these individuals, as well as their criminal organization, has been imputed and indicted within this superseding indictment,” prosecutor Michael Dickerson said. “Moreover, we have all of these individuals still operating their criminal syndicate, the Hells Angels.”
“The Hells Angels motorcycle club has not been found by a jury in the state of Nevada to be a criminal gang,” Richard Schonfeld, Devries’ attorney, said. “I did not hear one thing out of Mr. Dickerson’s mouth that is a changed circumstance in the last four months that would warrant Mr. Devries’s bail conditions being modified.”
A bail hearing was scheduled for Thursday at 1:30 p.m.
Jones lifted the bail stipulation that none of the men could communicate with each other or other Hells Angels members, pending the bail hearing. Jones said she needed specific names to take that into consideration.
The bikers were part of a Memorial Day weekend ride through Arizona and southern Nevada. Videos shown to a grand jury in June included members of the Hells Angels at a Henderson Harley-Davidson dealership minutes after the shooting.
On June 10, about two weeks after the shooting, Henderson police learned of two abandoned motorcycles in a parking lot on Eastgate Road near Auto Show Drive, court documents said.
“Upon visual observation of the silver Harley, officers observed what appeared to be an impact from a bullet on the gas tank, as well as what I believed to be blood splatter on the seat area,” investigators wrote in court documents.
A temporary permit tag on one of the motorcycles was registered to Mollasgo, officers wrote in court documents said. The other motorcycle belonged to Smith, police said.
Henderson police then processed the motorcycles for DNA and fingerprints, they said. Surveillance in the area showed Chun, Mollasgo and Smith driving into the parking lot and leaving behind the motorcycles, police said.
Police also searched a car believed to belong to Padilla’s girlfriend, they said. Inside the car, police found ammunition and blood.