Salem man with ties to motorcycle gang charged with drug trafficking in California

A Salem man affiliated with the Gypsy Joker Motorcycle Club faces drug trafficking charges after a traffic stop on Interstate 5 in northern California turned up four dozen pounds of methamphetamine.

The Shasta County District Attorney’s Office charged Justin L. Mac, 46, on March 24 with two counts of possession of a controlled substance for sale and two counts of transporting for sale in a “non-contiguous county,” meaning across counties which don’t share borders.

Polk County Circuit Court Judge Rafael Caso identified Mac as the president of the Gypsy Jokers’ Salem Chapter in a 2022 court filing in a divorce case. Mac’s current affiliation with the club couldn’t be established.

Federal prosecutors have described the Gypsy Jokers as a violent outlaw motorcycle gang. 

The club is a hierarchical criminal organization in which members maintain their status by participating in “various acts of violent racketeering activity including murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, narcotics trafficking, and witness tampering,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a 2022 news release.

The Gypsy Jokers have been active since the 1980s in several states including Oregon and Washington and have international chapters in Germany, Australia and Norway. They operated six clubhouses in the Pacific Northwest “until recently,” federal prosecutors said in the 2022 statement.

The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office provided an account of Mac’s arrest in a media release.

Around 8:30 a.m. on March 20, a California Highway Patrol officer stopped a vehicle headed north on the freeway near Lakehead, about 95 miles south of the Oregon-California border.

The sheriff’s office said the driver was stopped for a traffic violation.

During the stop, the officer used a police dog that alerted to the smell of drugs, prompting a search. Police found about 48 pounds of methamphetamine and about 1 pound of cocaine.

Mac was booked into the Shasta County Jail and subsequently released after posting bail, according to sheriff’s office spokesman Tim Mapes.

The driver of the vehicle was also arrested but was later released after prosecutors failed to file formal charges “within the allotted time,” Mapes said.

Mac has a criminal history in Oregon dating back to 1997, including five convictions for possessing a controlled substance between then and 2000, according to state court records.

He pleaded no contest in 2000 in Multnomah County to second-degree robbery and was sentenced to 70 months in prison. 

Mac most recently pleaded guilty in 2016 in Multnomah County to harassment and was sentenced to a year of probation. In that same case, he pleaded no contest to driving under the influence of intoxicants, which was dismissed after he completed a diversion program.

Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: ardeshir@salemreporter.com or 503-929-3053.

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