It was called the Hellraiser Ball.
Roughly1,000 Hells Angels Motorcycle Club members descended on a ritzy ballroom on Long Island in February 2002 for a convention. They mingled, perused motorcycle and tattoo exhibits and ogled a pornographic film star making a paid appearance.
Then the Pagans arrived.
The white-columned catering hall accustomed to hosting lavish weddings turned into a war zone as 10vanloads of bat-wielding Pagans stormed the convention. It was the first public clash between the rival biker gangs since the 1970s — and it was bloody.
One Pagan was killed by gunfire and 10 others were injured. Police confiscated 500 weapons, and73 Pagans were charged with various crimes, including rioting and attempted gang assault.
The show of force that winter day — the group of Pagan attackerswould be hailed in biker circles as “The 73” in the years to come — would set the stage for two decades of bitter turf clashes between the Pagans Motorcycle Club and the Hells Angels. The lone Pagan killed, Robert “Mailman” Rutherford, is still honored at an annual party in his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Pagans National President Keith “Conan” Richter was attendingthat party last month before his arrest for gun possession in New Jersey by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,according to two law enforcement sources with knowledge of the club’s activities. The arrest has sent ripples through the Pagans organization.
With Richter’s fate uncertain, the club suffered a potentially serious setback as it undergoes a major expansion, law enforcement officials and organized crime experts told NJ Advance Media.
The extent of that setback is unknown, but the Pagans have immediate issues to confront: Who tipped off the authorities? What will the club’s next move be with its leader temporarily out of commission? And who will run the gang?
Richter — a chiseled and imposing 62-year-old Bay Shore, New York, resident with a raspy voice — is in jail pending the outcome of his case. He was charged with possession of a weapon by a felon. It carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, butitcould be reduced to approximately two years if he takes a plea deal, according to the sentencing advisory document.
Richter has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, James Froccarro, declined to comment when reached by NJ Advance Media.
Pagans Vice President Hugo “Zorro” Nieves is a logical choice to step in as interim president until Richter’s release, police officials said. The South Jersey native has strong roots in the club, is extremely intelligent and capable of heading the group.
But the Pagans are shifty and make calculated moves to thwart law enforcement, just like any organized crime organization, officials said. It’s also rumored that Nieves stepped down as vice president after he was called to testify at a State Commission of Investigation public hearing in 2019 that was heavily covered by the local media, one law enforcement source said. The identity of the club’s sergeant at arms is less clear.https://www.youtube.com/embed/AmIkaGBOlRs?feature=oembed
Richter’s arrest comes as the charismatic leader oversees a nationwide expansion of the club — commonly referred to as “The Blue Wave” in biker circles — vying for dominance in the outlaw biker underworld known as the 1%.
Shortly after Richter became president in 2017, he changed the denim jacket all Pagans wear to read“East Coast” instead of listing their individual chapter locations. This was the first public demonstration that the Pagans were striving to become the dominant biker club on the Eastern Seaboard.
More recently, Richter opened chapters in Texas, Las Vegas and Puerto Rico. And he has forged new alliances with other motorcycle clubs such as The Mongols and the Thunderguards, as well as street gangs like the Latin Kings, police officials said.
It’s no coincidence that the Mongols now have a chapter in New Jersey.
“You have these two clubs, Mongols and Pagans — now they can give Hells Angels a run for their money nationally, which they couldn’t do before,” said Edwin Torres, a special agent with the State Commission of Investigation and president of the East Coast Gang Investigators Association. “The Pagans can keep Jersey and kick the dirt up in New York City and New York. But on a national front? They couldn’t do anything against the Hells Angels.”https://9d12c514a9443af1f26b0a96b20c5fb4.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
The Pagans — which started in Prince George’s County, Maryland, in 1959 — has swelled to more than 1,300 members across at least 12 states, experts said. They’re one of four major outlaw clubs nationwide identified by federal officials — Pagans, Hells Angels, Outlaws and the Bandidos.
Richter has doubled the number of Pagans chapters in New Jersey since becoming president, absorbing smaller motorcycle clubs across the state. He’s also started allowing Latino members into the traditionally white-dominated club, despite its white supremacist leanings. The Pagans have aligned themselves with the Aryan Brotherhood in prisons and have provided protection at events held by the racist group Atlantic City Skinheads, officials said.
At the same time, the threshold to become a Pagan has been lowered. Bikers on the fringe of the club — known as “hangarounds” — can pay a few thousand dollars to become members.
This has riled some in the rank-and-file who went through grueling probationary periods before earning their Pagan colors, law enforcement officials said. It has also presented an opportunity for undercover officers to easily infiltrate the organization.
“You have groups that want the cache that goes along with the Pagan brand and the leverage and the benefits of the Pagan brand without supreme loyalty to the Pagans,” explained Scott M. Burnstein, a true-crime author and publisher of The Gangster Report website. “What loyalty do you have to a group you’ve been a part of for a short period of time?”
The most shocking takeaway from Richter’sarrest is not that the top Pagan was caught, but that someone within the organization ratted on the president, Burnstein said.
“I’m certain the No. 1 priority for that club is figuring out who gave that information to the feds,” he said.
“Law enforcement learned that Richter was in possession of a firearm” during the Feb. 20 Lancaster party, according to a criminal complaint filed against Richter. Later that evening, he was stopped by authorities in Mercer County and arrested after police found a loaded handgun underneath the center console of a car Richter was a passenger in, authorities said.https://9d12c514a9443af1f26b0a96b20c5fb4.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
Law enforcement is now monitoring the implications of Richter’s arrest on the club, Torres said.
“Are there going to be changes?” Torres said. “There are some Pagans that were not happy with the way he had changed business. Are they going to be emboldened to make moves now that he’s incarcerated?”
Richter’s control of the Pagans also depends on his sentence if found guilty, officials said. If he’s doing only a few years, it’s less likely he’ll relinquish his hold onthe club.
“Why would he give up power if he’s still fighting this case?” said Edwin Santana, a detective with the Morris County Sheriff’s Office and a veteran gang investigator. “If he’s sentenced and he’s sentenced long-term, the feds can move him anywhere throughout the United States. At that point, you’re going to have a rift in the street.
“It’s really hard to run a criminal organization unless you have loyal soldiers out in the streets. And you’re going to have individuals wanting to step up.”
Richter has worked hard to build loyalty in the club and surrounds himself with people he trusts, Burnstein said. One such move was installing Steve “Gorilla” Mondevergine, a burly figure who was once on the outs with the club, back in charge of the Pagans’ Philadelphia chapter — a traditional stronghold for the group.
“Richter has a vise grip on (the club),” Burnstein said. “He has so much support and galvanized so much love from the soldier base.”
Richter’s brand of leadership is a throwback to the old school way of the outlaw biker — the 1% of motorcyclists who proudly revel in criminal activity — which is to seize turf “by any means necessary,” Burnstein said.
It’s that mentality that has led to the bloody clashes between the Hells Angels and Pagans in recent years.
In 2018, a member of the Pagans nearly beat to death a Hells Angels associate with a baseball bat at a gas station near the HAMC clubhouse in Newark. The brutal assault was caught on surveillance camera and played at the SCI public hearing.
More recently, three members of the Hells Angels fatally shot Francisco Rosado, the head of the Bronx Pagans, in broad daylight in a parking lot last May, authorities said.
“These are the things that show the escalation of how brutal their wars are,” Santana said. “That is hardcore.”
