While in pursuit of God's Children bikers, on February 28, 1968, around a dozen Hells Angels and members of the affiliated Animals gang visited Barto's Café, a bar on the east side of Cleveland, where they shot and killed two patrons.
"Scotty" Blackburn, Donald A. Fraser, Robert G. "Bottles" Lemmons, Gary Leroy "Monkey" Montgomery and "Dirty" George Westley Rothrock – and two of their girlfriends – Kathy Diane Shaffer and Nellie M. Sideris – were charged with first-degree murder.
[24][25] On June 11, 1975, Governor of Ohio James A. Rhodes, acting on the unanimous recommendation of the state parole board, reduced the sentences of Blackburn and Lemmons to six- and seven-years-to-life, respectively.
Breed members Bruce "Buster" Emerick, Andrew C. Demeter, Amelio "Pierre" Gardull and Thomas Allen Terry, and Hells Angels biker Jeffrey "Groover" Coffey were killed.
[39] Tanner was one of six Hells Angels indicted for a series of murders, all but two of which stemmed for the club's conflict with the Outlaws, after a federal grand jury investigation of the HAMC's activities in Cleveland and Akron.
[9] Four locations, including the Cleveland Hells Angels chapter headquarters, were raided by SWAT teams and federal agents on January 5, 2011 as arrest warrants were issued for club members Justin Selisker and Scott Stage.
[49] Stage was convicted on March 21, 2011 of felonious assault in the beating of Steven Keresztesi, a biker who was seeking to reestablish the defunct Coffin Cheaters Motorcycle Club in Northeast Ohio.
[53] In 1969, Cleveland Hells Angels chapter treasurer James M. "Beetle" Bailey, Jr. was acquitted of disturbing the peace after he was arrested in a house in Independence, where five rifles, a sawed-off shotgun, a revolver, a chain and a switchblade knife were discovered.
[54] Hells Angels members Bradley Peterson and Dustin Wolf were arrested on misdemeanor assault charges after they were involved in a physical confrontation with off-duty Euclid police officer Todd Gauntner at a bar in Willoughby on August 24, 2018.
[58] Gauntner, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of the War in Afghanistan who suffered from suspected post-traumatic stress disorder, committed suicide in the lobby of the police station he was terminated from on March 23, 2020.
[59] Three members of a Hells Angels hit team killed one man, Donald Della Serra, and wounded two others with a submachine gun and shotguns in a drive-by shooting in front of a house in Akron on June 9, 1974.
[60] The crime went unsolved until Cleveland Hells Angels chapter vice president-turned-government witness Clarence "Butch" Crouch confessed to being one of the gunmen to federal agents on November 5, 1981.
[62] Thomas Padavick was one of six Hells Angels members indicted for a series of murders on June 10, 1982, as the result of a federal grand jury investigation of the club's activities in Cleveland and Akron.
[63] At a party celebrating the first anniversary of his ascension to "full patch" member, Cleveland Hells Angel Harry" Chakirelis was reminded that he had not yet "rolled his bones", putting him under pressure to commit his first contract killing for the club.
[69] Hells Angels member "Dirty" George Westley Rothrock was shot and killed with a .38 caliber handgun by his girlfriend Mary Jane Jarus after he had hit her with a telephone and choked her unconscious at their Cleveland home on November 2, 1981.
[71] On February 27, 1988, music store manager David Hartlaub was fatally shot thirteen times in his van at a bank parking lot in Perkins Township, as he was making a nightly cash deposit, by Hells Angels "prospect" John Ray Bonds, who sustained an arm wound from a bullet ricochet.
Douglas Waratuke, a music store employee who had followed Hartlaub to the bank in a separate vehicle, was threatened at gunpoint by "full patch" Hells Angels member Steven Wayne Yee, who then fled on foot.
Verdi and Yee were taken into custody on March 7, 1989, but Bonds fled before he could be brought to trial; he was a fugitive for eight months before being apprehended on November 8, 1989, when a patron at a bar in Paducah, Kentucky alerted law enforcement of his whereabouts.
[79] HAMC members were allegedly rewarded by the Mafia with Iron Workers' Union membership as payment for services rendered, and eventually were used as strikebreakers at a construction site in eastern Ohio.
[80] Celtic Club lieutenant Kevin McTaggert informed the FBI that Hells Angels member Enis "Eagle" Crnic was contracted by Greene for a fee of $7,500 to kill Shondor Birns, a rival racketeer and Mafia ally who was assassinated via a car bomb containing C-4 explosive on March 29, 1975.
[9] Due to the Hells Angels' working relationship with the Mafia, Cleveland crime family boss James "Jack White" Licavoli and his administration were greatly angered by Crnic's involvement in the bombings.
Joseph "Joe Loose" Iacobacci, an associate at the time who later became boss of the Cleveland crime family, was tasked with overseeing the murder and recruited a Hells Angel for assistance.
[87] Fencl was arrested and charged with Bonarrigo's murder on June 10, 1982, as he and five other Hells Angels were indicted for a series of homicides following a federal grand jury investigation of the HAMC's activities in Cleveland and Akron.
However, McGettrick was arrested on April 13, 1984, after accepting a $5,000 bribe to fix Fencl's upcoming trial from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent posing as a Hells Angels associate.
[95] Cleveland Hells Angels chapter members James Bailey and Richard Vesey were shot by at least two gunmen who were hidden in an embankment beneath an overpass on Interstate 80 near Colfax, Iowa as they travelled via motorcycle to the club's annual rally in Yankton, South Dakota on August 14, 1975.
[98] In 1977, Cleveland Division of Police (CDP) patrolman Steven D. Stevers was convicted of bribery after being accused of aiding six Hells Angels members who had been charged with the gang rape of a woman, by passing $1,000 and an airline ticket to the victim on behalf of the bikers.
On April 12, 1984, Wells, while wearing a wire, paid the judge an additional $5,000 in marked bills to determine an upcoming murder case against Hells Angels member Frank Fencl.
[99] Defense motions to find McGettrick, who was terminally ill with prostate and bone cancer, incompetent to stand trial and to suppress key evidence in the case were denied by Leis.
[104] The raids, involving over a thousand law enforcement personnel, also led to the seizure of cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, hashish, PCP and LSD valued at $2 million, as well as weapons including submachine guns and anti-tank weaponry.
[105] Undercover FBI agent Kevin P. Bonner infiltrated the HAMC for twenty-six months and made narcotics transactions with members of eleven chapters across the country as part of the investigation.