Hells Angels Boss Opens Up - George Christie | PBD Podcast #723

Patrick Bet-David sits down with former Hells Angels president George Christie to trace the history, code, and culture that defined America’s most infamous motorcycle clubs, from the rise of outlaw biker identity to the brutal war with the Mongols, the legacy of Sonny Barger, and how loyalty, violence, and federal pressure shaped - and ultimately fractured - the brotherhood. ------ 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g57zR2⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g57zR2 Ⓜ️ CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kSVkso ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4kSVkso Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: ⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj⁠ https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Always wanted to be an outlaw, not a criminal.

• 0:02Patrick Bet-David?

  What made Sonny so powerful? What was his reputation?

• 0:09Speaker 00

  Sonny's a very complicated man. If it wasn't Sonny's idea, it wasn't a good idea. No matter if it benefited everybody or not.

• 0:19Speaker 02

  periodic concern for what these people are doing to our great nation may provoke violent acts by.

• 0:25Speaker 00

  Sonny saw the club as something that belonged to him. Other members saw themselves as part of a club.

• 0:32Patrick Bet-David?

  How did you maneuver your way up to that kind of power?

• 0:35Speaker 00

  How can you have respect without fear? I think, you know, you gotta have a little fear. The bomb they planted didn't go off. He told me, "You're gonna go retrieve the bomb that didn't go off." And I said, "Why am I gonna retrieve it?" I go, "I didn't make the bomb." Being an effective peacemaker, you have to be willing to go to war. That was kind of my philosophy. I was strictly for peace, which was a very unpopular position in the outlaw.

• 1:01Patrick Bet-David?

  How come nobody kills him? How come he lives to 83? How does he live to 83?

• 1:05Speaker 00

  Well, I think that...

• 1:10Speaker 00

  I'm gonna say something here that a lot of people that know the Hell's Angels history and perhaps are watching this.

• 1:57Patrick Bet-David?

  George Christie, great to have you on.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  Thank you, appreciate being here.

• 2:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes, so your story, I grew up in LA, Glendale, we were talking about earlier.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Glendale.

• 2:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes, and La Crescent, Crescent Valley, had a lot of Mongols, Hells Angels, and one of my friends was a, was part of the gang for 20-plus years. His name was Jim Pedrick, he's no longer here with us. And he would always tell me stories, what it was like, how he got in, the fights, the wars, you guys had many of them.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  A lot of wars, a lot of history.

• 2:25Patrick Bet-David?

  A lot of histories, a lot of war, and I want to get into it. And for you, when you, when you think about Hells Angels, a couple of names come up. We hear Sonny Barger and we hear George Christie. Those are, these are the two names that, of course, there's other names, I don't want to say there isn't.

• 2:39Speaker 00

  The club was, you know, built on a foundation of many people's input, but yeah, that's a, that's a fair assessment. Sonny Barger was my senior. One of my greatest memories was when he came back from prison and I met him. I had been in the club, I was kind of a rising political input in the club, kind of creating my own base, and I went to Oakland on some unrelated business.

• 3:12Speaker 00

  One of our members, that was a very strong member of Ventura, Irish O'Farrell, wanted to transfer to Oakland because Sonny wanted him up there, and ultimately, he took Sonny's place as a leader when Sonny came down with cancer. But after the end of the conversation, Russell Bae, another Oakland heavyweight, said to me, "There's someone up the street that wants to talk to you, he'd like to meet you." And I knew who, I knew it was Sonny. And, you know, it's like meeting a football star, a boxing star. Went down to Sonny's house, rode our bikes down there, he came out and greeted us, and... I spent several hours in his house talking. It was just, it was an incredible experience.

• 3:55Patrick Bet-David?

  This is, this is the first time you met him?

• 3:57Speaker 00

  This is the first time I met him. I knew about him, you know, long before I met him. I knew about him in, when I was in high school.

• 4:03Patrick Bet-David?

  What year is this? This is?

• 4:04Speaker 00

  Seventy-eight.

• 4:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Seventy-eight, first time you met him?

• 4:07Speaker 00

  First time I met him in person, maybe, no, you know, actually it's probably seventy-seven. And I've been hearing about him since the mid-sixties, especially after Hunter Thompson wrote that book, Hells Angels.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  I mean, I felt like I knew him.

• 4:22Patrick Bet-David?

  How'd you get the book? Were you in your teens when you read the book?

• 4:26Speaker 00

  I was in my teens. I was always a motorcycle enthusiast, always wanted to be an outlaw. I kind of identified with the outlaw.

• 4:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Always wanted to be an outlaw?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  Always wanted to be an outlaw, not a criminal, an outlaw. And there's a distinct difference, and people get the outlaw and the criminal confused. And I had my first experience in the mid-fifties. I was with my father. And we hear this noise up the street, and I look, and it's this guy coming on a chopped Harley. Has a cutoff vest on, a complete outlaw, stops at the stop sign. And when he took off from that stop sign, I metaphorically jumped on the back of that bike. And I knew someday I would be like that man.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  And, you know, it took me ten years to get there, but ultimately I got a bike and started hanging out with independent, as an independent with a question mark motorcycle club. It was a club associated with the Hells Angels.

• 5:29Patrick Bet-David?

  It was a club associated with Hells Angels?

• 5:31Speaker 00

  And then I hung out with the Satan Slaves, another club. If you read Hunter Thompson's book, he really talks about the Satan Slaves a lot in that book, because the Hells Angels actually were kind of impressed with the Satan Slaves. They were kind of a unique club in San Fernando Valley. And they were kind of the, you know, sultans of San Fernando Valley, if you will.

• 5:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, what did your dad do for your dad to almost introduce you to this? What did he do?

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Indirectly. Well, he-

• 6:05Speaker 00

  He was all, you know, I'd start talking about motorcycles after that and he was always try to play it down unbeknownst to me until I got older, his, my grandmother, his mother told me he had a motorcycle and she had a standing offer of 500 bucks to anybody that pushed it off the venter of here. It was kind of a, a, a inside family joke and I don't think, you know, she ever thought anybody would take her up on it, but she wanted to show that she didn't think it was appropriate for him to ride a motorcycle and for some reason he didn't want me to do it, but I did.

• 6:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he also an outlaw or no?

• 6:44Speaker 00

  No, no, he was a, a former CB, uh, came, you know, World War II veteran, as my mom was, uh, my dad was a CB, my mother was a, uh, Marine, uh, both veterans of World War II and that was the birth of the outlaw bikers, uh, in the United States and perhaps the world, you know, it was exclusive to the United States and, you know, now it's a worldwide phenomenon. There's outlaw motorcycle clubs everywhere. I don't think there's a continent in the world that doesn't have, uh, uh, some 1% motorcycle club, whether it be Hells Angels, Bandidos, Outlaws, uh, Mongols, whatever it may be.

• 7:27Patrick Bet-David?

  What, what year was it that the whole thing got started?

• 7:30Speaker 00

  1948.

• 7:31Patrick Bet-David?

  1948.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  I call, I consider that the kickoff date and, you know, the guys in the east go, well, it started back here and the guys on the west coast, kind of a friendly rivalry. For me, it started in Hollister in 1948. There was a, uh, motorcycle event up there, the AMA, American Motorcycle Association, was hosting, uh, hill climbs and various races in the little town of Hollister and, uh, the Pissed Off Bastards, that's the name of a bike club.

• 8:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Literally called Pissed Off Bastards.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  Pissed Off Bastards.

• 8:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you pull that up from?

• 8:07Speaker 00

  Uh, the Poobobs is what they went by.

• 8:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Poobobs?

• 8:11Speaker 00

  The Poobobs, the, uh, uh, Galloping Goose, the 13 Rebels, the Booze Fighters.

• 8:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Great names, by the way.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, these are all veterans. These are, these are guys that came back from World War II. From the European and the Pacific Theaters, most likely suffering from undiagnosed PTSD, whatever, and they felt displaced. They came home, their life had moved on, probably lost their wives, lost a lot of friends overseas. And they came back and they formed these little motorcycle groups. And the American Motorcycle Association, that weekend labeled them the 1% that ruin it for us wholesome riders. And those individuals at that time embraced that title. And you know, the rest is kind of history, you know?

• 9:03Speaker 00

  We became the 1%ers. And you know, ultimately, 15 years later, I became part of that.

• 9:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Pissed off bastards of Bloomington. Is that correct? That it says it started in Riverside?

• 9:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:16Patrick Bet-David?

  And San Bernardino?

• 9:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so I know Riverside, I know San Bernardino. Wha- what else? If we were to talk about the East Coast, West Coast? What's East Coast? What's West Coast?

• 9:27Speaker 00

  West Coast is pretty much Northern and Southern California. And you know, it's interesting, and I'll get on to the East Coast, but in the West Coast, there was a tremendous rivalry between all the bikers, Hells Angels, and what other clubs there were in Northern California, the Bay Area specifically, and then the Southern California. There was this unwritten rivalry. The East Coast has a similar story. Detroit, Chicago, you know, these were where the Outlaws started. That was kind of our biggest rivalry.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  You know, we had a war with them that still goes on today. I'm no longer a member, but the two clubs still fight. And the ironic thing is, I realized this morning when I was here, this is Braward County. That's where the war started.

• 10:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Stop it.

• 10:27Speaker 00

  They killed Whiskey George and Riverboat. Whiskey George and Riverboat went to the Outlaws clubhouse on an invite. They were told by Sandy Alexander, a very powerful Hells Angel from New York City, don't go to their clubhouse. And they went there and

• 10:46Speaker 00

  They were executed and thrown in a uh some rock quarry around here.

• 10:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Here in in.

• 10:52Speaker 00

  Here in Broward County, yes. The order came down uh from Jim Nolan, who was the leader of uh outlaws in Florida at the time. And uh ultimately, he went to prison for fifty years uh for that murder. Uh you look up Jim Nolan. Uh he uh just was released recently and uh I know him, he knows me, you know, we've

• 11:20Speaker 00

  talked to big Jim Nolan.

• 11:24Patrick Bet-David?

  He's the one that killed uh.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  Well, he ordered, he made the order.

• 11:26Patrick Bet-David?

  He ordered, he made it. And how big of a player was Jim at the time?

• 11:30Speaker 00

  The biggest.

• 11:31Patrick Bet-David?

  He was the even bigger than Sonny?

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, well, he for the Outlaws. That's two separate clubs.

• 11:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  The Hells Angels and for the Outlaws. He was what Sonny Barger was.

• 11:41Patrick Bet-David?

  For the Outlaws.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  For the Outlaws.

• 11:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. But when you think about biker gangs, you hear the main name you hear is.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  Sonny.

• 11:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Hells Angels and you hear Mongols.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  Mongols.

• 11:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course, you got some of the other guys, but.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  I think because the Mongols uh uh have, and I mean this with all due respect, have forced their uh name down the throats of everybody. I mean, they uh uh had, I think they had some leadership problems initially in the seventies uh and the eighties. I think that they weren't prepared. They brought a a challenge to us and the Hells Angels rose to that occasion. I mean, uh if you look uh the Frame Up Motorcycle Shop uh was a uh tire taken in there to have worked on uh by a Hells Angel member.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  He was a prospective member at the time and there was an explosive device. Uh the tire was filled with dynamite. The uh valve stem actually was a uh pressure relief uh trigger. And when they took the uh valve stem out, tire exploded, uh killed two uh killed a Mongol and it killed his fifteen year old cousin uh just weeks before that uh.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Red beard and jingles, both Mongol officers were killed by a gentleman who went to prison for it, Guy Castellion out of San Diego. So by night, the end of seventy seven, the war was just full on with the Hells Angels and the Mongols.

• 13:18Patrick Bet-David?

  For you, so going back to sixty eight, you know about it, you read the books, you know the stories, you're an outlaw, not a criminal. And then are you looking at the saying, man, I cannot believe I'm meeting Sonny in seventy seven. Are you already in Hells Angels?

• 13:34Speaker 00

  I am a Hells Angels member, yeah.

• 13:35Patrick Bet-David?

  So you're a member.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  I'm an official member and I may have been vice president of Los Angeles at the time. And a few months after that, old man John, who was my mentor and turned the club over to me. He told me, his exact words were, this is a young man's game.

• 13:56Patrick Bet-David?

  This is in Ventura?

• 13:57Speaker 00

  This is in Los Angeles.

• 13:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Los Angeles, so you're not Ventura yet to be the president?

• 14:00Speaker 00

  He says, I'm giving this to you.

• 14:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, and we're in LA, what part of LA?

• 14:04Speaker 00

  Glendale.

• 14:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Glendale, literally you're living in Glendale?

• 14:07Speaker 00

  Glendale, our club, the Hells Angel clubhouse was in Glendale. The Mongol shop, the frame up was in Glendale, I believe. Not real close to the Hells Angels clubhouse, but near. And that's kind of where the war kicked off, in San Diego and in Glendale.

• 14:25Patrick Bet-David?

  So did you live in Glendale yourself or?

• 14:27Speaker 00

  On and off, I did, I had an apartment down there. Yeah, I still had a wife and a kid and I worked, a lot of people don't know this, I worked for the Department of Defense.

• 14:38Patrick Bet-David?

  While you're part of Hells Angels?

• 14:39Speaker 00

  While I'm the leader in the Hells Angels, I had a top security clearance. I worked at Point Magoo in Port Weneme at the Pacific Missile Test Center. And at Island of Santa Cruz, there was, it's been declassified now, so I don't have a problem talking about it. There was a secret submarine surveillance system on Santa Cruz Island when we were at the midst of the Cold War with the Russians.

• 15:09Speaker 00

  My job was to maintain that building, make sure it was always up along with other responsibilities. Because it was a direct line to Washington. That if they saw the subs off there, subs were coming in, someone would have to make a decision in Washington. They found out that I was a president. John had turned the club over to me in 1978. They found out I was the president of the Los Angeles Hells Angels. And they brought me in the office and they said, you can't do this. This is compromising your top security clearance. You either go with us or you go with them. Because we're gonna pull your security clearance if you don't resign from the Hells Angels.

• 15:50Patrick Bet-David?

  So they give you the ultimatum?

• 15:52Speaker 00

  Yes, and I decided to stay with the Hells Angels.

• 15:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Why was that? Why did you choose?

• 15:56Speaker 00

  Because I was an outlaw.

• 15:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Because you're an outlaw. Now, let me ask you, while you're doing DOD and you have secret clearance and you're a leader at Hells Angels. Are you using any of the access and information to help advance Hells Angels?

• 16:11Speaker 00

  No, but I certainly use my experience as a Marine. I was a 0311 Rifleman. And I took my tactical experience, tactical training and applied it in the outlaw motorcycle culture.

• 16:30Patrick Bet-David?

  How did they recruit you? What was the original way somebody recruited you?

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Into the Hells Angels?

• 16:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  Old Man John, I met Old Man John up on Kern River in the mid, early 70s. And apparently he saw something in me, the Satan slaves and the question marks introduced me to John. He invited me to the Glendale Clubhouse and, you know, just fell into it, yeah.

• 16:56Patrick Bet-David?

  And did they see something in you? Did they say this guy's got what it takes? Were you like him? Like, what was the recruiting?

• 17:01Speaker 00

  I think John, you know, not trying to shine the light too much on me, but I think John saw something in me. Saw the discipline. John being ex-military himself understood that we were running in a group of a bunch of undisciplined guys that needed, you know, somebody to be the patriarch, if you will, of this little clan of Hells Angels and Los Angeles.

• 17:24Patrick Bet-David?

  So at the time, when you got recruited, what year is it? 74, 70?

• 17:28Speaker 00

  75.

• 17:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so 75 you get recruited. How old are you at 75?

• 17:32Speaker 00

  I was mid-20s.

• 17:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Mid-20s, so let's say 25 years old in 75. How did you go from a rookie guy coming on board to 78 going to Sonny's place? You rode up with bikes and motorcycles, you hit up to him. And then all of a sudden to be the number two guy, consigliere, president of Ventura County. How does that happen? How did you maneuver your way up to that kind of power?

• 17:59Speaker 00

  Well, maybe the Forrest Gump of the outlaw bike world.

• 18:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Not what I hear about you. They tell me you're the intellectual. They tell me you're the strategic, you're the brains. You were the guy that was extremely intentional, you know, strategic. You know, like, you know, when you think about the original mobsters, you think about what Ben Siegel did, what Frank Costello, who was a networker, great at going and creating the relationship. You know, you have Lucky, who was more the visionary, what he saw he can do. But then it was Meyer Lansky. Meyer Lansky was like the brains, like, what if we do this and what if we do that? So you've been compared to some interesting people.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  Well, you know, it's interesting. Julian Shear wrote the book, Hells Angels, Angels of Death, I think it was called. And in the book, he says, you know, law enforcement perceives you as the Al Capone of Ventura.

• 18:54Patrick Bet-David?

  As the Al Capone?

• 18:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, he goes, how do you take that? And I said, well, I'm gonna take it as a compliment. What else could you do, you know?

• 19:02Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm honored. Thank you so much for this compliment.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  You know, that's the book there. Inside the Biker's Global Criminal Empire. They're investigative reporters from Canada. And, you know, he came to the house. He was very pensive. He says, I want to interview you. And I had permission from the club. I could do any interviews I wanted. I said, if you want to interview me, you have to come to the house.

• 19:29Patrick Bet-David?

  At that time, how powerful are you?

• 19:31Speaker 00

  Probably at the peak of my power.

• 19:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Really? So this is early 2000s?

• 19:36Speaker 00

  2000, 2002 or 2003. We just had the shootout at Laughlin in the casino, at Harris Casino. And I thought it was kind of ballsy of him, you know? And I did it, I was being kind of a smart ass. I go, you want to interview me, Julian? He said, yeah. I said, well, you'll have to come to my house. And I didn't think he'd come. And he came and he actually came and he when the book came out, he brought me a book. And he he signed it Julian Shear and he put to my favorite angel of death. So I don't know whether that was a compliment.

• 20:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Could you feel he was nervous or did you feel he was poised to come?

• 20:15Speaker 00

  I think he he was pensive and then I think he became relaxed. At that time I was living in a in a house that had been in my family for a hundred years. It'd been my grandfather bought it when he came from Greece.

• 20:30Patrick Bet-David?

  So you're not living a lavish lifestyle?

• 20:31Speaker 00

  No, I mean, I lived in the same house. It was but it was very unique. It was like a museum within the house. And I think as he spent the afternoon there, he became very relaxed and it was interesting. He also went to Sonny Barger. Sonny invited him to his house and he showed up at Sonny's house in Arizona. So he interviewed myself in my house and interviewed Sonny at his house.

• 20:57Patrick Bet-David?

  At this time, are you and Sonny good? Because I know later on.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  No, it it we're getting ready to and the book is part of the problem with falling out.

• 21:04Patrick Bet-David?

  You gotta be kidding me. So the book, okay, so now let's go back because I want to know. So so think about it from this standpoint, because I think the the the game of power happens in politics, happens in outlaws, happens in the mob, happens in business, happens in sports. It happens everywhere, right? Where, you know, somebody you look at, I know Sonny Francis, you you know, Michael Francis as well.

• 21:29Speaker 00

  I know Michael well. I was in prison with him.

• 21:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Really? I don't know. You guys had time together?

• 21:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:33Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know that.

• 21:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, in nineteen eighty six.

• 21:36Patrick Bet-David?

  So you you Michael would always tell me his dad said to him, Michael, be careful with the young guys.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:42Patrick Bet-David?

  And he says, why, Daddy? He says, because the young guys that are coming up are when they're gonna be the bosses.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:49Patrick Bet-David?

  So he says, be be careful because that could happen. You want to make sure they'll remember how you treated them when they had little to no power.

• 21:55Speaker 00

  And and you know, oh, absolutely. Sometimes they don't care.

• 21:59Patrick Bet-David?

  The young guys?

• 22:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. They get up there, they're sitting on top. You know, they're making decisions, you know, is this guy gonna help me? Is this guy gonna hurt me? What should I do with this guy? And the decisions like that are made in the club. You know, the club's not really supposed to be structured like that. But people have human frailties and, you know, egos.

• 22:19Patrick Bet-David?

  We all do.

• 22:20Speaker 00

  Power, whatever it may be. But Sonny and I were on great terms. And then I started. I had a different vision than Sonny had for the club. And what you have to understand is back in 1989, the feds, 88, 89, the Fed sent a gentleman named Anthony Tony Tate to set Hells Angels up. He had been a Hells Angel.

• 22:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Great name. Anthony Tony Tate.

• 22:47Speaker 00

  Anthony Tony Tate. And if you look him up, you'll see he was FBI informant, but he was also a Hells Angel. And, you know, Sonny Barger wound up buying into him, got convicted of conspiring to commit murder with him, went to prison for almost four years in Arizona. And Sonny had made a very tactical mistake. What he did was he had introduced, as Tony Tate's making his rise in power, he had introduced him as the Hells Angels of the future. And it turns out he's an FBI informant.

• 23:28Patrick Bet-David?

  So Tony Tate was like a Joe Piston, Donnie Borosco.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 23:31Patrick Bet-David?

  And how long was he in there?

• 23:32Speaker 00

  Right from the beginning, he'd been in the club probably four years.

• 23:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Four years.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  Undercover.

• 23:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Eighty-five.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, eighty-five, eighty-three, maybe. I think eighty-five most likely.

• 23:42Patrick Bet-David?

  And then, and then when he came, who brought him in? Did Sonny bring him in?

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Well, not really, but Sonny embraced him.

• 23:47Patrick Bet-David?

  God, and with Sonny embraces you, you get all the power.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 23:50Patrick Bet-David?

  How did you come up as a young guy? How did you get the power?

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Kind of just fought my way. I, I, you know, I have a saying in one of my books, to be an effective peacemaker, you have to be willing to go to war. And that was kind of my philosophy. I was strictly for peace, which was a very unpopular position in the outlaw bike world, because everybody's aggressive in that world and they thrive off of egos and whatnot. But, you know, it can be vicious, you know? The political arena is very dangerous in the Hells Angels, as it is in, you know, organized crime.

• 24:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Political.

• 24:32Speaker 00

  Are, you know, Democrats and Republicans, whatever it may be, you know?

• 24:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Were you more feared, respected, or liked?

• 24:41Speaker 00

  Well, I don't know, you know? I really, really don't know. I think there was... How can you have respect without fear? I think, you know, you gotta have a little fear in there.

• 24:57Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you think is more important between the three, especially in that world? Probably applies to everything else as well.

• 25:02Speaker 00

  Probably fear.

• 25:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Fear, number one?

• 25:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think so, and I'm just being honest. I don't know if I've ever said that publicly before, but if people fear you, it gives you the sword to wield around, because they go, "This guy's armed with a sword, and he will use it if he has to."

• 25:21Patrick Bet-David?

  How did you gain fear as a reputation? Because you said the only way to be a peacemaker, you have to be willing to go to war. So how do you gain that level of fear that people don't even want to go to war with you?

• 25:31Speaker 00

  Well, some of it's anticipation, some of it's legend, some of it's gossip. You know, anybody that does anything illegal in their right mind doesn't talk about it. And I think sometimes unspoken words are louder than people screaming it, you know?

• 25:53Patrick Bet-David?

  But how do you build that reputation, though? I mean, you gotta build it, right? I mean, there's gotta be... Because like, for example, you know, you look at Trump, he's like, "If you do this, I'm gonna bomb Iran." And Iran's like, "Last time he said this, he killed our number two guy," right?

• 26:04Speaker 00

  He did it.

• 26:05Patrick Bet-David?

  So you gotta almost believe him. So how did you build that fear for people to say when George says something, he's gonna follow through?

• 26:12Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web. Like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 26:40Speaker 00

  That's a hard question to answer.

• 26:42Patrick Bet-David?

  We like asking hard questions.

• 26:43Speaker 00

  I know you do, and you're asking them well. But I don't think, I want to go any deeper than I... You know, my daughter's an attorney, and every time I come to do a...

• 26:55Patrick Bet-David?

  She tells you, "Don't do it, Dad."

• 26:56Speaker 00

  Every time I come to do an interview by someone, you know, I know you like to ask the hard questions. She gives me a little pep talk and a lecture. And so, she always tells me, "You know, Dad, you can always take the fifth."

• 27:12Patrick Bet-David?

  But maybe share what has already been told that is not like, is going to be held against you. Like, what is public information that you've already done the crime?

• 27:24Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 27:24Patrick Bet-David?

  That you can share?

• 27:26Speaker 00

  Well, I'm going to share this with you. And was it a crime? Perhaps it was a crime. It was more of a journey and an appointment to do something. A lot of people think, once you get in the Hells Angels, that, you know, you're prospecting, or, you know, the time when they evaluate what your worth is, doesn't end when you become a member. And when I became a member, there was a bomb planted. There was two bombs planted at the frame up. The first bomb didn't go off. And I walked in on an impromptu meeting of these gentlemen talking about conspiring to blow that up. And I explained, I'd just come out of the Marines. I worked for the DOD at the time.

• 28:11Speaker 00

  And I was explaining, correct, collateral damage to them. I said, "You know, you put a bomb somewhere. You've got no control over the casualties." You know, it's called collateral damage. And a couple of the guys didn't even know what collateral damage was. They were very offended that I told them I thought they were taking the wrong approach to this war with the Mongols. I...

• 28:36Speaker 00

  Left the meeting. I said, I don't want anything to do with this, you know, this is, you know.

• 28:41Patrick Bet-David?

  You're, you're a member.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  I'm a member.

• 28:42Patrick Bet-David?

  You left the meeting.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I said, I don't want to talk about this.

• 28:44Patrick Bet-David?

  This is when you're still with the DOD.

• 28:46Speaker 00

  Yes, I'm with the DOD.

• 28:47Patrick Bet-David?

  So late twenties.

• 28:48Speaker 00

  I'm a Hell's Angel, uh, yeah, late twenties. I'm a Hell's Angel leader at the time, or I think, no, I wasn't. I was, uh, uh, just had voted in as a member. But they didn't like the position I took. Uh, the bomb they planted didn't go off. And old man John called me, said, I want you to come down here. I want to talk to you. And I went to old man John and he told me, you're gonna go retrieve the bomb that didn't go off. And I said, why am I gonna retrieve it? I go, I didn't make the bomb. I don't even know what kind of, uh, uh, trigger mechanisms on it. I don't know anything. And I said, I'm not gonna talk to those guys about it. And, uh,

• 29:31Speaker 00

  he said, well, some people are starting to have second thoughts about you. Because you questioned, uh, us taking the posture war. And he said, you're gonna go get it and then you're gonna take it to a place that we called the armory in downtown Los Angeles. Uh, this is no secret. Uh, the police found it. We had two thousand pounds of dynamite, a, uh, British shanty tank, uh, rifle, uh, machine guns, pistols and silencers. He said, you're gonna take it, retrieve the bomb. It was like maybe eight sticks of dynamite or whatever it was. He said, you're gonna retrieve the bomb. You're gonna take it back and leave it there. And the guys that built it will come and dismantle it. And, uh, cause I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  I think acts like that, uh,

• 30:20Speaker 00

  make people realize that, you know, you're sincere. I mean, I basically went over, retrieved a bomb that I didn't know what went wrong. I didn't know how it was put together. I didn't know who put it together. And retrieved it and took it back to the armory and left it.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  You know, people start talking about stuff like that. This guy had the nerve to go get that bomb and get it. You know, another situation was, we talked about the outlaws a little bit earlier. When I decided I wanted to end the war, or try to end the war between the outlaws and the Hells Angels, I showed up at Taco Bowman's motel room, unannounced, fifteen, twenty outlaws there. And, you know, they'd already killed several Hells Angels. And I just, I showed up there. I said, I'm here to talk to you about peace. And he just kind of shook his head. He goes, you just show up here? And I said, well, I knew you

• 31:18Speaker 00

  were here, and I wanted to talk to you. And I think acts like that, where you put the club interest before your own, that creates a interest in you. Members will be willing to follow you. This guy go, you know, he puts his money where his mouth is.

• 31:38Patrick Bet-David?

  To me, those two things would make me like you and respect you, but not fear you.

• 31:43Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 31:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Because, you know.

• 31:45Speaker 00

  You're not giving up, are you?

• 31:47Patrick Bet-David?

  No, I'm not. And I'm saying that because, you know, like, if I talk to Sammy, and you hear why, you know, Sammy maybe was feared in the streets, or Leonetti would tell stories about Nikki Scarfo, and I had Leonetti on, on the podcast, he flew in and we did an interview together six years ago. There were some of these guys that were enforcers.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:10Patrick Bet-David?

  That put the fear of death on other people. Well, maybe let me ask a different question. When you first met Sonny, and you said you had read about him in sixty-eight.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:20Patrick Bet-David?

  So you kind of knew that he was a outlaw.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  Serious guy.

• 32:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Serious guy. What were the, and you said something earlier, you said, you know, it's reputation legends, right? Legends that people talk about, because when you commit a crime, you don't typically talk about it. So you still have to find a way for people to find out what you did, and how ruthless you are. There's benefit for people knowing you're a bit ruthless.

• 32:42Speaker 00

  In that world, yes.

• 32:43Patrick Bet-David?

  In that world.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  And maybe, and maybe the legitimate world as well.

• 32:47Patrick Bet-David?

  In the legitimate world as well, in business, as well as in politics, there is no question. Military, you need a little bit of that. What made Sonny so powerful? What was his reputation?

• 33:00Speaker 00

  Well, I think there's a history of missing members, members that are dead. You know, nobody knows, they're unsolved murders, people speculate. You know, I have some inside information because Paul Animal Hibbits was a very powerful Oakland Hells Angels. Allegedly, and according to Paul, when I asked him about it, he had hot shoted Terry the Tramp. For Sonny's orders, behest of Sonny. Sonny didn't like him, he was jealous of him, for whatever reason.

• 33:46Speaker 00

  I think that

• 33:50Speaker 00

  people in the club didn't talk about it, but people knew, you know, that Sonny had ordered that stork turned up missing. There was another member, his name escapes me.

• 34:02Speaker 00

  Allegedly had stolen a coin collection from Sonny, you know.

• 34:07Patrick Bet-David?

  A member?

• 34:08Speaker 00

  A member, yeah, he was killed. So, you know, these things happen, you know. Russell Bae, I mentioned him earlier, I told you, he was a very powerful member. Well, his expiration date came up one day, somebody walked up to his door and shot him nine times.

• 34:26Speaker 00

  Nobody knows really, I mean, people narrowed it down to Irish O'Farrell and to Sergey Walton. They were the, one of these guys shot him, is what everybody figured out. You know, despite what people think, you know, Sammy the Bull has a luxury now of made a deal with the government, and I'm not judging that, that's his business, whatever he wants to do. But he has immunity now, and he talks about crimes he did, or perhaps crimes he didn't do freely. Because he's got to deal with the government.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  People in that world I lived in, you know, nobody knew for sure who shot Russell Bae. Was it Irish or was it Sergey?

• 35:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Who's Irish or Sergey, are they?

• 35:18Speaker 00

  They're both dead.

• 35:19Patrick Bet-David?

  They're both dead?

• 35:20Speaker 00

  Irish was murdered, Sergey crossed Sonny and I think there was a hit ordered on him. I write about it in my latest book, there was a hit on him in prison and he went to witness protection program.

• 35:38Patrick Bet-David?

  This is Sergey?

• 35:38Speaker 00

  Sergey, yeah.

• 35:39Patrick Bet-David?

  So he's still around?

• 35:40Speaker 00

  Sergey was, no Sergey passed away a couple of years ago.

• 35:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Naturally.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  Naturally, yeah. Irish was murdered in 1989, right after Sonny and him were convicted of the conspiracy to kill the outlaws that was set up by Tony Tate. It gets very convoluted and complicated. You almost need a program to follow these situations that happen.

• 36:05Patrick Bet-David?

  When you profile different leaders, you'll see a different way they are. Like you'll say, ooh, that guy's extremely jealous. He is extremely envious if anybody else gets more attention than me. That guy's just flat out ice cold ruthless, okay? He's a dealmaker. As long as he makes money, he's happy, he's not killing nobody. That guy is, you know, extremely brilliant, strategic and, you know, he's the kind of guy that'll look at your face and smile and you'll walk away saying, I just had a great meeting with Bobby. Thirty minutes later you're dead.

• 36:42Speaker 00

  And he shoots you in the head.

• 36:43Patrick Bet-David?

  And he shoots you in the head, right? So what was Sonny? What was his profile? Because you've spent a lot of time with him.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, you know, Sonny's a very complicated man. I'm gonna give you an example of, if it wasn't Sonny's idea, it wasn't a good idea. No matter if it benefited everybody or not. I had been trying to resolve the Nordic bike war. The Bandidos and the Hells Angels were fighting in the Scandinavian countries and.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  They were very well equipped and I, you know, I know it's difficult or can be difficult to get guns in some of the European countries. And I was, how are these guys getting these rocket launchers? They're shooting rockets in each other's clubhouses. They're armed with automatic weapons, handguns, grenades and whatnot. Well, I find out that each town has a militia. And at the end of the town, there is a armory. And the armory is secured with just a padlock. So these clubs are going around popping these padlocks and they're arming themselves.

• 37:55Speaker 00

  I had negotiated with George Weggers, who was, he's no longer alive. He was the international leader of the Bandidos at the time. We were at odds with each other when we first started negotiating. I became very close friends with him as, as time passed and we negotiated a peace between the Hells Angels and the Bandidos in Europe. We didn't want, we were doing it for selfish reasons. We didn't want the war to bleed into the United States because it would have just been a mess. And my position was it was just something that the feds would have loved. You know, we're in the United States now killing each other. I've always had suspicion at some point in time, the government is going to go after

• 38:40Speaker 00

  all these motorcycle clubs, Indonesia and their trademarks and whatnot. And that was one of the things that I was worried about. But I had negotiated with George Weggers. George Weggers and I were on great, you know, great terms, great relationship. And George Weggers and I made an agreement. And he had mapped out a map with a, the United States map and mapped out an area and then signed it. And he said, as long as he was leader of the Bandidos, this would be the area they wouldn't encroach on our areas. We had an area marked out.

• 39:24Speaker 00

  I took that map to the meeting, to officers meeting and Sonny was there and.

• 39:31Speaker 00

  I petitioned him to come with me to this meeting. I said, let's all agree to this here in the room. It was all filled with Hells Angels presidents. I go, let's agree to this. Let's go meet George Wiggers together with his, you know, delegation of banditos. And I said, let's secure this. And I go, this is good for the Hells Angels. And I said, if Sonny Barger walks into that room with me, I go, they'll give me whatever we want. And he thought about it. He wouldn't give me an answer. And so I shelved it. The end of the meeting came, I said, Sonny, what are we gonna do? You gonna come? And he goes, you know what? I'm not going. And I said, why? I go, this benefits the Hells Angels.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  Why won't you go? And he told me, because I just don't like them. And he was willing to keep the war going, to create more conflicts. My position was, I didn't want to see any more Hells Angels in court, ultimately in prison, or finally in a graveyard. And he didn't care. That's the attitude Sonny had. And people knew it. And if you crossed him, you didn't know what he was gonna do. Terry the Tramp, Harry the Horse. I mean, these are people up store. These are people that, they're still unsolved murders. It's now, this stuff happened in the seventies. If you look, the decade of the seventies was very

• 40:58Speaker 00

  difficult for Hells Angels. There's a lot of unsolved murders still. To this day, they're not solved. Tiny, the guy's six-six, 350 pounds, he vanishes in the thin air.

• 41:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Tough guy to vanish.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, a big guy to vanish. So when you have acts of violence like this, whether real or imagined, you know, did Tiny disappear, or did he?

• 41:27Patrick Bet-David?

  What was Tiny's name? Tiny?

• 41:28Speaker 00

  I just knew him by Tiny.

• 41:29Patrick Bet-David?

  That's it?

• 41:30Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 41:31Patrick Bet-David?

  And he was in Hells Angels?

• 41:32Speaker 00

  He was a Hells Angel. He was vice president.

• 41:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, can you see who Tiny, Hells Angels, six-six?

• 41:38Speaker 00

  Oakland.

• 41:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Oakland.

• 41:40Speaker 00

  Because there were three Tines in the Hells Angels, so.

• 41:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Go to images.

• 41:47Speaker 00

  Tiny Walters? Yep.

• 41:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it Tiny Walters?

• 41:50Speaker 00

  Yep, that's him.

• 41:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Six-six, famously vanished after the 1969 film, Hells Angels 69. Can you pull up his image, Rob? See what he looks like?

• 42:03Speaker 00

  He fell on one of the, uh, Oakland protesters when Sonny and the Oakland Hells Angels, uh, uh, went to disrupt the Vietnam, uh, peace march. Uh, Tiny fell on one of the, uh, there he is right there in the lower left-hand corner. There he is. Uh, he fell on one of the Oakland police officers and broke his leg. He didn't do it intentionally. It was just...

• 42:27Patrick Bet-David?

  That's how big he was.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:29Patrick Bet-David?

  So he disappears. Okay.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  He disappears.

• 42:31Patrick Bet-David?

  So, uh, Sonny, can you pull up Sonny's picture so we can see what he looks like? Sonny lived a full life. He died at 83. It's not like he... Yeah, that's Sonny right there. Born October 8th, uh, 1938. Uh, so the first time you meet him when you roll up to his place, 1978. You've been there now for, uh, four years. You've been a member. And when you walk up to him, see him for the first time, what was he talking to you about? What was your impression of him? Were you impressed? Were you like, "Oh, my God, I can't believe I'm meeting my hero"?

• 42:59Speaker 00

  We talked about the war with the Mongols.

• 43:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 43:02Speaker 00

  Talked about, uh, my political rise. Uh, he, uh, he had an interesting philosophy. We... Not that particular day, but in the future day, we start talking about members and, uh, he said, "You had a pretty good run here, George." He goes, uh, you know, "You get... You came a long way fast." And he goes, "You know, a lot of these guys," he goes, "they come here," and he goes, "I let them burn themselves out." He goes, uh, "Just filler for us." And I said, "Well, you know," I said, "I don't really want to, uh, take that posture about a, a brother." And, uh, that was how he saw people. He didn't care, you know? People were expendable to him. And it's, you know, it's obvious by, uh, uh, the things that happened. Tiny was a, uh...

• 43:49Speaker 00

  He was part of Hells Angels sixty-nine, that movie. Terry the Tramp was very popular in that movie, Hells Angels sixty-nine. Terry the Tramp was a very flamboyant, and he kinda stole the show in Hells Angels sixty-nine. And he wound up with a hot shot, you know what a hot shot is? Hot shot, if somebody has a propensity to use narcotics, like to shoot them interveniously, you can mix up a special concoction and they shoot themselves with it and it collapses their lungs and they wind up, uh, ODing is what they do. And that's how Tiny died. Animal, I got off track.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  Paul Animal Hibbits and I, he confessed to me in nineteen, probably seventy-seven or seventy-eight, that he, uh, he was there when the hot shot was given to Terry.

• 44:47Patrick Bet-David?

  He was there present when it was given to him?

• 44:49Speaker 00

  He was present, yeah.

• 44:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Who gave it to him? Was it coming, a shot coming from Sonny?

• 44:53Speaker 00

  Well, it came from Sonny. Sonny wasn't there. He sent over Animal, and Animal never told me who his accomplice was. I was told later that it was Bobby Dirt that had assisted him.

• 45:07Patrick Bet-David?

  You guys know how to pick names.

• 45:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, we got some names.

• 45:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Legit names.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  And you know, I want to tell you a funny story and then we'll get back on this. In court in two thousand two.

• 45:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that Bobby Dirt?

• 45:19Speaker 00

  Bobby the Dirt. In two thousand two, a judge, Superior Court Judge Ventura ruled that it was perfectly realistic to think that Hells Angels only went by monikers. Because the district attorney was saying, this is, I want to know their exact names. I said, I don't know his name, you know?

• 45:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you imagine? But what's your name, by the way? Honestly, I forgot my own name. I just know it's.

• 45:49Speaker 00

  And how convenient.

• 45:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. In the military, we used to call each other by our last name. When I was in the army, it was not, like, you would talk to Mendoza, I'm like, what's your first name? We don't even know your first name. It was always last name. David Jones, Mendoza, Tucker. It was always a, uh, the last name we'd go by. So, you meet him the first time, seventy-eight. For how long did you guys have a good relationship together?

• 46:13Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web. Like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration blog, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 46:41Speaker 00

  It was on and off. The first time I defied him was, I want to say, early 80s. And he had gotten mad. He had petitioned me to go talk to a group of guys. He wanted a guy back in the club that had been pushed out, a gentleman by the name of Rotten Richard. There's another.

• 47:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Rotten Richard.

• 47:07Speaker 00

  Rotten Richard. And he, he wanted him back in the club. And Sonny sent me as an emissary to go talk to this group of people. And it kind of has an ironic ending at the meeting. We have this big meeting and the guys say, "He'll never, ever be back in the Hells Angels, ever." And Sonny publicly is starting, people are starting to publicly argue with Sonny, which I think that's something that didn't happen a lot. And Sonny said, "Well, you know what, man? You guys are making a big mistake because he's a good dude." And these guys said, "No, he's rotten."

• 47:53Speaker 00

  That's why he got the name Rotten Richard. And they didn't want him back in the club. He had been involved in a double homicide at a Hells Angel clubhouse.

• 48:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Killing members.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  These were two gentlemen that came from either Georgia or Texas. I can't remember. And they wanted to become Hells Angels. And we used to have what we called the acid test. You give people LSD and.

• 48:21Patrick Bet-David?

  They'll talk.

• 48:22Speaker 00

  They'll talk, see how they hold their mud. And one of the guys went over the deep end and they were trying to restrain him. They killed him accidentally and.

• 48:34Speaker 00

  So what do they do with his partner, you know? And the order came down, well, one guy's gotta go, the other guy's gotta go. They wound up killing two Hells Angels. There was a gentleman named Whispering Bill Pfeiffer that had throat cancer. And he got arrested for something unrelated along with his son. And he said, how'd you like to solve a couple of murders? And he directed them to go to George Baby Huey Wetheren's house and his ranch. And he said, check the well. At the bottom of the well, you're gonna find two bodies.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  And they were the gentlemen that got killed at the clubhouse. And then taken and buried in this burial ground, I think is how they described it. Now, you talk about the Mongols earlier. What started the conflict with the Mongols? One of the people, you had Whispering Bill Pfeiffer, but you had an additional informant, Chester Green. He was a Hells Angel as well. He gets kicked out of the club for testifying against other members. You cannot do that, yeah. The golden rule. Instead of going into the witness protection program like Whispering Bill did, he goes down to Long Beach and becomes a Mongol.

• 49:58Speaker 00

  And that was part of the problem between the Hells Angels and the Mongols. The cops always say it started over the California bottom rocker. That was just part of the problem, you know? You've got Chester Green, a former Hells Angel Bay Area member, who testified against the Hells Angels. Now, as a Mongol member, you've got a Bud Green. His brother runs off with the Hells Angels. Chester, right there, runs off with a...

• 50:31Speaker 00

  Hells Angels ex-wife.

• 50:34Patrick Bet-David?

  That's never good.

• 50:35Speaker 00

  That's never good. And, uh, so.

• 50:39Patrick Bet-David?

  He gets killed.

• 50:40Speaker 00

  No, he, he winds up. The first night, we had a physical problem with the Mongols. The Hells Angels and Bud Green see each other. Never, never said a word. One, the Hells Angel hits Bud Green, a fight breaks out. And it's, uh, sixty, uh, Hells Angels fighting, uh, excuse me, sixty Mongols fighting nine Hells Angels. We got in this fight. The reason they had such an accurate count is one of the Hells Angels with us is also a government informant. So his handlers were at that fight.

• 51:22Patrick Bet-David?

  God.

• 51:23Speaker 00

  And.

• 51:23Patrick Bet-David?

  They reported sixty to nine.

• 51:25Speaker 00

  Yes, and what they had to make a split decision. Do we intercede and blow the cover or do we let them fight it out? And they just, they chose to let them fight it out.

• 51:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Anybody get killed or?

• 51:37Speaker 00

  No, the police, a rookie cop came into the middle of the fight with a six-shot revolver. I remember looking at his gun. I was there, I remember looking at his gun and I'm thinking, well, he's only got six shots. But I don't think.

• 51:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Sixty-three of us will make it.

• 51:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I, I, I, uh, he broke up the fight. And a pretty brave police officer. I mean, here you got.

• 52:05Patrick Bet-David?

  This is what city, this is where?

• 52:07Speaker 00

  This is in Orange County.

• 52:08Patrick Bet-David?

  What part, where in Orange County?

• 52:10Speaker 00

  I don't know, it was at the, like, Great Western exhibit. One of these, these places. And what was going on was a new, uh, event was, were starting. They were called bike swap meets. And, uh, that's what it was. It was a bike swap meet, you know, which I thought was a terrible idea because they have these bands. They have all these motorcycle parts on the floor and they're selling beer. And everybody's bringing in whiskey and pouring whiskey into their beer. Uh, it was just a recipe for, yeah, it was a recipe for disaster, you know, and there was.

• 52:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Is this, is this where you're seeing, at what point are you like, I don't know if I like the Sonny guy. And I don't know if, you know, I can align with him. And you guys have two different ways of doing things. You, you know, you kind of want to make it, you know, an independent decentralized way of running. He wants to run like an empire.

• 53:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, let, let me tell you something. You said some really interesting, you know. I never really made up my mind, you know, sometimes I loved him, sometimes I hated him, you know? He was like family to me, he was a mentor to me. Uh, I didn't agree with him, you know, him, him and I got in an argument one time and he told me, he goes, you know what, George? He goes, I burn every bridge I cross.

• 53:25Patrick Bet-David?

  He said that?

• 53:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, he told me that. He said, I burn every bridge I cross. And I said, well, you know, as a military man and an ex department defense worker. I said, I think I would leave at least one bridge for supplies or for retreat, depending on the, the situation. And he said, no, I don't care. And I think ultimately.

• 53:48Speaker 00

  I, I think Sonny care, Sonny saw the club as something that belonged to him. Other members saw themselves as part of a club. And I think that's a distinction as leaders, uh, uh, Sonny didn't make that distinction. This club was his, uh, as far as he was concerned. Terry the Tramp, uh, uh, outshines him in a movie, give him a hot shot, you know, uh, get rid of that guy.

• 54:12Patrick Bet-David?

  That's unbelievable.

• 54:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is, but it's the truth, you know?

• 54:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he, was he a gambler? Was he a drinker? Was he a womanizer? Which one, what, what was, what was his thing?

• 54:21Speaker 00

  He had a, uh, he had a weakness for women, uh, but he didn't chase women. I never saw him chasing women, but, uh.

• 54:29Speaker 00

  I'll tell you a little story. He was taken to a an underground nightclub in the Bay Area where there was live sex acts being performed. And he fell in love with the star of the show. So I've been warned not to talk about her.

• 54:52Patrick Bet-David?

  So there's a live performance going on?

• 54:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:55Patrick Bet-David?

  And he falls in love with the girl? You know who John McAfee is?

• 54:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, John McAfee, sure. Yeah, he's, he's, he died in Spain.

• 55:03Patrick Bet-David?

  He died in Spain. Do you know his latest wife? How he fell in love with his wife? Do you know the story?

• 55:07Speaker 00

  I have no idea, but I bet you him like me right now.

• 55:09Patrick Bet-David?

  If I tell you this story, you will not, I don't even know if I want to tell this story. Rob, do you know the story or no? You shaking your head like you know the story? Yeah. What's the story, Rob? The hammocks? So he goes, he pays her as a prostitute to please him. And he walks out, he says, this is the grace, he says, I, he says, they asked him, said, when did you know you were gonna marry her? He says, I've never met anybody that gave me as good of a BJ as she did. That's when I knew she was my wife. So you're saying to me, Sonny was kinda like a John McAfee?

• 55:44Speaker 00

  Perhaps. And, you know, I'm gonna tell you this. He did wind up marrying that girl.

• 55:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Stop it.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  No, he did.

• 55:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Did he kill the other guy that was performing?

• 55:53Speaker 00

  I don't know what happened to him. But he did marry the girl. They moved to Arizona together. And it was revealed in, I'm gonna say 2002 or 2003. Not only was Sonny and her estranged ultimately.

• 56:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Is this Z? Is this?

• 56:12Speaker 00

  No, this is not Z. This is Noel.

• 56:16Patrick Bet-David?

  I know Noel as well.

• 56:17Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 56:18Patrick Bet-David?

  I've read about her.

• 56:19Speaker 00

  She was a paid FBI informant.

• 56:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Noel was?

• 56:22Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 56:22Patrick Bet-David?

  So was Z?

• 56:23Speaker 00

  Well, I, I think Z was, but I don't have proof. I have, I have my gut.

• 56:28Patrick Bet-David?

  So wait, Noel is the one that's doing live performance and was a informant?

• 56:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, later, she became an informant. She was getting paid a thousand dollars a week. To give information to the FBI.

• 56:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow, he had no clue.

• 56:41Speaker 00

  He had no clue. Well, I, I hope he didn't.

• 56:45Patrick Bet-David?

  You said, maybe he did, and he was.

• 56:46Speaker 00

  Who knows?

• 56:47Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, I mean. Was he an informant or no, himself?

• 56:49Speaker 00

  Well, I, you know, nobody, there's people that speculate now, and I think it's unfair to do that. He's not here. Uh, I don't, you know, there are people out there that say that he did inappropriate things.

• 57:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, what are you doing there with Tony Robbins event to the, there is no affiliation between the two.

• 57:06Speaker 00

  There may be, and we may uncover it right now.

• 57:10Patrick Bet-David?

  No, but what, is that her? Yes, sir. That's Noel in the middle. Yep. Okay, so she's very attractive, and this was, who, this was his, his wife?

• 57:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:21Patrick Bet-David?

  So they get married?

• 57:22Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:22Patrick Bet-David?

  And you met Noel?

• 57:23Speaker 00

  Uh, yes.

• 57:24Patrick Bet-David?

  How was she to you when you meet her?

• 57:25Speaker 00

  Very cordial, uh, but you know, you have to understand, uh, there's a rule, you know, and you mess with somebody's lady in the Hells Angels, uh, you get not only kicked out, God only knows what else happens. And, you know, I, I was so far, it was the one that said it, he's, he made a comment, uh, you know, he said, there's only a couple of hundred women you can't chase in the United States. He goes, it's not that hard, and somebody said, maybe they should wear a black armband.

• 57:59Patrick Bet-David?

  What a great line, though. You know, you got a hundred women to choose from, just leave these two hundred alone.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, you know, Sonny, uh, there was a, a woman, uh, I can't think of her name. It's the Phoenix Magazine. She did a, uh, a very provocative story. Sonny, Sonny had a, Sonny liked attention, you know, him and I got in a big argument one time. He did an interview in, uh, Rolling Stone Magazine. Unbeknownst to him, uh, Rolling Stone Magazine really didn't like the Hells Angels after the Altamont incident. And he did this story in, uh, uh, Rolling Stone, very provocative, uh, about murders. There you go.

• 58:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Nineteen seventy-two?

• 58:47Speaker 00

  Well, no, this is a nineteen seventy-nine, uh, Masters of Menace, Michael Douglas is on the cover, if I recall correctly.

• 58:57Speaker 00

  Mine's not as sharp as it used to be, but I, uh, it, Masters of Menace, uh, and it's, uh,

• 59:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that it?

• 59:08Speaker 00

  That's it.

• 59:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Seventy-nine.

• 59:09Speaker 00

  Masters of Menace, nineteen seventy-nine.

• 59:11Patrick Bet-David?

  This infamous gang has traded its colors and cycles for dark suits and Lincoln Continentals. What do they mean?

• 59:18Speaker 00

  Well, I never drove a Continental. I drove a Cadillac.

• 59:20Patrick Bet-David?

  You did? I'd rather have a Cadillac than a Continental, bro.

• 59:24Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 59:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, any day of the week.

• 59:26Speaker 00

  Uh, El Dorado, thank you.

• 59:29Speaker 00

  You know, he did that article and he did it without permission of the club and, you know, I, this is one of the first times I confronted him in the meeting. I said, you know, Ralph, I said, if you would have followed protocol and brought it up in the meeting here, I go, you would have realized, he didn't read Rolling Stone magazine. I said, you would have realized that since Altamont, uh, there's been a series of negative, uh, uh, you know, stories from these Rolling Stone investigating reporters. I'm sorry, that's Sonny's name. That's what I called him. That's what I called him.

• 1:00:03Patrick Bet-David?

  But that's his real name?

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  That's his real name. Hey, Ralph, and, and, you know.

• 1:00:07Patrick Bet-David?

  How long did it take until you guys had that kind of a relationship? You meet him seventy-eight, when did you guys become super close?

• 1:00:13Speaker 00

  Probably in nineteen eighty-two, when he said, I'm dying of cancer. And he goes, I want you and Irish, uh, to take over. And Irish, and Irish was a Los Angeles Hells Angel. Now, Irish was now a very powerful Oakland Hells Angel who took Sonny's place. So Irish and I had a special relationship that if Sonny maybe had done a little bit more vetting, he would have understood, uh, our relationship. We were very close. And we, Irish and I had an inside joke that, uh, Sonny was so big and so, uh, uh, popular that it took two of us to replace him. Uh, because he turned over, he said, George, you and Irish are gonna do the interviews from now on.

• 1:00:59Speaker 00

  They'll cut my voice box out. Uh, I'm not gonna be able to communicate. You know he had cancer, correct? And they, they cut out his, uh, uh, voice box and, uh, he had to learn to talk again.

• 1:01:10Patrick Bet-David?

  How bad was it?

• 1:01:12Speaker 00

  They didn't think he was gonna make it.

• 1:01:14Patrick Bet-David?

  But was he able to communicate?

• 1:01:15Speaker 00

  He did, yeah. Uh, uh, he yelled at me more than once with that voice box. He placed his thumb over the, uh, uh, box. And he, he could generate, uh, and, you know, certainly mechanical voice, but to me.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  Sounded like Sonny's voice. It was still sounded like Sonny's voice. I knew Sonny's voice.

• 1:01:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Commanding.

• 1:01:35Speaker 00

  It was very commanding, uh, and he would just, the veins in his neck would pop out from straining. And, uh, I think you can, uh, uh, there's some stuff on the internet. You can hear him. And he very seldom did interviews after that. I talked him into doing a, uh, interview in, uh,

• 1:01:56Speaker 00

  two thousand, no, nineteen eighty-eight or eighty-nine called In Search of the Hells Angels. And Sonny and I were the hosts of this show. It's, uh, we hadn't done a, a big TV show in a long time. And we were on the show. Hunter Thompson was on the show.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  And, uh,

• 1:02:18Patrick Bet-David?

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• 1:02:59Speaker 03

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• 1:03:29Speaker 00

  There's Sonny right there talking.

• 1:03:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Which show is this?

• 1:03:32Speaker 00

  This is in Search of the Hells Angels, I think.

• 1:03:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Let me see it, Rob.

• 1:03:36Speaker 04

  The other thing with Tucker Rocky, advertising their clothing.

• 1:03:40Speaker 00

  I hear his voice.

• 1:03:40Speaker 04

  And that and their book, Daddy Elvis fetus. But I don't have any one bit thing that makes me a lot of money.

• 1:03:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he a smoker?

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  A lot of little things.

• 1:03:49Speaker 00

  Three packs a day.

• 1:03:50Speaker 04

  That make me a fairly decent living.

• 1:03:52Speaker 00

  And then became an Avnik production.

• 1:03:54Patrick Bet-David?

  After this?

• 1:03:54Speaker 04

  I guess you could say I'm a little bit of a smoker.

• 1:03:56Patrick Bet-David?

  How dramatically did he change after he got cancer? Did he change? Did he become softer? Did he become more gentle? Did he become more?

• 1:04:02Speaker 00

  No, he seemed like he hadn't changed a damn bit. I'll tell you the tenacity on this guy. You figure, he comes back from prison in 94, maybe 93, I can't remember exactly.

• 1:04:15Speaker 00

  He does four years.

• 1:04:18Speaker 00

  He goes back to Oakland and he's, "I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do this." He gets shut down. Because, which you have to understand, here's the guy that... How good is his judgment? He's the guy that said Tony Tate was the Hells Angels of the future. And he decimated, you know, the Oakland Charter. Chico goes to jail for 40 years. Kenny Owens goes to jail for 41 years. Cruzey does 18 years, gets deported as soon as he gets out. So you have all these things that impacted the Charter. Because Sonny endorsed somebody.

• 1:05:02Speaker 00

  And, you know, perhaps it's not fair for me to lay it out that way. But that's the facts and that's the truth.

• 1:05:12Speaker 00

  But he packs up and goes to Arizona and starts over. This guy's 70 years old. And he packs up, goes to Arizona. Makes the dirty dozen, turns a dirty dozen uh uh into Hell's Angels. So now he's got a complete state that he's completely dominant of and uh.

• 1:05:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Does he take Noel with him or is he with Z at this point?

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  He takes Noel with him and.

• 1:05:38Patrick Bet-David?

  How loyal did Noel stay to him?

• 1:05:40Speaker 00

  Well, she took a thousand dollars a week from the FBI almost.

• 1:05:44Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm talking loyal like other men like you know.

• 1:05:47Speaker 00

  Oh, I think she was loyal to him.

• 1:05:48Patrick Bet-David?

  She was loyal to him.

• 1:05:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think she was absolutely loyal to him.

• 1:05:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Respect, at least she was loyal, that's good.

• 1:05:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:53Patrick Bet-David?

  So while she's.

• 1:05:54Speaker 00

  Except for the thousand dollars a week.

• 1:05:55Patrick Bet-David?

  A week from the FBI.

• 1:05:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Patrick Bet-David?

  So when uh so when Noel's going through that and he's going through his son. If he's doing so much harm to everybody, how come nobody kills him? How come he lives to eighty-three? How does he live to eighty-three?

• 1:06:08Speaker 00

  Well, I think that.

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  I'm gonna I'm gonna say something here that a lot of people know the Hell's Angels history and perhaps are watching this. Go, that's bullshit, but it's not bullshit. When I was in Spain, uh I was told that he was this close to getting voted out of the club for all of his antics over the years. And I'm not supposed to talk to anybody in the Hell's Angels. I'm out bad, uh uh I'm at odds with them. Uh they're not allowed to talk to me, but I continue to get correspondence from Hell's Angels. Ask me my opinion of things and what do you think about this and do you think we ought to do that? And they wrote me and said, we're gonna kick Sonny Barger out of the club. What do you think?

• 1:06:55Speaker 00

  And my response to them, uh whether it impacted them or didn't impact them, my response to them was. That's the stupidest thing you guys could ever do. I go, here's a guy you followed for sixty-three years and now you're gonna kick him out of the club because you think he's a clown? I go, what kind of message is that to the outlaw bike culture? I go, sit on your hands, man, and just let it go and uh uh don't give him a free rein. And I, you know, that's what they ultimately did. Did it have anything to do with George Christie? I doubt it, but uh I think.

• 1:07:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Why didn't nobody kill him though?

• 1:07:29Speaker 00

  I don't know. Maybe they were afraid. Uh, maybe, uh, uh.

• 1:07:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he that pathetic?

• 1:07:35Speaker 00

  That's, that's a very, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but that's a cavalier statement. Why didn't somebody just kill him?

• 1:07:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, if you think about like Paul Castellano would make the money and he would keep the money.

• 1:07:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:07:46Patrick Bet-David?

  And then they're like, well, why aren't you sharing?

• 1:07:48Speaker 00

  Why don't we get rid of it?

• 1:07:49Patrick Bet-David?

  In a White House, but we got, so you know, the, the, like he, in, in business, it's like somebody saying, why are you keeping a hundred percent equity to company and why are you not sharing the equity? But, but why are we not able to have a piece of this, right? So to me, was he at least a guy that took care of people financially? Was he a guy that?

• 1:08:07Speaker 00

  Sonny?

• 1:08:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Sonny.

• 1:08:08Speaker 00

  I don't think so.

• 1:08:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 1:08:09Speaker 00

  I don't believe so. Uh, but look, you know, what you're saying is, is very valid. But why did Paul Castellano wind up dead in front of Spark Steakhouse? There's one reason why and only one reason. John Gotti. Cause John Gotti had the balls to do it. And imagine failing at killing John, uh, excuse me, Paul Castellano. Uh, same thing with Sonny. Somebody goes to Arizona to Sonny's house and, uh, they fail killing him. I mean, you know, that's, that's a pretty heavy, uh.

• 1:08:45Patrick Bet-David?

  If you fail?

• 1:08:46Speaker 00

  If you fail.

• 1:08:47Patrick Bet-David?

  But I mean, if you're a professional, you're not gonna fail. You know, if you're in that space, you're not gonna fail because you guys were good at explosives. You guys were, you're the, the, it was a very different, um, uh, um, m- methods. You guys, by the way, how did you guys make money? What was the business model of making money in Hell's Angels?

• 1:09:05Speaker 00

  Well, look, my position has always been, let me, let me back up. The government's position has always been the Hell's Angels are a criminal organization. My position has always been the Hell's Angels are not a criminal organization.

• 1:09:25Speaker 00

  But I will concede, it's an organization with criminals in it. Now, some of the guys are so greedy that they've got these little side things going. They don't share them with the general membership. They want the money for themselves. Kenny Owens and I were friends. Kenny Owens went to prison for forty-one years. He was a crank cooker. I, in nineteen eighty-six, I was indicted by the FBI. They said I ordered somebody's murder. And it was a government sting. Ultimately, I spent a year in federal prison. Ultimately, Barry Tarlo, you know, got me not guilty. And I beat, I beat the government, which is very difficult to do. They got, what, a ninety-eight percent conviction rate?

• 1:10:09Speaker 00

  And I, I think that, I lost my train of thought.

• 1:10:18Patrick Bet-David?

  As you question, how'd you guys make money?

• 1:10:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay, so, so what happens is, people doing their little things don't share it with people. So I go to Kenny Owens and I say, Kenny, I got a big bill coming up. This is a necessary, goes to him, because I'm in jail. And I said, can you give me ten thousand dollars to apply to my legal fees? And he goes, George, I'd love to help you out, but I'm broke. And this is the message that comes back to me. So, I don't know, six months later, three months later, I don't, it's not very long. The feds raid his house, he's got three million dollars and thirty pounds of crank.

• 1:11:03Speaker 00

  So, what's funny and ironic is, he gets out of prison, he gets sentenced to forty-one years. He does like twenty-six years, twenty-seven years. And the end of the two thousand eight or whatever, he gets out, he gets paroled out. And he's not allowed to be around the club, but if you bring your motorcycle to him, because he's got a motorcycle shop, you can take your motorcycle. The government can't deny him for making a living. So I ride up there, I take my motorcycle there and have him do some electrical work on it. And He looks at me and I look at him. I haven't seen him in years. And he was about that $10,000 shortage. And it was, you know, that's the first thing he said to me. We laughed about it and uh.

• 1:11:49Patrick Bet-David?

  But was that the way it was or were there guys that would go out of their way to help you out?

• 1:11:53Speaker 00

  Well, a lot of guys did help me out.

• 1:11:54Patrick Bet-David?

  They did help you?

• 1:11:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I think uh.

• 1:11:56Patrick Bet-David?

  What was the business model? Like, like I read one of the stories, like this guy named Josh Adams, you know, the 23-year-old, the airman who had the 700,000 Valium and Vicodin pills and I don't know what it was.

• 1:12:08Speaker 00

  I think it was closer to a million.

• 1:12:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Million pills?

• 1:12:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:12:10Patrick Bet-David?

  What is that story about?

• 1:12:12Speaker 00

  Well, my son and his friends uh

• 1:12:19Speaker 00

  had a friend that became a, an airman. And his job was he worked in the pharmacy. And he had complete control over the ordering, the distribution. And my son, little George, rest in peace, he's no longer with us.

• 1:12:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Sorry to hear.

• 1:12:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, a great kid.

• 1:12:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Long time ago?

• 1:12:43Speaker 00

  Uh, 10 years ago. He was 39 at the time.

• 1:12:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he in the life or no? He didn't go in?

• 1:12:49Speaker 00

  Oh, he was a Hell's Angel.

• 1:12:50Patrick Bet-David?

  He was a Hell's Angel?

• 1:12:51Speaker 00

  He was a Hell's Angel. He, him and several of the, we called them the YGs, the young guys. They were part of the new crew that joined the club in the mid 90s. They started bringing uh, Vicodin into town and uh

• 1:13:09Speaker 00

  saturated the, the market and uh you figure

• 1:13:15Speaker 00

  what do you sell a Vicodin pill for?

• 1:13:19Speaker 00

  What does it cost? The government paid for it all. I mean, these guys were cutting the money up.

• 1:13:24Patrick Bet-David?

  This is 80s?

• 1:13:25Speaker 00

  No, this is in 2009, 1999.

• 1:13:29Patrick Bet-David?

  1999.

• 1:13:30Speaker 00

  2000.

• 1:13:32Speaker 00

  So.

• 1:13:34Speaker 00

  Fifty seven, fifty six people, thirty six people got indicted. And, uh, including myself. Uh, they said we were controlling the Vicodin market in Ventura County. And of course, it was a fifty nine count racketeering, state racketeering charge. And it collapsed under its own weight. I mean, it was, it was a house of cards to begin with. But, uh, they, uh, they being my son, Adams, uh, Hugio, Batilo, uh, these various people. They were bringing the Vicodin to town. You, you know how they got caught?

• 1:14:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:12Speaker 00

  They were looking for business records. They were doing a forensic anal- analysis on me. And they went to my ex-wife's house to see if there were, uh, uh, ledger books there of my business practices. And while they were there, they found thirty thousand Vicodin in my son's wardrobe closet. I didn't have a, a key to the house. I had no dominion over the, uh, Vicodin. But they indicted my son. They indicted my wife, who was a, ex-wife, who was a Canadian citizen, uh, in an effort to get me.

• 1:14:55Speaker 00

  They were basically holding my, uh, family hostage.

• 1:14:58Patrick Bet-David?

  At this point, are you somebody the feds are targeting to get?

• 1:15:01Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:15:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you a big target?

• 1:15:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:15:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Ninety seven?

• 1:15:03Speaker 00

  I'm the head of my, I'm top of my game. The rumor in law enforcement is Sonny's retired in Arizona. George Christie's now, uh, the-

• 1:15:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Why does everybody retire in Arizona or Florida?

• 1:15:15Speaker 00

  That's where Banano retired.

• 1:15:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, everybody, what is it with Arizona?

• 1:15:18Speaker 00

  Is that where you're going?

• 1:15:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that where they give you annuities? Is it like benefit plan?

• 1:15:22Speaker 00

  Well, you know, they have a special gangster retirement plan there. You know?

• 1:15:25Patrick Bet-David?

  A special gangster retirement fund.

• 1:15:28Speaker 00

  So, I, you know, where's Sammy the Bull?

• 1:15:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Arizona.

• 1:15:31Speaker 00

  Okay. I'm being a smart ass.

• 1:15:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, no, I know you are. I know. So, so a million pills, let's say at the, I don't know.

• 1:15:39Speaker 00

  And you know how they got caught? They come into the house.

• 1:15:42Patrick Bet-David?

  The thirty thousand pills.

• 1:15:43Speaker 00

  Yes, they come into the house, they find the thirty thousand. What they fail to realize, they get so excited, they stop the search for their ledger books and they focus on the pills. In the garage is another sixty thousand pills that they never discover because these guys are so inexperienced. Uh, and they, they just end the search. They go, we found it, you know? But you know how they got caught? They didn't take the pills out of the bottles. And the IBM codes were on the pills. And one of the detectives went to the company, ran the codes and they go, oh yeah, these are all going to Andrews Air Force Base,

• 1:16:28Speaker 00

  uh, out in the desert. And that's how they put it all together.

• 1:16:33Patrick Bet-David?

  At the time, pills are selling for what, two to eight dollars, black market?

• 1:16:36Speaker 00

  I, I think they were selling, uh, I think that they averaged, they told me they were paying fifty cents a pill.

• 1:16:45Patrick Bet-David?

  You guys were paying fifty cents?

• 1:16:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:47Patrick Bet-David?

  You got a really good deal on it.

• 1:16:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, and they, and they were, uh, uh, they were selling them, like you said, for five to ten dollars.

• 1:16:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Great margins, ten times.

• 1:16:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:56Patrick Bet-David?

  But then, so, so, okay, so, and by the way, it's, it's interesting because I'm.

• 1:17:01Speaker 00

  You're thinking about going in the pharmacy business.

• 1:17:04Patrick Bet-David?

  No, I actually, I had my best friend in the world, there was a dentist that was, uh, illegally in Glendale selling Vicodin pills to my best friend's dealer. And I met with this dealer, told him he can never sell it to my friend again, and he did, and my friend died taking fifty pills from Vicodin.

• 1:17:21Speaker 00

  And why did he take fifty?

• 1:17:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, he didn't take fifty. He started off with one, led to two, led to three.

• 1:17:27Speaker 00

  Okay, I got you.

• 1:17:28Patrick Bet-David?

  He gradually worked his way up.

• 1:17:29Speaker 00

  The tolerance gets, yeah.

• 1:17:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, oh, it was, he, he was, he was a, he was a mess. No matter how many Bible studies and stuff we would take this guy to, he was not gonna get off of it, but.

• 1:17:37Speaker 00

  But you know, let, let me, let me say something. I have two hip replacements. So I go to USC, they wanna replace my hip. Okay, replace my hip, so.

• 1:17:48Patrick Bet-David?

  USC LA, USC.

• 1:17:49Speaker 00

  USC LA, so the, uh.

• 1:17:54Speaker 00

  The procedures are success. The doctor tells me it's the worst hip I ever saw. You know, I got in a bike wreck and I was already hammered from running every day. I ran, I'm a jogger at that time. I don't do it anymore.

• 1:18:06Patrick Bet-David?

  You don't want to have a hip, that's a, it can be problematic.

• 1:18:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I get a hip replacement. What do they give me? They give me like a hundred and fifty Vicodin in this big bottle. And I said, what do I do with these? He goes, anytime you feel any pain, his exact words, pop a couple. And so, you know, I didn't know they were gonna string a.

• 1:18:29Patrick Bet-David?

  You're right. That's where the addiction comes from.

• 1:18:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 1:18:33Speaker 00

  And the, the doctors didn't realize it. This guy's a professional doctor. I mean, he was paramount in discovering these hip replacements. He was on the cutting edge and of hip replacements. And, I mean, here's a doctor, world renowned, winds up going to another country and becoming the head of the hip replacement stuff there. He doesn't know they're addicted. Nobody knew they were. They just, I, did they not know or did they not care? I mean, you know, you watch.

• 1:19:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Maybe at the beginning you don't know, but you've known for a while.

• 1:19:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, they figured it out.

• 1:19:11Patrick Bet-David?

  It's not like they don't know it's addicting. You know, you, you go to the dentist, they give it to you nowadays. So I'm like, you know, eh, eh, eh, take a couple of these, take a couple of these. No, but my friend, it was, it was a nasty situation what happened to. But going, going back to it, how different, how different was these biker gangs like Hell's Angels versus the Banano, the Gambino, the Colombo family? Who was more ruthless? W- w- was it, was it more you guys?

• 1:19:40Speaker 00

  I think that, that, and this is what I'll say, the.

• 1:19:48Speaker 00

  I have to define this. You know, in the mob, it's, you know, violence on violence. You know, the violence is on other members. In the outlaw motorcycle club, it's other people in the culture. It's a little, it's a little bit, I think it's a little bit spread out more. But this is one of the things I tell people. You know, people will make comments to me, cavil or comments. Oh, you know, the guy wound up getting killed. What did he do? Well, he informed on some people. Well, I mean, everybody knows what the culture is about. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a comment because you'll probably get some hate mail. The club, they hate it when you call it gangs.

• 1:20:31Speaker 00

  I mean, that's, you know, you describe it any way you want, it doesn't.

• 1:20:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Why, why is that?

• 1:20:35Speaker 00

  They just don't want to be called a gang. They want to be called a club.

• 1:20:38Patrick Bet-David?

  They want to be called a club?

• 1:20:39Speaker 00

  A club, yeah.

• 1:20:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it because of a tax benefit? Is it because of the membership?

• 1:20:43Speaker 00

  No, it's because of a, in a courtroom, you get in a courtroom, and this gang this, and this gang that. And, you know, one of the things in my last 2011 trial, my daughter's my attorney, and she was hammering the judge. I, you know, I don't want them calling the Hells Angels a gang in front of the jury.

• 1:21:06Patrick Bet-David?

  You don't want it, or she doesn't want it?

• 1:21:06Speaker 00

  She doesn't want to, because it makes me look bad as her client, you know? It paints a picture that I'm a bad guy. We hammered on that. That was one of the things we didn't want the jury exposed to. The other thing, which you might find really interesting, and I came up with this question. How many people on the jury watch Sons of Anarchy? And everybody's, you know, everybody, the whole room, there was like a panel of 76 jurors, and they're being drawn from. Everybody raised their hand. And as the jurors got interviewed, the next question was,

• 1:21:45Speaker 00

  do you believe that the leader knows what every individual is doing? And all the orders come from the top? And anybody that said, yes, we disqualify him, you know? And what my daughter was trying to do was set up a mistrial. And the judge, Judge Wu was smart enough to see what was happening. And he insisted.

• 1:22:14Speaker 00

  That we make a deal, you know, he goes, look, he told the US attorney. And it was pretty brave for the judge. He said, you know, you want this to be your career case. He goes, it's not. You don't have that kind of case. And I was sitting over there kind of thinking, oh, man, you know, I'm getting out of this one. And he looked at me and he said, and you, Mr. Christie, he goes, God only knows what you got away with the last 40 years. He goes, I want you guys to go down there, make an agreement in Judge Walters Court and come back with a deal. We went down there, we came back, we got an agreement. We came back and we both walked

• 1:22:56Speaker 00

  in the courtroom, the prosecutors and the feds and my daughter and investigators and myself. And Judge Wu said, in open court, he goes, well, he goes, obviously, we've got an agreement because both sides look pissed off. And that was his.

• 1:23:14Patrick Bet-David?

  That makes sense, though.

• 1:23:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. That was his philosophy, that if both sides were mad, we probably got a decent agreement.

• 1:23:22Patrick Bet-David?

  What were you guys against? What was the Hells Angels against? Like, for example, you know how when, I understand the enemy is Mongols, or the enemy is this, or the enemy is that, but what were some values? Like, were you pro-America? Were you, nobody messes with, because I know now it's international, now it's all over the place. But was there anything, a lot of former vets? So what were you against? What were you for?

• 1:23:47Speaker 00

  Certainly patriotic Americans. I mean, Trump recently himself said the Hells Angels were patriots. You know, I don't know if he believes.

• 1:24:00Patrick Bet-David?

  The only president that would ever say that?

• 1:24:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:24:05Speaker 00

  And I was amazing, you know, but I want to say something, you know, he went to that trial in New York.

• 1:24:13Speaker 00

  Do you know one of the people that showed up several times was Chuck Zito? Former New York Hells Angel.

• 1:24:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 1:24:19Speaker 00

  Him and Trump apparently know each other. And they showed up, but getting back on the subject, we're patriots. A lot of veterans, the club was established from veterans. I mean, I don't think at one time there were any non-veterans in the club.

• 1:24:38Speaker 00

  I tried to create a rule that never really got off the ground. I wanted to make it a automatic kick out. If anybody was caught dealing with any terrorist organizations like selling, buying weapons, narcotics, information, whatever it would be. And I don't know if it went over everybody's head or if people weren't worried about it. It just kind of stagnated and, you know, never got officially presented for a vote.

• 1:25:16Speaker 00

  But I, I think, you know, all outlaw bike clubs are patriotic, based in veterans, ex-military.

• 1:25:28Patrick Bet-David?

  So question for you, sometimes I wa- I watch how these people come from other countries here illegally.

• 1:25:35Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:25:36Patrick Bet-David?

  And you saw like in Minnesota, you know, the, the Somalis, they're taking billions of dollars on top of billions of dollars. And they're going in the streets and punking Americans, okay? And bullying Americans. They tried to do the George Floyd protest in Huntington Beach. And I think you guys showed up. I don't know if you saw that or not. The biker gang showed up.

• 1:25:54Speaker 00

  I heard about it.

• 1:25:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, showed up.

• 1:25:57Speaker 00

  This was recent?

• 1:25:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Recent, this is three years ago, four years ago, whatever the timeline was, Rob. We can get the time to be faction.

• 1:26:03Speaker 00

  I was in Spain when all that took place.

• 1:26:04Patrick Bet-David?

  You were in Spain when that happened, yeah. Where, where I'm going with this is, what, what, what, you know, the mob is no longer here. It's here, but it's not the way it was here in the fifty, sixty. Yeah, it's not. They can't because the business, you can't, how do you make money today? It's easy to catch you today.

• 1:26:19Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 1:26:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Um, but there were families in New York that would say, with what's happened in New York today, if the mob was still around, it wouldn't be happening today. Because there was a code, they kept the streets clean and if, like you say, they killed each other, right? You said violence on violence, different than, you know, Mongols and, and, uh, uh, Hells Angels and different biker, uh, uh, clubs. But how do you think if today you were still in there? And you're seeing America publicly going through what is going through in Minnesota? How do you think you guys would have handled it? Do you guys just stay out of it? Were there moments where you guys got involved and say, hey, listen, we may be who we are, but you don't cross the line and mess with America. This is the greatest country in the... Was there pride like that or did you guys stay out of it?

• 1:27:02Speaker 00

  Well, I, I think there, there was pride like that, but you know, when you start taking a political stance, uh, it becomes very cloudy.

• 1:27:17Speaker 00

  Where do you draw the line? What do you do? You know, I mean, there are particular individuals that, uh,

• 1:27:25Speaker 00

  would kill for this country because they did before.

• 1:27:29Speaker 00

  Do I promote it? I don't, I don't think so, you know? I, I think that, uh,

• 1:27:37Speaker 00

  this is a court, a, a society of checks and balances through courtrooms and, uh,

• 1:27:46Speaker 00

  you have to let the courts work their way, you know, wind their way. I mean, otherwise you're gonna, you know, it's like when I heard they were gonna disband the police when I was in Spain, I, you know, I just kinda chuckled. I go, oh, that's great. Yeah, disband the, uh, police and, uh, see who wants to run in the country. But, you know, these are hypothetical situations, hypothetical answers. Uh, I deal in facts and reality of what I can do and what I can't do and...

• 1:28:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Maybe history, maybe history to see, you know, what things...

• 1:28:22Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, what things you guys played a positive role in?

• 1:28:25Speaker 00

  Look.

• 1:28:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Were there, were there things that Hells Angels and Mongols played a positive role in?

• 1:28:30Speaker 00

  Absolutely. I think if, if you were to really research the history of the Ventura area, the Ventura Hells Angels. I saw the Ventura Hells Angels as a benefit to the community. The, uh, we ruled that town with an iron hand. We stopped drive-by shootings in that town.

• 1:28:53Speaker 00

  You weren't allowed to steal motorcycles in that town. We had rules, you know? Uh, you weren't allowed to cook drugs in that town. If you got caught cooking drugs, uh, you know, it was a, a problem.

• 1:29:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Anybody.

• 1:29:05Speaker 00

  Anybody, you know, including Hells Angels. We had a Hells Angels that became an informant and actually wound up here in Florida, in the state of Florida.

• 1:29:16Speaker 00

  He was cooking drugs with a guy and we found out and, uh, I went to the guy and the guy was so scared. He told me, he goes, so-and-so gave me permission. And I said, what are you talking about? I go, he would not do that. And he goes, no, he gave me permission, but I'm not allowed to talk about this.

• 1:29:37Patrick Bet-David?

  So he threw another guy under the bus?

• 1:29:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, he threw a Hells Angel under the bus.

• 1:29:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he telling the truth or was he lying?

• 1:29:42Speaker 00

  Yes, he was. The guy left. He got out of state.

• 1:29:44Patrick Bet-David?

  And that's the guy that came here?

• 1:29:45Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:29:47Patrick Bet-David?

  So tho- those are things, those are things, okay, interesting that you play some kind of a positive role on, on.

• 1:29:55Speaker 00

  Look, I'm gonna say something else. This is so funny. We didn't even allow bicycles to be stolen in the town. We had people coming to us and the clubhouse was like a public courthouse, if you will. People would come there and they would decide, uh, uh, in that room. We would decide in that room who was right, who was wrong, and we would say, okay, this is how this is gonna be.

• 1:30:21Patrick Bet-David?

  How was your relationship with cops? Did they like you guys?

• 1:30:23Speaker 00

  The old cops liked us. The new cops said, these guys need to butt out of our business. This is our job.

• 1:30:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you guys, did you guys buy the old cops or they just, were some of them bought?

• 1:30:35Speaker 00

  The Ventura cops were solid as they come. You know, I was very good friends with uh, some of the cops. And I'll tell you how we maintained my friendship with them is I never asked them to cross their line. And they never asked me to cross my line. And we had a, a great understanding, a great relationship. There's a couple of cops and I, you know, I don't care what people say, you know, I got accused of uh, being too friendly to the cops when I was leader of the club, you know, probably for two or three decades. I still, they text me, you know, hey George, how you doing? Yeah, I'm okay. I mean, these are guys that were the chief, the assistant chief, uh, the uh, the cop Brad, the district attorney, Michael Bradbury that came after me.

• 1:31:20Speaker 00

  Uh, I had coffee with him in Ojai once. I tried to get him on the history channel with me. I said, let's go on the history channel and debate, you know, and uh, he declined at the last minute, but uh, he was entertaining the thought for a while.

• 1:31:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Were you guys buying politicians or no? That was not your game. Your game's not politicians, not buying cops, not buying judges?

• 1:31:38Speaker 00

  No, you know, we, and this sounds very cavalier and, and uh, egotistical. I mean, we didn't have to do anything. Nobody messed with us in Ventura. Ventura was our town. And uh, you know, lock, stock and barrel, you know, it's, we came to town in nineteen seventy-eight. And if you come to town and you look around, I could take you on a tour of the town. I could take you to uh, the Ventura clubhouse. I could take you to the uh, cross up on the hill where the police looked at us constantly and surveilled us and gathered information.

• 1:32:21Speaker 00

  I could take you to the uh, I think it's the uh, Star Lounge on Main Street where.

• 1:32:29Speaker 00

  The other prominent based motorcycle club called the Orphans were in town. They were in town several years before us, probably 10 years before us. We fought it out with them on Main Street in front of the bar. The police rode up in their cars. This will give you an idea of the timeframe. They had to roll their windows down by hand. You can see them in there rolling the windows down. And the message to me from the Ventura police, these are the old timers. Don't leave anybody in the street. And rolled the windows up and they drove off. And we continued fighting these guys. We fought it out with the Orphans on Main Street in Ventura.

• 1:33:11Patrick Bet-David?

  How nasty was it?

• 1:33:12Speaker 00

  It was nasty. And two weeks later, mysteriously their clubhouse burned down.

• 1:33:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Mysteriously?

• 1:33:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:33:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 1:33:19Speaker 00

  Unsolved.

• 1:33:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Stuff like that happens, yeah.

• 1:33:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, it does happen.

• 1:33:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:22Speaker 00

  And spontaneous combustion, as I'm saying. So they come back, the police come to the fire.

• 1:33:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:31Speaker 00

  And the fire department comes and what do they do? These guys do not like the Orphans. They sit in front of the Orphans clubhouse and smoke cigarettes and drink coffee while it burns to the ground. And you can go there to this day and you can look on the walls, on the back wall, and you can still see the smoke and flame marks from the fire from, I don't know what year it was, 78, 77.

• 1:33:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow. What's the nastiest war you were a part of?

• 1:34:03Speaker 03

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• 1:34:27Patrick Bet-David?

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• 1:34:43Patrick Bet-David?

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• 1:34:51Speaker 00

  Well, I, you know, I, I think that the war with the outlaws, uh, I mean, it, it was down and dirty, uh, uh, you know, whiskey George and, uh,

• 1:35:06Speaker 00

  Riverboat, you know, they, they get tied up, chained up, get shot in the back of the head with shotguns and probably pistols. They get thrown in the rock quarry and, you know, we're calling the, uh, outlaws just before the war. Where, what happened to Riverboat and Whiskey, you know? I don't know, man, they left to go home, you know, and then they float to the surface. And, uh, it just, from there it escalates and escalates and, you know, I, I lost count of how many people got killed over the years. Uh, it got so, uh,

• 1:35:39Speaker 00

  rough, a motorcycle tank was left on, uh, one of the outlaws' front porches. It was his birthday, and this, you know, getting into some fistic- sophistication here. It was his birthday, he walked out, he saw it, he thought it was a gift. He picked it up and it blew both his arms off, you know, it was, it was a bomb. I mean, it, this stuff's all documented, I'm not just, uh, making it up.

• 1:36:07Speaker 00

  I say that was the dirtiest one. I, you know, I met with Taco, uh, Harry Bowman. Uh, he died in prison, uh, in 2019. He tried to get a compassionate leave, he was dying of cancer. They hated him so much, they would not, uh, they wouldn't parole him.

• 1:36:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Harry Bowman, Taco.

• 1:36:25Speaker 00

  Harry, Taco Bowman. Look up the, uh, United States of America versus Harry Bowman and you'll see he put a murder contract, uh, on me.

• 1:36:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Harry Bowman.

• 1:36:36Speaker 00

  Harry Bowman. He came to Ventura twice, uh, to kill me. And, uh, he wound up going to jail for racketeering and he got an additional 10 years for, uh, there's Harry right there, and got an additional 10 years for ordering my murder.

• 1:36:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you guys ever meet, like, you, you guys?

• 1:36:59Speaker 00

  I met him in person, a couple of times.

• 1:37:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Is he ever a friend or no?

• 1:37:03Speaker 00

  Well...

• 1:37:06Speaker 00

  We had a interesting relationship. We were at war. I went to him, petitioned him for peace. A very unpopular position with the outlaws, a very unpopular position with the Hells Angels, but I continued. Harry Bowman went along with it.

• 1:37:29Speaker 00

  Dug in kind of, and ultimately Spike O'Neil in the mid to mid nineteen ninety-five, ninety-six, I don't know what year it was, talked Bowman into backing out of the peace talks and putting a murder contract on me. They were either gonna kill Sonny or me. They decided ultimately to kill me.

• 1:37:55Speaker 00

  In two thousand two, I received a phone call from a federal prison, and it's Harry Bowman. Taco. Taco. He calls me on the phone, and he wants to ask me a favor. And he said, you know, George, this is basically your second case you beat. You beat that fifty-nine count racket, state racketeering case. You beat that case in eighty-six. He goes, I don't know what your secret is, but he goes, my lawyer is interested in talking to your daughter and find out how you're fighting these cases. And he said, would you be interested in helping me out?

• 1:38:39Speaker 00

  And I thought about it. I was thinking, the ball's on this guy. Called you. Yeah, he called me. Had put a murder contract on me, convicted of it. He knows it, you know it. Yeah, he knows. And he, you know, he said, you know, about that murder thing, man, it was, you know, it wasn't personal, you know? I said, well, I know that, you know? I mean, what else you gonna say? I mean, we're supposed to be tough guys, you know? But he says, will your daughter help me in her? She called Henry Gonzalez, a very prominent attorney in Florida, that was working on Taco's appeal, and they worked together on it a little bit, unsuccessfully, I might add. But as Harry and I were talking on the phone...

• 1:39:26Speaker 00

  I said, hey, before you get off the phone, talk about, I need to ask you something. He goes, oh, yeah, what's that? And he said, uh,

• 1:39:37Speaker 00

  what do you want, you know? And he, I could tell by his voice, he knew I was gonna say something to him. And I said, look, I know you got racketeering and you got a life sentence on that. And I said, I know you got an additional 10 years for ordering my murder. I said, what are you gonna do first? And he told me to go to hell.

• 1:39:54Patrick Bet-David?

  He did?

• 1:39:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was joking.

• 1:39:57Speaker 00

  But Harry Bowman, interesting guy, he was on the FBI's, uh,

• 1:40:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Is he dead? Is he alive?

• 1:40:04Speaker 00

  He's dead.

• 1:40:05Patrick Bet-David?

  He's dead, 2019, yeah.

• 1:40:06Speaker 00

  He, uh, he ruled that club with an iron hand. He was the ultimate leader, international leader, had the final say. And that's what got him on the racketeering. Their club is structured somewhat like the mafia. Our Los Angeles charters are autonomous to each other. And that's how we, uh, that's how we beat that 1979, 1980 Rico case. Are you familiar with that?

• 1:40:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:40:30Speaker 00

  You know who was the prosecutor?

• 1:40:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Hmm.

• 1:40:32Speaker 00

  Robert Mueller.

• 1:40:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Stop it.

• 1:40:34Speaker 00

  Robert Mueller.

• 1:40:37Speaker 00

  Robert Mueller tried us twice and failed. And Judge Conti and him decided, uh,

• 1:40:46Speaker 00

  Robert Mueller, there you go, right there.

• 1:40:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Robert Mueller was prosecuted, 1980 Major Rico case. That's against the Los Angeles motorcycle, leading to two lengthy trials that ended mistrials due to problematic government witness and defense argument. Wow. Wow. Yeah, this is, this is where you were arguing against Sonny to say, let's do less empire. Let's do more decentralized, independent.

• 1:41:11Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:41:12Patrick Bet-David?

  So we won't be held towards Rico laws.

• 1:41:14Speaker 00

  They can't racketeering, no racketeering.

• 1:41:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 1:41:17Speaker 00

  And, you know, Sonny, Sonny liked, look, I'm gonna be candid with you. You know, somebody says, hey, yeah, there's Sonny Barger. Or, hey, there's George Christie, you know? This guy's really powerful in Los Angeles. It's, it's really an ego blast, you know? And

• 1:41:38Patrick Bet-David?

  What kind of money are you guys making? Like, are you guys making money?

• 1:41:41Speaker 00

  Well, I, I, there were times I was making money, but I gotta tell you something. By

• 1:41:47Speaker 00

  The early nineties, I had a bail bonds company. I had a T-shirt company. I had a tattoo shop. I had a concert promotion business. And I was administrator for my daughter's law office. I mean, I was a real entrepreneur, you know, as you are yourself. And so I found that I could make a lot more money legally without the scrutiny. But the interesting thing is the scrutiny never stopped. You know, they're always looking at an angle, you know. There was rumors floating around the internet for a while. I had thirty-five million dollars hidden in an offshore account. And.

• 1:42:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Would you mind sharing the address with the audience?

• 1:42:31Speaker 00

  My ex-wife would like to know that as well.

• 1:42:33Patrick Bet-David?

  My ex-wife would like to know.

• 1:42:37Speaker 00

  She actually called me and she said, what about this?

• 1:42:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow, bold like taco.

• 1:42:45Speaker 00

  Maybe worse.

• 1:42:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 1:42:47Speaker 00

  But anyways.

• 1:42:48Patrick Bet-David?

  That was, is Noel still alive?

• 1:42:50Speaker 00

  Noel? Yeah, Noel's alive. I think Zerana's alive, Z, Sunny's, you know, those are Sunny's women. I have nothing to do with Sunny.

• 1:43:00Patrick Bet-David?

  No, what I'm asking is, does your ex-wife, Noel and Z, do they talk? Are they friends?

• 1:43:05Speaker 00

  They were not friends.

• 1:43:06Patrick Bet-David?

  They were not friends?

• 1:43:07Speaker 00

  Isolated. My, my ex-wife knew Z. They, it was interesting. It was like the kettle calling the pot black. That's how they perceived each other, if you will. And that's what I'll say on that.

• 1:43:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Who was, did you say it once? Or I don't know who said it, that Sunny one time hit his wife and his daughter or something like that?

• 1:43:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, he did. Yeah, he, he has a, if you look it up, he's got a salt beef against Noel. And I believe the daughter's name was Sarah.

• 1:43:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Noel's daughter or his daughter?

• 1:43:44Speaker 00

  Noel's daughter. Sunny doesn't have any children. He has one sibling, a sister. But.

• 1:43:53Patrick Bet-David?

  He didn't want to have kids?

• 1:43:55Speaker 00

  I don't know. I think he was a pretty selfish guy. I think he was interesting himself.

• 1:44:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he straight? Was he only into women?

• 1:44:05Speaker 00

  I think so.

• 1:44:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, you think so. Well, that's good. At least you think so.

• 1:44:09Speaker 00

  I saw no.

• 1:44:11Patrick Bet-David?

  No, I'm just wondering because, you know, if you don't want kids, you know, it's a could be different for everybody.

• 1:44:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, look.

• 1:44:20Patrick Bet-David?

  When guys.

• 1:44:21Speaker 00

  And let me tell, let me say something because I'm getting the Sunny supporters are gonna go, you know, he would never be saying, you know, everything I said today, I said to Sunny's face at one time or another, you know, we had an ultimate showdown in the Oakland clubhouse. He was a Cave Creek member. I was a Ventura member.

• 1:44:45Speaker 00

  We were resolving an issue, you know. He called 911, which is against the club rules. You can certainly call 911 for an ambulance, but he called 911 and then the police took the call over and he made a bunch of provocative cavalier statements

• 1:45:06Speaker 00

  about Noel. I took exception to that because the club took exception to that. They wanted him corralled in, if you will, and

• 1:45:19Speaker 00

  Papa was a very powerful Frisco, San Francisco member. When I say Frisco, I'm talking about San Francisco. Frisco member who ultimately would get murdered by the Mongols. But he hosted a meeting between me and Sunny and Sunny and I went in the back room.

• 1:45:36Patrick Bet-David?

  What year?

• 1:45:38Speaker 00

  I'm gonna say 2006, maybe.

• 1:45:40Patrick Bet-David?

  At this point, there is major issues between the two of you.

• 1:45:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, this is the final straw. We're reaching the end and I said, you're wrong. I go, members have been kicked out for that. I go, you need to admit it to the club. And he basically.

• 1:46:01Speaker 00

  I said, look, we've been arguing two hours. I said, we're not getting anywhere. I said, how about this? I go, how about we agree that you're gonna think I'm wrong? I'm gonna think you're wrong. And I said, but let's do this. Let's go out to the, there was like probably 20 presidents sitting in the other room. I said, let's go out to the meeting. And let's tell them the issue's resolved and it's put behind us. So there's no more questions about it. And he said, me? Go out in the meeting? He goes, I'm Sonny Barger. I don't answer to anybody. And that's what he told me. And I said, look, Sonny. I said, you, you got me all wrong, man. You think I'm after you. I said, I'm not after you.

• 1:46:42Speaker 00

  I said, my vision of Sonny Barger is Sonny Barger standing in the front. George Christie on your right shoulder and Irish Old Farrell on your left shoulder. And I said, do you remember up in Shasta? When the cops were threatened to rush the camp because somebody had ditched him on their bike and rode into camp? And you told them that if they came in, it was gonna be a goddamn riot. And I said, that's a Sonny Barger I remember. And that's a Sonny Barger I always wanna remember. Now, I may have my timeline wrong, you know? Shortly after that, that book, Angels of Death came out.

• 1:47:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, seven.

• 1:47:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, he told me. He said, yeah, so Angels of Death argument. So he calls me up on the phone and he said, you know what, George? I read that book.

• 1:47:30Speaker 00

  And he goes, you look really bad in it. And I go, oh, I look really bad? And I said, like I'm trying to impress somebody? And I said, well, you know what? I go, you don't look so good yourself. Cause I'd read the book and whatnot. And he goes, and I'm gonna tell you something else. He goes, I think you've been president too long in Ventura. And he goes, you need to step down. And he goes, nobody likes you. And I said, well, you know what, man?

• 1:48:00Speaker 00

  I don't know how this sounds to you, but I said, I don't really care what you think anymore. And he hung up on me. Yeah, like a couple of kids, this is the last time I talked to him. I called him back. And I said, hey, Ralph. I said, we got cut off. And he hadn't cut me off. He'd hung up on me. And I, he said, no, George, I hung, and I slammed the phone down.

• 1:48:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Just to make sure you were the last one.

• 1:48:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, I had to get the last word. And that's the last time we, we talked.

• 1:48:31Patrick Bet-David?

  I, when, when I talk to guys from the, the, the,

• 1:48:36Patrick Bet-David?

  the world, they'll say, there's a group that'll say, you got kicked out? There's a group that says you quit.

• 1:48:40Speaker 00

  Me?

• 1:48:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:41Speaker 00

  I, I quit.

• 1:48:42Patrick Bet-David?

  You quit.

• 1:48:43Speaker 00

  I absolutely quit.

• 1:48:44Patrick Bet-David?

  How did it happen?

• 1:48:45Speaker 00

  I went to the meeting.

• 1:48:48Speaker 00

  We were fighting the outlaws. The Mongols. The Bandidos. And the pagans. And I said, look, we got wars, I think, five fronts.

• 1:49:02Speaker 00

  Not to mention law enforcement. I go, now you guys want to fight the Vagos?

• 1:49:08Speaker 00

  I go, why, why do you want to do that? I go, the Vagos are calling me and they're telling me, hey, George, we don't want to fight you guys. What's the problem, man? We've gotten along since 1966. Why now? What's the, what's the issue? And I told the guys in the club, I go, you know, when somebody doesn't want to fight you. And you continue to push on them. That makes you a bully. And I go, I'm not a bully. I've never been a bully. I never will be a bully. And I said, we have become the people we rebelled against. And I said, I'm done, man. And I said, what's going to happen next? I said, read your history. What happens is,

• 1:49:48Speaker 00

  when empires or cultures or whatever you, however you want to describe it, run out of people to fight, they turn inward. And I go, that's what's going to happen to us. And I said, I don't want to be here when that happens. Took my patch off. I folded it up. I put it on the table. I said, anybody got anything to say? Nobody said anything. I said, what's my status going to be? And they said, good standing. Well, you know, Sonny changed all that. They put me out to bad standing.

• 1:50:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Who's in that room? Who's in that room when you're saying this?

• 1:50:15Speaker 00

  Ventura Hell's Angels. Sonny's not there. Ventura Hells Angels.

• 1:50:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 1:50:19Speaker 00

  Okay, so now, uh, what happens is.

• 1:50:24Patrick Bet-David?

  This is 2011 or this is?

• 1:50:25Speaker 00

  2011.

• 1:50:26Patrick Bet-David?

  2011.

• 1:50:26Speaker 00

  So what happens is, I make this prediction, and I'm gonna jump ahead and then I'm gonna swing back. I make this prediction, several months later, Jethro Pettigrew, the president of San Jose, gets murdered by a Vago in a Reno, uh, it's a Reno casino.

• 1:50:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Hmm.

• 1:50:52Speaker 00

  So there's a big funeral, there's five to seven thousand guests there. Uh, two Hells Angels.

• 1:51:01Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 1:51:30Speaker 00

  Start, start arguing, uh, at the funeral. They're holding each other responsible. It was your fault Jethro got killed. No, it was your fault. Uh, uh, Steve Tossen has a, just an amazing reputation as probably one of the toughest guys in the Hells Angels. He's actually killed somebody by hitting them with one punch and, uh.

• 1:51:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Tough guy.

• 1:51:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, very tough guy. Uh, he hit a guy, he was a bouncer at a bar called The Pink Poodle, and he hit a guy and a one punch killed him. So Steve Ruiz and Steve Tossen are now arguing, they're both San Jose Hells Angels or Santa Cruz Hells Angels, uh, they might have broke off, I can't remember. Uh, Steve says it's your fault Jethro's dead. Steve Tossen hits Ruiz. Ruiz falls to the ground, pulls his gun out and shoots Steve Tossen three times, uh, murders him in front of all those witnesses. It's complete chaos going on. Uh, Tossen lays there dead, the police come, Steve Ruiz gets away.

• 1:52:41Speaker 00

  They continue with the burial. And the day or two later, they exhume Jethro's body because they think Steve Ruiz was also killed and he's in the ground. That never happened. Ultimately, three or four months later, Steve Ruiz turned himself in and wound up, I think he got three years for shooting Jethro. But what happened was, everything I predicted happened. And I'm not happy it happened, but it's a fact. It happened. And, you know, history's history. You can't rewrite it. And that's the problem I had. Sonny and the small crew of Ventura guys that didn't like me wanted to rewrite history.

• 1:53:24Speaker 00

  They wanted to say they kicked me out of the club. Well, you know what? They didn't kick me out of the club. I was told I can't write a book. I was told I couldn't do The Outlaw Chronicles. I was told I can't go on A and E and do shows. I've written four books. I've done, I lost count of all the shows I've done. And you know what? I'm still doing what I want to do.

• 1:53:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Has anybody tried to take you out or no?

• 1:53:47Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 1:53:48Patrick Bet-David?

  But you haven't gotten any threats?

• 1:53:50Speaker 00

  Well, sure. There were some threats. People write me and, you know. I mean, I had one guy stoop so low when my boy died, he wrote me and said, you know, we killed your son, which is complete bullshit, you know? He died from complications from undiagnosed diabetes. He died in his sleep. But I said to him, I said, you know, I said, you only, with your remarks, I go, you only reinforce the fact that my position was correct in leaving an organization.

• 1:54:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 1:54:22Speaker 00

  You got a problem, man? Come and, come and see me. You know where I live? I live in Ventura.

• 1:54:27Patrick Bet-David?

  You're still in Ventura?

• 1:54:28Speaker 00

  I'm still in Ventura. And I go out every day and I'm not challenging anybody.

• 1:54:33Patrick Bet-David?

  And Hell's Angel is still in Ventura?

• 1:54:35Speaker 00

  They're not as active as they were, and I don't think, and they're not going to like this, but I'm going to say it publicly, I don't think they're as powerful as they were. And they've become a footnote, perhaps. And you know what? I got no problems with you guys. But don't make one, okay? I'm just trying to live my life and I'm happily married. Married to a woman I've known since I was 12. She was married to a friend of mine for 57 years and he passed away and I figured I better step in.

• 1:55:10Patrick Bet-David?

  What a crazy story.

• 1:55:12Speaker 00

  Before anybody does.

• 1:55:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Stories get crazier than crazy.

• 1:55:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, and she was a witness in my 1986 trial. She was a character witness in my 1986 murder for hire trial. And she wreaked nothing but havoc from the feds. They froze her bank account. They put her stored under surveillance and they were investigating her clients.

• 1:55:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, at least she got the 35 million bucks, which is good.

• 1:55:35Speaker 00

  She did. She's getting, she's, she's getting the benefit of the 35 million. And we're living it up. Whether real or imagined, uh, uh, should we close with that?

• 1:55:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I like that right there. By the way, a final thing before we wrap up. How long were you in with Michael Francis?

• 1:55:53Speaker 00

  We were, uh, I was there almost a year with him. He had done that gas scam and

• 1:55:59Patrick Bet-David?

  The Russian thing, the, yeah.

• 1:56:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, and he, how much did he, 10 billion?

• 1:56:03Patrick Bet-David?

  He was saying he was making four to 10 million a week.

• 1:56:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I, I, and, and He, they wanted the money back. Well, the back, they wanted the money. And I think he took them on a little bit wild goose chase. I don't know if he admitted that to you when he talked about it. He took them on a wild goose chase and after about eight months, they figured out, uh, you know, I think he was getting taken here in the limousine and he was staying at this motel and the money was coming and he kept telling them. It's kind of like the checks in the mail.

• 1:56:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Michael is brilliant.

• 1:56:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's absolutely brilliant.

• 1:56:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Brilliant. When you, who else was in with you guys?

• 1:56:38Speaker 00

  Rosario Gambino, he was the pizza connection guy.

• 1:56:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Rosario Gambino?

• 1:56:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, he was the pizza connection. Uh, I was in there with some, uh, I don't remember their names. Some other guys, I was in there with the guy that was the first Name in the infamous black book out of Vegas. He had thrown acid in somebody's face. Somebody had owed a debt to the casino. He went to collect it.

• 1:57:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it Frank Colada?

• 1:57:08Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't know.

• 1:57:09Patrick Bet-David?

  But he was a part of the mob?

• 1:57:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, he was part of Chicago.

• 1:57:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Then Spolatro?

• 1:57:15Speaker 00

  No, but I met Tony Spolatro. But I didn't, he wasn't in jail with me. Sam Serantino was in jail.

• 1:57:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Frank Colada, you would have remembered. He was an ice cold.

• 1:57:24Speaker 00

  Ice cold guy.

• 1:57:25Patrick Bet-David?

  He was in the movie Casino. He's the guy that put the head in the vice.

• 1:57:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, I know who he is. So I go to Vegas nineteen seventy six, seventy seven. Make reservations at the Riviera Hotel.

• 1:57:43Speaker 00

  Old man John tells me, don't stop in Vegas, man. He goes, keep going, we're going to Cody, Wyoming. I go, the guys want to stop, man. They've never been there before. So we stop in Vegas. We go to the Riviera and they start hassling me about the reservations. So I demand, I said, I'm paid for these. You've taken it off my credit card. I go, we're gonna stay here one way or another. And some guy shows up there. Little guy. Didn't know who it was, didn't remember his name. And then when I saw the movie Casino, I realized it was, it was Tony Spolatro that they had sent down there to tell us to get out of town. He was really rude, really aggressive.

• 1:58:26Speaker 00

  He goes, you know, these guys, if you go on those bikes and get out of town. And I said, look, man, no disrespect. I don't know who you are. You don't know who I am. I said, we're gonna spend the night here and then in the morning, we'll get on our bikes and we'll get out of town. I go, we're going to Cody, Wyoming, man. I have no interest in Las Vegas. I go, you say it's your town, it's your town.

• 1:58:46Speaker 00

  Him and I wound up spending the evening together.

• 1:58:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Seriously?

• 1:58:49Speaker 00

  I'm totally serious. Him and I, I'm actually

• 1:58:53Speaker 00

  very serious.

• 1:58:54Patrick Bet-David?

  By when did you know it's Tony Spolatra?

• 1:58:56Speaker 00

  And when the movie Casino came out.

• 1:58:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, so while you're calling him Tony, but you don't know which Tony it is?

• 1:59:00Speaker 00

  No, I don't know who he is, you know? Tony Spolatra, nobody knew who he was back then. I mean, these are mob guys that, you know.

• 1:59:05Patrick Bet-David?

  What year is this?

• 1:59:06Speaker 00

  1977.

• 1:59:07Patrick Bet-David?

  That makes sense.

• 1:59:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I, this is a story I told at the Mob Museum. I gave a lecture at the Mob Museum once.

• 1:59:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Beautiful place, by the way. The way they've done it is incredible.

• 1:59:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's brilliant.

• 1:59:17Patrick Bet-David?

  It's in Old Vegas, which is like the real Vegas.

• 1:59:19Speaker 00

  And that's the courthouse.

• 1:59:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, it's the courthouse, yeah.

• 1:59:23Speaker 00

  David Chestenoff handled our 2002 Casino, the fight with the Mongols, who was partners with, his name escapes me, the ex-mayor.

• 1:59:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, Oscar Goodman.

• 1:59:37Speaker 00

  Oscar Goodman, he's partnered with.

• 1:59:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Good guy, have you spent time with him?

• 1:59:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've talked, talked with him.

• 1:59:41Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, his wife's the mayor now.

• 1:59:42Speaker 00

  I know she is.

• 1:59:43Patrick Bet-David?

  He was in for eight or 12, and she was in for eight or 12.

• 1:59:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, is she still the mayor?

• 1:59:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you check to see if Oscar Goodman's wife's still the mayor? Maybe she's not.

• 1:59:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, David Chestenoff was his understudy, Goodman's understudy.

• 1:59:56Patrick Bet-David?

  And he was in Casino, he was in the movie Casino.

• 1:59:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, Goodman was in, he was with Spolatra.

• 2:00:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Spolatra, yeah.

• 2:00:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that was exactly, Joe Pesci nailed it. That's exactly how he was, you can see from the, he taught me how to play craps.

• 2:00:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Tony.

• 2:00:12Speaker 00

  Tony, yeah, he says, let's play some craps. I don't know how to play craps. And he goes, come here, I'll show you. And he was doing all these sophisticated betting. I think they were letting me win, you know? I had a bunch of dough and, and he had his eye on one of the girls that was with us. And, but she was with a member. And, but he was, he was a character, man.

• 2:00:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Tony Spolatra was a character. I, I did an interview with Tony Spolatra's hitman, Frank Calata. If you type in Frank Calata, yeah, that's Tony. But if you go to Frank Calata, Calata passed away three years ago. He texted me and then two months later he passed away. When Frank Calata came to do an interview with him.

• 2:00:55Speaker 00

  They killed him in the house, though, and then took him to the cornfield? Did he say?

• 2:00:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, that's, well, he told a lot of stories. We were together for a couple hours. But this guy, when he came in, George, he comes in and Mario, my guy.

• 2:01:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Maury says, "Hey, how are you?" He says, "Why did you come in a white car?" Maury's like, "No, we didn't." He says, "No, you did. You came in a white car with three people. Who are the other three guys?" I was like, "What's this guy talking?" And then he realizes. They did come earlier in the white. Frank was sitting outside the entire town, watching every single move to see if he was safe or not.

• 2:01:29Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I mean, these guys were serious about him. I mean, you know, you don't, he didn't like the term rat.

• 2:01:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Who?

• 2:01:37Speaker 00

  Calada, he got in an argument with-

• 2:01:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, so you know Calada?

• 2:01:39Speaker 00

  I didn't really know him, but I know, I know on the set of Casino, somebody called him a rat.

• 2:01:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:45Speaker 00

  And he took him aside, apparently he took him aside.

• 2:01:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Put him in his place?

• 2:01:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, and said, "Don't ever call me a rat again."

• 2:01:53Patrick Bet-David?

  No, this was not a guy. You fell, you felt how cold he was.

• 2:01:58Speaker 00

  Well, he plays one of the hitmen. They killed that guy when they're getting rid of all the- Let me, let me go back now. My first lawyer for my 1986 case was Norm Green and Alan Kaplan. They did the Stardust skimming case.

• 2:02:22Speaker 00

  And you're familiar with-

• 2:02:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Vegas, yeah.

• 2:02:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, that's the casino.

• 2:02:27Patrick Bet-David?

  That's your lawyer. They were your lawyers.

• 2:02:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, and, and they, we had given Alan Kaplan a motorcycle. The Cleveland guys gave him a motorcycle. He got in a wreck and they amputated his foot.

• 2:02:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 2:02:40Speaker 00

  And he couldn't, he was in no shape to defend me. And the case was turned over to Barry Tarlo. But initially, it was Norm Green and Alan Kaplan. Alan did the Pizza Connection case with Rosero Gambino, who was there. So I get subpoenaed to a grand jury about Teamster money because we paid Alan $10,000 as a retainer and they wanted to know if it had anything to do with Teamster money.

• 2:03:19Speaker 00

  I didn't go to the grand jury. My father died unexpectedly. The day I was supposed to testify at the grand jury and they excused me. The Ventura police had to call the US attorney that was asking the questions at the grand jury. Did his dad really die or is he just telling stories?

• 2:03:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:40Speaker 00

  And he said, no, his dad, his dad did die and they told me, we'll catch you next time. I never heard back from him.

• 2:03:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow. George, who do people say you look like? I want you to look at this real quick when I say this. Who do people say you look like?

• 2:03:54Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 2:03:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Do they say you look like anybody?

• 2:03:57Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 2:03:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, who's he look like?

• 2:04:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Does he not look like John Voight? John, go up to John Voight. John Voight's a good looking man. Go to John Voight. Go to different pictures like straight looking at you.

• 2:04:11Patrick Bet-David?

  He, I don't know.

• 2:04:12Speaker 00

  No, I got a great, a great story.

• 2:04:14Patrick Bet-David?

  You look like John Voight.

• 2:04:15Speaker 00

  Okay. That, is that him?

• 2:04:17Patrick Bet-David?

  If she says it, she's known you since twelve. You look like John Voight.

• 2:04:21Speaker 00

  Okay, well, you know.

• 2:04:23Patrick Bet-David?

  People don't tell me I look like John Voight. That's a compliment. You know, John is a, you know, you know what movie I think about when I think about John Voight?

• 2:04:31Speaker 00

  Heat?

• 2:04:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Champ.

• 2:04:32Speaker 00

  Champ, okay.

• 2:04:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Champ, old school. That's the movie my dad and I would watch. Horses and you know.

• 2:04:37Speaker 00

  So, we're having the 50th anniversary. You'll never guess who shows up in town.

• 2:04:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Who?

• 2:04:43Speaker 00

  John Voight's daughter.

• 2:04:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Which one?

• 2:04:46Speaker 00

  Angelina Jolie. She's with Chuck Zito.

• 2:04:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 2:04:50Speaker 00

  So, her and Chuck and I are walking up the street.

• 2:04:53Patrick Bet-David?

  This is what year?

• 2:04:54Speaker 00

  Uh, 99 or 98. 50th anniversary.

• 2:04:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Peak. She looks gorgeous.

• 2:04:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, uh, she's very, uh, uh, there's Chuck and, there's Chuck and Angel. So,

• 2:05:08Speaker 00

  the cops are focusing on Chuck, you know. I mean, I'm, they see me every day, but here's Chuck Zito. And they're like, I think they're sneaking pictures of him and they're asking questions and they're starstruck with Chuck. And in between Chuck and I is Angelina Jolie. And they were so excited about Chuck, they didn't even pick up on who she was. So the next, after the party's over, I tell the cops, they were the gang squad guys. And I go, and you guys are slipping. And they go, what do you mean? I go, didn't you recognize who was in between us? And they go, no, who was it? And I said, it's Angelina Jolie, man. And they were just like.

• 2:05:45Patrick Bet-David?

  It's one, you said, you said John Voight's daughter.

• 2:05:49Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:05:49Patrick Bet-David?

  To the average person, it's Angelina Jolie's dad today.

• 2:05:53Speaker 00

  Dad, okay, wow.

• 2:05:54Patrick Bet-David?

  But forty years ago, it was John Voight. Thirty years ago, it was John Voight.

• 2:05:57Speaker 00

  Look, you remember him in Heat?

• 2:05:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course.

• 2:06:00Speaker 00

  That was just an incredible movie. And, you know, Michael Mann is an incredible filmmaker. And you want one more short story?

• 2:06:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Sure.

• 2:06:10Speaker 00

  In nineteen eighty-six, eighty-seven, I beat my case. Nobody beats the feds, you know, it was a big deal, man.

• 2:06:19Speaker 00

  Michael Mann calls me up and he wants to talk to me about doing a movie about carrying the torch and my trial. And my first wife.

• 2:06:28Patrick Bet-David?

  This is the nineteen eighty-four Olympics, the torch thing that you did, three thousand dollars. What a funny story.

• 2:06:34Speaker 00

  A pretty good, pretty good move, huh? Talk about controlling the narrative.

• 2:06:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Charity, man.

• 2:06:40Speaker 00

  I was controlling the narrative, man, you know? And, and so, I said, my first wife Cheryl, who my present wife Beverly, they were best friends. They were really good friends.

• 2:06:53Patrick Bet-David?

  How many wives have you had?

• 2:06:55Speaker 00

  Three.

• 2:06:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 2:06:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. I'm not, Sonny holds the record, man, for the club.

• 2:06:59Patrick Bet-David?

  How many did Sonny have?

• 2:07:00Speaker 00

  Fourth.

• 2:07:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Sonny had four wives.

• 2:07:02Speaker 00

  Four wives, yeah. I'm being a smart ass now, I'm not talking shit about.

• 2:07:05Patrick Bet-David?

  So Sonny.

• 2:07:06Speaker 00

  There's a great picture of.

• 2:07:07Patrick Bet-David?

  This is you in the middle?

• 2:07:08Speaker 00

  That's me in the middle. That's Sonny after the surgery. That's Irish O'Farrell, a very imposing figure.

• 2:07:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Very. He looks like Kurt Russell.

• 2:07:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's one of the, was one of the toughest.

• 2:07:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Zoom in a little bit.

• 2:07:21Speaker 00

  Street fighters.

• 2:07:22Patrick Bet-David?

  He was, really?

• 2:07:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:07:25Patrick Bet-David?

  So he was a tough guy.

• 2:07:26Speaker 00

  Now, back out of the picture a little bit. You see the little eyeballs at the bottom?

• 2:07:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes.

• 2:07:32Speaker 00

  That's little George.

• 2:07:33Patrick Bet-David?

  That's his son.

• 2:07:34Speaker 00

  That's my son, little George. It later became controlling the Vicodin market. He was a hell of a pharmacist.

• 2:07:45Patrick Bet-David?

  And that's, that's Sonny to the right, to your left.

• 2:07:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:07:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Irish, you said Irish?

• 2:07:52Speaker 00

  Irish O'Farrell, Michael Irish O'Farrell.

• 2:07:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Michael Irish, was Irish tougher than Sonny?

• 2:07:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, that, look, you ever heard of the Beast from the East?

• 2:08:03Patrick Bet-David?

  No.

• 2:08:04Speaker 00

  Uh, okay, now Chuck Zito and I have a difference of opinion on this. But look up Big Vinny, the Beast from the East.

• 2:08:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Big Vinny?

• 2:08:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, Big Vinny, the Beast from the East.

• 2:08:16Patrick Bet-David?

  You have a guy that would like that name?

• 2:08:20Speaker 00

  There's Big Vinny.

• 2:08:23Speaker 00

  Okay, Big Vinny and Irish got in a fight. And Chuck says that the Oakland Charter jumped on Big Vinny. I was told that Irish took down, uh, Big Vinny one, single-handed. You know, they, they fought in the backyard of the Oakland clubhouse. That's where I was told they fought. Chuck Zito said, no, they fought at, uh, Irish's house.

• 2:08:53Speaker 00

  Vinny died several weeks later. He had a ruptured spleen.

• 2:08:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Stop it, from the fight?

• 2:08:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, that's what they say, yeah.

• 2:08:59Patrick Bet-David?

  So Irish?

• 2:09:00Speaker 00

  Irish is a bad dude.

• 2:09:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Destroyed him.

• 2:09:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, and Irish was killed by the Aryan Brotherhood, which is very shady circumstances, but, uh, Irish and this Aryan Brotherhood guy got in an argument. They walked, the, the guy says, let's go outside and we'll snort some, uh, crank. And, you know, we'll put this behind us. So Irish said, okay, so Irish walked out first. The guy stabbed him in the neck three or four times. And then Irish looked at him and said, what are you gonna do now? And he shot him four times and killed Irish there on the spot. It's.

• 2:09:34Patrick Bet-David?

  You were close with Irish?

• 2:09:35Speaker 00

  Very close.

• 2:09:36Patrick Bet-David?

  So you and, would you and Irish be against Sonny? Like, were you guys united?

• 2:09:39Speaker 00

  No, we were united with it, but, you know, we, I told Irish, I go, this guy's not turning over the club to us. I mean, see, what happens is somebody, you know, gives a power up. How do they get it back? If the people they gave it to are still alive, they're never getting their power back. They gotta get rid of you. And, uh, uh.

• 2:10:05Speaker 00

  Sonny had a revelation, you know, I'm not gonna die after all. What am I gonna do now? I'm gonna start a movement to get my power back.

• 2:10:15Patrick Bet-David?

  And that's when he went to Arizona.

• 2:10:16Speaker 00

  That's when he went to Arizona.

• 2:10:17Patrick Bet-David?

  When did Irish die? What year?

• 2:10:21Speaker 00

  Eighty-nine or

• 2:10:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so earlier on.

• 2:10:23Speaker 00

  When they both went to prison. Irish is supposed to go to prison with him. And

• 2:10:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Ari and brothers got him right before.

• 2:10:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:10:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow. Well, George, I can talk to you for hours. And every time I'm like, I'm getting texts, you got a meeting, you got a meeting. I'm like, I'm just getting more and more interested here. But George, appreciate you for coming out. This was fantastic.

• 2:10:39Speaker 00

  We'll talk again sometime.

• 2:10:40Patrick Bet-David?

  I definitely look forward to it. I definitely look forward to it. This was great. Is there anything you want the audience to go to? Is there a book? Is there anywhere you want them to go to?

• 2:10:48Speaker 00

  Go to my website, GeorgeKurcy.com. I got a new book and a challenge coin. I created this challenge coin that the Roman soldiers use challenge coins. I trace this back. The Roman soldiers used to use challenge coins so they could identify themselves as being part of the Roman legions. And I've putting out a challenge coin with the book. I think it's gonna be my last book. I shouldn't say that. It's gonna be my last book on, as a memoir of the Hells Angels. I think I said it all in this book. I worked on it three years. I got a phone call, said, hey, you and Sonny are gonna resolve your problems. You need to call him because he's not gonna last much longer.

• 2:11:32Speaker 00

  I got up, I started drinking coffee. I told Beverly I can't sleep. I got up, I went out in the front room. And I started, I started writing the book. And at the end of the book, I explain, it's really kind of an insight into the leadership of being a leader in the outlaw motorcycle world. And, you know, make a lot of comparisons. And at the end, I reveal why I decided not to come back and why I wouldn't come back. But I'm not gonna tell you that.

• 2:12:05Patrick Bet-David?

  I gotta wait for it.

• 2:12:06Speaker 00

  Well, maybe I'll send you a book.

• 2:12:08Patrick Bet-David?

  I appreciate that. George, thank you so much.

• 2:12:12Speaker 00

  My pleasure.

• 2:12:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Pleasure. Great having you here. Guys, take care everybody. If you want to learn more, go visit his website, georgechristi.com. God bless. Bye bye. When we set out to create a shoe that blends comfort, function, and luxury, we had the choice to make it fast, we had the choice to make it cheap. We chose neither. Instead, we chose Tascanyero. We chose true Italian craftsmanship. Each pair touched by 50 skilled hands. We chose patience, spending two years perfecting every detail, and we chose the finest quality at every step. Introducing the Future Looks Bright Collection. Not rushed, not disposable, not ordinary. Rather intentional, luxurious, timeless.