Rassmussen Law - Laughlin Six Allow Hells Angels to Ride Out of Court Relatively Unscathed

Laughlin Six Allow Hells Angels to Ride Out of Court Relatively Unscathed

Publication: Las Vegas Review-Journal
By John L. Smith
Oct. 15, 2006

The Laughlin Six stood in U.S. District Judge James Mahan's courtroom on Wednesday and took one for the team.

Their team being the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. Advertisement

With their guilty and no contest pleas, six of the 11 defendants accused of racketeering offenses once again illustrated the power of America's most notorious motorcycle outfit. Courtroom observers then watched as the ATF's wide-ranging racketeering case against 42 Hells Angels members vaporized like a cloud of Harley exhaust.

Three bikers died in the brawl at the 2002 Laughlin River Run. Dozens of Hells Angeles and Mongols were caught on 16 security cameras shooting, stabbing, hammering, wrenching, punching and kicking each other. It was the stuff of a Peckinpah splatter flick with unprecedented camera angles.

But in the end, after so much of the federal government's case crumbled under the weight of rotten witnesses and rapier defense attorneys, there was no choice left for the U.S. attorney's office but to cut one of the sweetest, strangest deals in Hells Angels' history.