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Undercover With The Hells Angels

Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg
The Wall Steet Journal

In his new book, "No Angel," ATF agent Jay Dobyns writes about his undercover mission with the Hells Angels -- and the subsequent fallout

 

Agent Jay Dobyns, a former star football player at the University of Arizona, had the size, attitude and tattoos to look the part of a Hells Angels member. In the summer of 2001, Mr. Dobyns, then a 14-year veteran at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was asked to join a task force focused on infiltrating the motorcycle gang and stopping the sale of illegal weapons in Bullhead City, Ariz.

The mission was code-named "Black Biscuit," and Mr. Dobyns left his wife and two children for weeks at a time to create a believable persona that enabled him to successfully penetrate a local Arizona Hells Angels chapter.

But Mr. Dobyns came close to crossing the line. In a bid to amp up his energy level, he developed a dangerous dependence on the weight-loss pill Hydroxycut during the 21 months he spent undercover. It was not the only decision he later regretted, as he describes in his new book, "No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels," written with Nils Johnson-Shelton. The work is now a best seller.

Mr. Dobyns, 47 years old, eventually had a public falling out with the ATF -- he is currently a plaintiff in a $4 million lawsuit against the agency in the U.S. District Court of Arizona, alleging defamation of character and the failure to protect him and his family, according to his attorney, James Reed, a partner in Baird, Williams & Greer, in Phoenix. Yet Mr. Dobyns remains an agency employee, now working in ballistics evidence. "I won't quit," he says.

The ATF declined to comment on the book and lawsuit. The agency said in a statement that it "does not, as a matter of policy, comment on personnel matters or pending litigation."

The Wall Street Journal: The Hells Angels you met seemed to take you at face value. Were you surprised that they weren't more skeptical?

Jay Dobyns: By the time the case started, I had mastered every skill and trick of the trade, the tradecraft of undercover work. In hindsight, they should have been more skeptical, but I'm good at what I do.

WSJ: Outlaw motorcycle gangs are often portrayed as drug couriers. Did you see any evidence of that?

Mr. Dobyns: Narcotics was a big part of our case. I won't say that I was hitting stash house after stash house. A lot of it was street level narcotics. I never got to the giant massive quantity of drugs that I believed were out there and that I expected to get to.

WSJ: You write that eventually warrants were served on 50 defendants, but in the epilogue you note that many received short sentences while others got off entirely. What happened?

Mr. Dobyns: The investigation was a success based on the evidence and testimony. But we lost the prosecution. The good guys couldn't get along. The agency and prosecutors disagreed over how to present evidence, and what evidence to present. The internal bickering got out of hand, and very sweet plea deals were offered and charges were dismissed. The good guys started attacking themselves. Unfortunately the risks I took and the sacrifices I made don't carry weight in the eyes of prosecutors and the court. It's a cold, calculated business.

“There, in a shallow desert ditch, was a gray-haired Caucasian male, his head split to the white meat. A pile of brains had oozed to the ground where Timmy had put Joby's .380.” (excerpt from "No Angel")

WSJ: You had a major falling out with the ATF, where you still work, and have filed a lawsuit. Why?

Mr. Dobyns: After the case ended I began to receive death and violence threats against me and my kids. Contracts were being offered to kill me. And the ATF did nothing. The same agency that encouraged and sent me to go toe-to-toe on behalf of their mission of fighting violent crime, ran and hid. In essence, I've been left on my own to figure out how to defend myself. When I blew the whistle on how they handled it, that's when the falling out came. My story isn't unique. I was just the first one to stand up and call them out on it.

WSJ: Your house in Tucson burned down. What happened?

Mr. Dobyns: It was a total loss, and everything in it was a total loss. I'm still rebuilding. It was definitely arson, which has become another point of contention. The ATF didn't react to the fire initially. They later sent a single arson investigator, who determined the cause was arson. Agency managers tried to get him to change his conclusion, but he refused. He wouldn't compromise his integrity. He was then removed from the case. Then the ATF named me as a suspect and handed the case to the FBI. The ATF alleged I set my own house on fire. And my family was in the house at the time. They were saying I tried to kill my family.

WSJ: How many times did you and your family have to move, and what is your living situation today?

Mr. Dobyns: Over the course of five years we have lived in 16 different houses. It's a transient lifestyle. [Mr. Dobyns declined to say where he and his family now reside for security reasons.]

WSJ: Why are the Hells Angels such an iconic organization?

Mr. Dobyns: They are America's bad boys. And America loves bad boys. Not every Hells Angels member I met was a rapist or murderer. Some called me on Thanksgiving or Christmas because they knew I was alone and said, come on over and hang out. Most of them, most of the time, have a smile on their faces. But heaven forbid that you insult them, or get involved crossways with their business.

WSJ: Why did you want to write this book?

Mr. Dobyns: The public was left with the impression that the case failed -- that there had to be something wrong with the undercover guys. I wanted to set the record straight. The undercover case was magnificent. The agency and prosecutors left the undercover operators to be the scapegoats for the prosecution, and that wasn't the case.

WSJ: Any regrets? You seemed to like some of the gang members you met. And you put your family through hell.

Mr. Dobyns: My biggest regret is that I abandoned my family in pursuit of this mission. I take no pride in having turned my back on my wife and kids for the relentless purpose of infiltrating that gang. Do I apologize to the Hells Angels for getting inside their club? Absolutely not. My job is to handle America's business. •••

A Very Hellish Journey

Eve Conant - Newsweek

March 7th, 2009

 

Jay Dobyns convinced the Hells Angels he was one of them. And that may have been the easy part. After going undercover, he's been a man on the run.

Photos: Ian Martin for Newsweek; Courtesy Jay Dobyns

The first thought that might cross your mind when you meet Jay Dobyns is, I wonder if this man is going to kill me. Something about the shaved head and tangled goatee, the death-skull tattoos and silver rings on every finger, gives him a somewhat menacing look. His heavily muscled arms are inked shoulder to wrist. His eyes, icy blue, can be hard and unforgiving. When he is angry—and Dobyns is very, very angry—he cusses volcanically.

His fearsome persona was convincing enough to fool the Hells Angels into believing Dobyns was one of them. In 2001 the decorated, 15-year agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms went undercover and infiltrated the outlaw gang. His job: get evidence to bring down its members for a long list of alleged crimes, including drug running, extortion and murder. For nearly two years, the churchgoing former University of Arizona wide receiver assumed the fictional identity of Jaybird Davis, a debt collector, gun runner and biker. He soon impressed the Hells Angels with tales of murder and mayhem, and won initiation into their inner circle by agreeing to bash in the skull of a rival gang member.

In fact, the ATF staged the attack: a Phoenix cop posed for "proof" photos as the dead man, his head covered in cow brains. It wasn't easy for Dobyns to keep his cover without breaking the law, or his wedding vows. He says he turned down bong hits and offers of sex with Hells Angels groupies. To avoid suspicion, he festooned his body with more and more gang tattoos, and talked meaner and tougher than anyone around him. Once, he says, a gang member scolded him for being too flamboyantly outlaw. "You look like a convict, you talk like a surfer and all the jewelry is like you're f–––ing Liberace on crack," he recalls the biker saying. "Tone your s––– down." When he could, he'd sneak home to Tucson and slip briefly back into his life as a husband and father of two.

Dobyns's risky work seemed to pay off. In summer 2003, "Operation Black Biscuit" and parallel raids ended with the arrest of 52 people, leading to the indictment of 16 Hells Angels and associates on racketeering and murder charges. Dobyns and his team of fellow undercover agents were heroes. The ATF awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal. His recently released book about the undercover operation, "No Angel," is climbing the bestseller list. Twentieth Century Fox just bought the movie rights to his story.

But Dobyns says he is anything but happy about the way things have worked out. In the years since the sting ended, he has had a hard time returning to life as an ordinary citizen. His face is now too well known for undercover work, and there are few adrenaline rushes to be had in his new assignment managing an ATF ballistics program that analyzes crime-scene evidence.

He also fears for his safety. Though he takes precautions to conceal where he lives, he says the Hells Angels are after him and his family. He has documented numerous death threats, and last summer his house was set on fire. Most of all, he is furious at the ATF, which he says now treats him like a pariah. He says the agency has done little to protect him or to go after the people who want him dead.

This month he sued the government for $4 million, charging that the bureau he risked his life for has left him to fend for himself. His claims are backed, in part, by the Department of Justice inspector general's office, which issued a report last September concluding the ATF hadn't done enough to conceal his identity and "needlessly and inappropriately" delayed responding to two of the threats against him. (The ATF would not comment on the details of Dobyns's complaints. "The safety and welfare of our employees is of utmost concern to the ATF," a spokesman says. Further, the ATF says it "does not, as a matter of policy, comment on personnel matters or pending litigation.") "I still love ATF," he says. "No group is more eager to go toe-to-toe with predators. But I have a serious problem with white-collar desk-drivers who are going out of their way to ruin me."

The trouble began when the Hells Angels cases went to court. If convicted, many of the defendants would have faced long prison terms. But the bikers' lawyers successfully argued that investigators and prosecutors had mishandled and withheld evidence, undermining the defense. The charges against several defendants were dropped; others wound up pleading to lesser offenses.

Dobyns says he started getting death threats. In 2004 he was working undercover on a new case when he unexpectedly bumped into the Hells Angels tattoo artist who had inked the skulls on his arms. "We know who you are," Dobyns recalls him saying. "We know where you live. You'll run the rest of your life." The tattoo artist pleaded guilty to threatening a federal officer and served 17 months.

After that the ATF moved Dobyns and his family several times. He lived for a while in California and Washington, D.C. He says he asked the bureau to move him covertly, giving him a new identity and keeping his address a secret. But he says the ATF told him "a covert move was not a cost-effective use of their resources."

Instead, Dobyns says, "I started doing my own backstopping." He moved from rental to rental, putting the one-month leases under his wife Gwen's name, "trying to break the paper trail to me." He paid cash for all his cars so there wouldn't be loan documents to trace.

Dobyns says the death threats followed him. Legal documents filed in his lawsuit allege threats "by or from members of the [Hells Angels] and their criminal associates." The bureau, he says, failed to take them seriously. When he filed a formal complaint, he says the higher-ups branded him a troublemaker and pulled him from undercover work. He eventually settled with the agency for an undisclosed amount.

After moving around for a few years, Dobyns wanted to settle in one place with his wife, son and daughter. He bought a house, and appealed to a judge to remove his name from tax records. Around 3:30 a.m. one night last August, someone set fire to his back patio. Dobyns was out of town, but his wife and family were inside. "I looked up and there was a wall of orange flames," says Gwen. They got out in time, but the house was nearly destroyed. The arson investigation, still ongoing, was turned over to the FBI.

Dobyns says he understands homeowners are always considered suspects, but he is furious that investigators still haven't cleared his name, despite his repeated offers to take a polygraph. (An FBI spokesman says he "can't confirm or deny there's an investigation involving Mr. Dobyns.") "They are basically accusing me of attempting to murder my own family," he says.

This is what seems to most animate Dobyns's anger—his sense of dismay that the ATF has turned against him. "I have done every dirty, rat-snake assignment for them for 20 years," he says. "I've done nothing but go to war for them." Dobyns lived for the danger and excitement of undercover work. As a rookie agent, he was shot in the back before he got his first paycheck. He volunteered for dangerous duty, posing as a gang member and drug dealer. Throughout the years, he's won 12 commendations for his work.

He takes guff from his family and friends for still dressing and acting like an outlaw. After two decades of working the streets, "I kind of fell in love with my props," he says. "It became who I was." He says he misses "the rush of riding in a pack of gangsters at 85 miles per hour, only 18 inches apart. That's a rush that even catching a pass in front of 70,000 people in a stadium can't match."

Dobyns and his family now live in a sparsely furnished rental while they wait to rebuild the house that burned down. His wife has mixed emotions about staying. "I understand where he's coming from, we're all sick of this and ready to get on with a normal life," she says. "On the other hand, sometimes I think if we move just one more time, don't tell anyone, go into sort of our own kind of witness-protection program, it would be a good idea." She pauses. "I am very protective of my husband, but God, he has gotten his ass kicked."

People may say Dobyns is using his complaint to drive publicity for his book, or that he's asking for trouble by calling attention to himself. And he admits the last few years have been miserable for his wife and kids. "The battle damage I have done to my family with this is terrible," he says. "But I'm not moving anymore. I am not running anymore." He sounds by turns bellicose and exhausted. "I am not afraid. I will not be intimidated and forced to wear a wig and a plastic nose and mustache. I am going to live my life." •••

The Good Guy

February 5th, 2009

By Leo W. Banks

Death threats be damned, undercover cop Jay Dobyns isn't running anymore

On Aug. 10, 2008, the Dobyns family home burned after someone set a bookcase on the back porch on fire.

"When defense lawyers lambasted me as a dirty cop, no one at ATF stepped up and represented for me or the other undercovers. They were happy to let the public believe there was corruption in the operation when they knew there wasn't." -- Jay Dobyns

Dobyns addresses a group of lacrosse players at Orange Grove Middle School.

Jay Dobyns looks at the rubble at his feet, and brother, it's a mess. Everything is black and busted up. The blaze was six months ago, and the place still stinks of smoke. This used to be his Tucson home. He steps through the broken glass and the ashes, not talking much, because what in the hell is there to say?

And for Dobyns, not having much to say is a trick.

He's a special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, author, public speaker, former UA football player and Internet celebrity known for his undercover work in the deepest penetration ever made of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang.

If you Google his name, you won't find much middle ground. Opinions on him range from true American hero to out-of-control cowboy cop who not only loves being at the center of the action, standing up to his knees in Adrenalin River; he needs it.

You see, all through his life, Dobyns has known only one way to take on anything--with grinning, arms-wide leaps off the highest ledge.

Now, at 47, his house gone from an arsonist's match, his family badly shaken by their 3 a.m. escape, Dobyns is watching his back against outlaws sworn to kill him.

I ask what goes through his mind when he looks at this wreckage, and he says, "I think to myself, not with regret, but as an honest question, 'Jay, how could you have let your life get to this point?' There has to be an easier way."

This is big. Dobyns in an act of self-reflection? It's not his strong suit.

Twenty years of undercover work dulls your capacity for self-reflection, makes it a dangerous luxury. Doubt yourself for an instant, let your mind wander to a decision made a year ago, 10 minutes ago, and you're likely to be down-by-the-river, broke-dick dead.

Does this mean Dobyns is a changed man? Does this mean he's found redemption?

The operation is codenamed Black Biscuit. Dobyns is lead undercover, working mainly with a Phoenix cop named Timmy, and a street informant known only as Pops. Their job is to get as close as possible to the Hells Angels, pretend to be their friends, see and hear everything they say and do, then betray them.

"Most people are intimidated by the Angels' reputation for violence," says Dobyns. "But we put ourselves out there as alpha dogs, and they were impressed by that. It worked because we came in balls out."

Dobyns' cover is as Jay "Bird" Davis, a knee-capper for a made-up biker gang called the Solo Angels. The world in which he lives, for 21 months, is dangerous and hyper-violent, and he describes it in a book, co-written with Nils Johnson-Shelton, called No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels.

It will be published by Crown and available in bookstores on Tuesday, Feb. 10. Twentieth Century Fox already has bought movie rights.

Unless you catch your Zs on a prison cot, the book isn't bedtime reading. It has chapter titles like "Jesus Hates a Pussy." And "My Sucking Chest Wound."

Dobyns tells of characters who beat a woman unconscious after she insults them; when she awakens and insults them again, they allegedly beat her more, drag her into the desert, stab her repeatedly and try to cut off her head and stick it on a pole. But the knife can't cut through her spine. So they give up and leave her dead on the ground.

The book describes beat-downs and gang rapes, with almost all the action taking place in Arizona. He tells of an Angel approaching him at a biker rally near Flagstaff and offering Dobyns entertainment for the night--the biker's own teenage daughter and her best friend. The girls might be all of 16. At first, Dobyns is puzzled, then he figures it out. Bird's a debt collector, gun runner and supposed hit man--but not a drug addict. In other words, he has his act together.

"In the biker world, I was a catch." he writes.

Black Biscuit ends in 2003. Two other books have been written about it, but Dobyns wants to go deeper into the personal side of a long undercover job, the impact it has on an agent's psyche, on his family. After banging with the boys for weeks at a time, he tells of returning to Tucson and shedding his biker vest to coach his son's T-ball team and reconnect with wife, Gwen, who, increasingly and justifiably, wants her husband home, her family restored, the great stress lifted.

At one point, at an Angels' meeting in Mesa, Dobyns' cell rings. It's his son Jack, who chirps, "Hi, Daddy!" Keeping in character, Bird says, "Whassup? Big Lou there?" That's code for "put your mother on the line."

Eventually, inevitably, the divide between his two lives blurs, and Dobyns morphs into the worst version of himself, into Bird Davis--paranoid, fearful, always amped, swallowing a six pack of Red Bulls and three Starbucks lattes daily, along with fistfuls of speed-like diet pills that yank his eyes back into his skull in a cold, dead stare.

A year after Black Biscuit ends, Dobyns and other agents listen to surveillance tapes of four men talking. Dobyns recognizes three of them, not the fourth, and this guy's messed up. He's babbling, barely making sense. Dobyns hands the headphones to fellow agent Jenna Maguire, plays the fourth voice and says, "Who the f--- is that asshole?"

Maguire says, "You don't know?"

Dobyns says no. Maguire smiles and says, "That's you, Jay."

The hell of it is, for all that, the 16 indictments that come out of the investigation yield very little. Most are eventually dropped, or the defendants plead to much-lesser charges. The government fails to prove its basic contention that the Hells Angels are a criminal gang that commits crimes as part of an organized conspiracy.

Defense lawyers go public to charge that ATF agents used questionable tactics in gathering evidence, and they get backing from one of Black Biscuit's own operatives, the street informant Pops. In a National Geographic video on the case, he goes on camera and says agents broke rules in gathering evidence and did illegal taping.

The same video quotes Sonny Barger, godfather of the Hells Angels, debunking the central premise of Dobyns' book, that he was patched into the club as a member--given an official Hells Angels patch for his vest. Barger calls Dobyns a liar for making that claim. The video also quotes Angels lawyer Patricia Gitre alleging "pretty egregious conduct" by the undercovers, and she, too, aims criticism at Dobyns, suggesting he enjoyed his role a little too much. "But Agent Dobyns, let's be truthful," says Gitre. "There's somewhere inside of you that said, I want to be a biker."

The collapse of the case makes news in Arizona, with much of the criticism revolving around ATF's use of informants. In January 2005, Arizona Republic writer Dennis Wagner reveals that one informant was a longtime drug addict and drug seller, and another might've taken part in a murder, something unknown at the time of his enlistment by ATF. And on July 8, 2003, when agents move in to make their wrap-up arrests, one of the takedowns turned chaotic with gunfire. A judge later describes this raid--on the Hells Angels Cave Creek charter--as an "unlawful" attack.

Dobyns says Black Biscuit's failure opened the door for defense lawyers and Barger--Dobyns says he was "patched" and that Barger can't bear to admit "a cop got under his wire"--to make whatever claims they wanted, knowing they wouldn't have to back them up in court.

Dobyns becomes Black Biscuit's father, its public face, a scapegoat for the defense and for ATF. "When defense lawyers lambasted me as a dirty cop, no one at ATF stepped up and represented for me or the other undercovers," says Dobyns. "They were happy to let the public believe there was corruption in the operation when they knew there wasn't. It meant they didn't have to talk about why the case really fell apart: the bickering between ATF and the prosecutors on how to proceed. It wasn't anything the undercovers did."

He sends me a photo of a kid in a football uniform, and I'm thinking: Who's this fresh-faced boy, all wild-haired and teenage-tough? Look closer. It's Dobyns from his days at Sahuaro High School. Man, it must be a million years ago.

He grows up mainly on Tucson's eastside, loving football, loving the UA. On game days, he rides the bus from Speedway Boulevard and Camino Seco to campus to get his ticket. He dreams of one day playing on the same field, and the dream comes true. He starts for UA at wideout for three seasons in the early '80s. Former teammate Glenn Howell says, "Nobody was going to outwork Jay. Man, he was a workout freak."

When the gates to the field are locked, because it's against the rules to practice, Dobyns and Howell hop the fence and go to work running routes. Dobyns isn't fast, but he catches everything. If the quarterback throws the ball off the moon, he goes up and gets it. He wins all Pac-10 honorable mention his junior and senior years. "I didn't have much raw talent, but I played like a maniac," says Dobyns. "I had to if I wanted playing time. I threw fear out the window, played the hardest I could, and it carried over to ATF."

He starts with the ATF in 1987. While helping take down a suspect in a gone-to-hell neighborhood south of Tucson's airport called Dogpatch, Dobyns is taken hostage and shot between the shoulder blades, the bullet exiting his chest, blood arcing out the hole like someone pressing a thumb over a garden hose. He'd just taken off his ballistics vest because he felt stuffy.

Dobyns says, "I remember thinking, 'I've been on this job a week, and I'm going to die in the dirt in this f------ trailer park.'" Actually, he's been on the job nine days, which means he's been shot and taken hostage before he gets paid for the first time.

Now Dobyns is in Joliet, Ill., 1989, back at work after the shooting, and he's standing with his feet wide, his gun in the firing position as a car speeds toward him. The driver and passenger are gangster gun dealers. The passenger is leaning out the window firing a machine gun at Dobyns, who, instead of getting the bleep out of the way, is firing back with his nine--bam, bam, bam.

But Dobyns stays put because, as he says, "I always wanted to confront the most violent people, go face to face with them," and that's what he does, planting himself until the car rams him, and up he goes, hurtling over the hood and the roof. He's shot again, this time in the gut. But he keeps his vest on, so the bullet bounces off.

Howell and Dobyns stay close after their playing days. Howell even does undercover jobs with Dobyns when Howell works security for Tucson Unified School District. They were on a task force targeting gangs and guns at schools. Today, Howell is the strength and conditioning coach for Pima Community College football and the UA's rugby team.

I say to Howell, "Why does Dobyns do what he does, the undercover stuff?"

Howell says, "It goes back to athletics and being challenged. In football, they're always bringing somebody in to take your job, and Jay would see the new guy, and he loved the challenge. We had to go against some tough-ass dudes, playing LSU, USC in front of 60,000 people. The adrenalin was unbelievable, and when I went undercover with Jay, I got the same rush. That shit's fun. People'd say, 'Aren't you scared?' And I'd say, 'No. because I have my boy here.' Jay was my cover guy. That comes from playing ball with somebody, knowing how he works and that he'll give himself up for the team."

"That's why the Hells Angels loved him. He got in because he was, like, one of their dudes. He's a great teammate ... even if it's a criminal teammate."

We're driving in Dobyns' rig, the model of which will remain nameless, and Dobyns is telling me he's done running. He's lived in 16 places in 48 months, and enough's enough: no more bouncing from city to city, no more aliases. "After the fire, I said, 'That's it,'" Dobyns says. "I'm not going to be intimidated by these threats anymore. I'm gonna make my stand and be happy doing it."

He tells me where, but I won't name the state, the city or anything that might lead to him. "But they're still hunting you," I say. I know this without asking, because here we are going down the road, and he's checking the mirrors, looking for someone tagging too close, staying with him through too many turns, and he's got his piece with him--because he never goes anywhere without it.

"I might regret this," says Dobyns. "But I've lost a big chunk of my life using the escape-and-evade mentality, and it hasn't worked. They keep finding me."

We drive along in sun-drenched silence, the windshield flickering with shadow and light, shadow and light, from the branches of the ghostly winter trees overhanging the road, and suddenly, without prompting, he comes out with a startling remark, a declaration of pride, motivation and self-identity deeper than anything he says in all our e-mails, meetings and phone calls.

This apologia runs a total of four words. Dobyns says: "I'm the good guy."

How strange it sounds, because good guys usually don't have to cover their tracks this way, and they don't look how Dobyns looks, which is a bit like a dime-rock dealer on his birthday. His head is shaved, and he's wearing fatigue shorts, flip-flops and an Arizona Cardinals football cap pulled low against thick, black sunglasses, and he's got enough skin ink to piece together a good-size novel. And now, away from the ashes of his home, he's plenty talkative, puffing a Marlboro Light, blowing smoke out the window, the sun glinting off the look-at-me rings on his fingers, as he gestures, puffs, gestures, puffs.

I say to him, "Good guy? The Hells Angels don't think you're a good guy. By now, I'm sure ATF doesn't, either."

It's true. Dobyns is a man alone, hunted by what he calls a criminal syndicate, his house in ashes, and now he's locked in a brutal lawsuit against ATF, his own employer, charging that they've essentially abandoned him against those trying to cap him.

Shortly after Black Biscuit ends, and after Dobyns' identity is revealed, the threats begin. The first comes in August 2004 at Club Congress in downtown Tucson. Dobyns is working a case when a Hells Angel walks in, recognizes him as Bird, noses up and tells him the Angels have found where he lives, and he's "going to get hurt." He says to Dobyns, "You're going to spend the rest of your life on the run!"

The threats keep coming, according to court papers. A prisoner says his former cellmate talks of wanting to place a gun to the back of Dobyns' head and pull the trigger. Other informants tell law enforcement the Hells Angels have allegedly farmed a hit out to the Aryan Brotherhood and MS-13. The feds hear talk of wanting to rape his teenage daughter, kidnap and gang-rape his wife and videotape it.

Dobyns wants ATF to go after the people making the threats--confront them, breathe on them, make them understand the agency is prepared to use its full power to protect their man. But Dobyns says they don't step forward to sufficiently protect him and his family, and he sues. This case ends in a settlement in September 2007, with the agency agreeing to change the way it responds in the future.

Then the fire happens, Aug. 10, 2008. Someone torches a bookcase on the Dobyns' back porch, and the light from the flames is so intense that it awakens Jack, then 13. He races into his mom's room, shouting, "There's a fire! There's a fire!" Just as Gwen Dobyns sits up, an electrical outlet beside her bed explodes and tosses out a flash of fire that runs like lightning up to the ceiling.

The three of them, Gwen, Jack and older sister Dale, get out safely. The home is destroyed, $300,000 in damage. For reasons no one understands, Jack chose to sleep that night in his sister's room, right off the porch. It was the weekend, and Dale had fallen asleep watching TV on the living-room couch. If Jack had gone into his bedroom, there would've been no one in the porch bedroom, and the fire would've burned longer before anyone noticed. "It was a miracle," says Gwen. "God put Jack in her room that night."

The fire is plainly a hit attempt on Dobyns or his family, and he says it merits the dispatch of 100 ATF agents to comb the site, talk to neighbors, turn informants inside out. Instead, the agency responds by sending one investigator to the house 30 hours after the incident. No supervisor comes. Dobyns sees it as part of the same pattern that existed before the first lawsuit was settled. He says, "ATF's attitude is, 'You're gonna whistle us? OK, we're not doing a f------ thing for you.'"

An independent agency--the Office of Inspector General, part of the Department of Justice--largely backs Dobyns on his charge that ATF did not respond appropriately to the threats. The OIG investigates four of the threats against Dobyns and concludes that ATF "needlessly and inappropriately delayed its responses to two of the threats" and "should have done more to investigate two of the threats."

Two months after the fire, Dobyns files a second lawsuit, this time asking for $4,000,050 in damages for harassment and abuse, including the tarnishing of his name. His suit claims a supervisor, in front of others at ATF's Phoenix headquarters, declared Dobyns mentally unfit for duty. "Dobyns is broken," the supervisor allegedly says. "It is my duty to see Dobyns removed from this field division and this agency."

The suit also drops this bombshell: Sixteen days after the blaze, Dobyns is on the phone with an ATF supervisor who offers to transfer him and his family out of the area. Dobyns says he's not moving again until ATF makes some effort to find the arsonist, and so far, Dobyns tells the man, you've done a piss-poor job investigating the fire.

Later that day, in another call with ATF, Dobyns is told he's a suspect in the arson. The agency he still works for thinks he might've tried to murder his own family.

Now we're sitting on the sidewalk outside of a coffee bar talking about Dobyns' alibi. It's a strange thing to need when you've won ATF's Distinguished Service Medal for investigative excellence, 12 additional ATF awards for investigative achievement, and the Top Cops Award from the National Association of Police Organizations.

The last one is presented to him by then-U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, a Tucson guy now working at Canyon Ranch. He's the doc who greets Dobyns when he's wheeled into the ER after the 1987 shooting, the guy who re-inflates Dobyns' lung, plugs the holes in him and says of those aware of the extraordinary dangers Dobyns accepted in Black Biscuit: "Some of them (older Tucson cops) are in awe of him because of what he volunteered to do against guys who'd think nothing of eliminating him."

But now he needs an alibi, and this is it: He's in Phoenix at the time of the fire, taking flying lessons. He's staying at a hotel on a credit card. His cell is pinging all over the Valley, and it pings all the way down Interstate 10 as he drives home after the emergency call. Investigators interview him five times, and every time, he tells them, begs them, to pull up the damn rugs, look at everything, credit receipts, financial papers, phone records.

He's got a Marlboro Light going, and he's sipping a three-shot venti caramel macchiato from Starbucks--he still drinks three a day--and his cell phone is on the table between us, and it begins to sing. The ring tone is from the rapper Nelly.

Boom-bada-boom-bada-boom. "Yeah ... yeah ... OK." He clicks off. He puffs his Marlboro, heaves a plume of smoke across the sun. "I told them, I said, 'Give me a lie-detector test.' It's routine to give an arson suspect a polygraph. 'Go ahead, put me on the box.' But they won't do it. They don't check out my alibi. They do nothing to eliminate me as a suspect."

But the kicker comes the day after the fire--his family terrified, much of what he owns in ashes--when ATF tells Dobyns they're doubling his workload. He leans across the table, his Ray Charles shades framing his bald head: "Do you think if they believed I set this fire, really tried to kill my family, they'd offer to transfer me? They'd double my workload? Would they keep an attempted murderer on the payroll? It's pure harassment."

Asked to describe her reaction upon hearing Jay is a suspect in the blaze, Gwen Dobyns sputters to find the words. "It's an emotion that's hard to explain. I'm very protective of my husband." She pauses, searches again for the right words. "It makes me incredibly angry. I can feel my heart race just talking about it."

Dobyns says investigation of the fire started with Pima County, went to ATF and is now with the FBI. But when contacted by the Weekly, Special Agent Manuel Johnson, media coordinator for the FBI in Phoenix, neither confirms nor denies the agency's involvement in the investigation. Tom Mangan, ATF's spokesman in Phoenix, declines to comment on the arson or on Dobyns' lawsuit. He refers a call to ATF's D.C. headquarters, but a lawyer there refers the call to another spokesman, who does not call back.

In a CNN report on Dobyns that aired before the settlement of his first lawsuit, Mike Sullivan, ATF's acting director, issues this statement: "As ATF executes its mission to prevent terrorism, reduce violent crime and protect the public, we will continue to place the highest value on ensuring the safety of our employees and their families."

So this is what it's like now for the man alone, sitting at a sidewalk café in broad daylight, watching the next car as it rolls past, because it might contain the gunmen coming for him, waiting for the night, when he hears every sound, every unexplained knock, sometimes jumping from bed to clear the house with a shotgun.

It's a form of agony, sure, but not a crippling one. Dobyns still makes public appearances and gives speeches here and around the country--the topic, of course, is how to manage risk--still does his job for ATF, still, as he says, goes through every day with a smile, marveling at how blessed he is ... and now, how liberating it is, after years on the run, to say: Enough! It stops here. He calls his new strategy hiding in plain sight.

It's a huge risk, but it fits his character perfectly. It's another all-ahead-full, balls-out circus leap. You're bringing in new players to take my job as wide receiver? OK, boys, let's see what you've got.

Listen to him speak of how he's decided to live, the pride in the words, the willingness to poke the hornet's nest and bathe in the fallout.

"I'll be damned if I'm gonna wear a fake mustache and wig and hide from these guys," says Dobyns. "I don't want to fight. I don't want trouble. Look, it's been six years, and you won anyway. Let it go. But if they come for me, they better bring some dudes, because we're gonna get it on."

I ask Howell what the daily pressure does to Dobyns, and Howell says: "He's concerned. But if anybody's gonna f--- with Jay, he's got the wrong dude to f--- with. He's smart, thinks on his feet. He's calm, mentally strong, and that's what makes him dangerous. If you're trying to get at him, it's hard to do, because he's so mentally tough."

And Dobyns' redemption? It has nothing to do with the way he did his job. If he could consult a genie and erase events of his past, he wouldn't change a thing. He'd even take that bullet again. No, the redemption he needs is for what the job did to his family. Dobyns put undercover work ahead of his wife and kids, and that brought the nightmare of Black Biscuit to them as well.

"It's disheartening I did that, but I don't dodge accountability," he says. "I justified it, believing there was a greater good in taking bad men off the street, and I wanted my family to embrace that philosophy as much as I did. It was self-serving. They didn't sign up for this job; I did."

Now it looks like the job will never end. Black Biscuit will never end. The people who want Dobyns dead have elephant memories, and by talking about it, by writing the book, by signing the movie deal, by his star turns on CNN, National Geographic, the History Channel, Dobyns himself is keeping the story alive. He does so, he says, to make sure people know the truth, to reverse the humiliation he feels at ATF's disavowal of his work.

But it makes the biker role permanent. It keeps the curtain from falling on this danger-loving cat named Bird Davis. In No Angel, Dobyns writes: "I thought I'd been the one infiltrating the Hells Angels. I had it backwards. They were the ones who had infiltrated me."

Dobyns is at a party at the Spirits Lounge in Mesa. Three Angels push a drunken blonde at him, having decided Bird should take her home. She curtseys at him, and, very drunk, pumps her fists and shouts: "Gimme a B! ... Gimme an I ... Gimme an R! ... Gimme a D! What does it spell? Bird! That's my man! If he can't do me, no one can!"

Bird plays along, because he has to play along. Dobyns has been avoiding women and has heard whispers about that from these men who, he believes, make gang rape a pastime. So to cover himself, he lets the cheerleader sit on his lap, even gives her a piggyback ride around the pool table.

Then the party moves to an Angels clubhouse, and the cheerleader tags along--now Dobyns realizes he's made a big mistake. By allowing the cheerleader to come to the clubhouse, Bird has delivered her "into the mouth of the lion," into a possible gang rape. Dobyns writes, "I had to get us both out of there. Pronto."

Thinking fast, talking fast, he does so. They get onto Bird's bike, the cheerleader barely able to hang on as he drives her home. He gets her inside, dumps her onto her bed, unconscious, and his mind starts to work. Is this a setup, some kind of test? Maybe he's been made, the girl poisoned, and Dobyns will be discovered with the body. Maybe she's the old lady of an enemy, and Dobyns is a pawn in a game of payback.

The more he thinks, the more he's convinced the Angels have tailed him. He calls a member of the task force and asks for a sweep of the area. It's done. No sign of the Angels outside the house. But Dobyns isn't ready to leave. His paranoia won't let him.

He wanders the house while the cheerleader sleeps. In the refrigerator, he finds turkey, moldy cheese, some ketchup, and makes a sandwich. In the living room, he sits in a chair and eats, and when he's done, he puts his head back and shuts his eyes.

Burn that image into your mind. It captures the essence of undercover work.

See a man eating a crummy sandwich alone in the dark in a strange woman's house, having saved her from herself, because as a cop, an officer of the law, he's sworn to do that, no matter how foolish the choices she's made, and having saved himself from the mistake he made in cozying up to her, a split-second call, an instinct call, the consequences of the wrong one so easily lethal.

But it's not over, even in the quiet of that room, because he still has to go outside, and who knows what awaits? And as he thinks with his eyes closed, he sees a likely scene from his future. It features him in a courtroom witness box, answering questions about what he's done this night, about his mistake, and about every night over 21 months, under oath, justifying everything in an inch-by-inch public strip-down.

Remember the image of the tattooed man. He's the good guy. He did what he was asked to do. •••

Dobyns' Life With Hells Angels Soon To Be Book, then Movie

Opinion by Greg Hansen - Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.27.2009

Somebody told me the Hells Angels burned down Jay Dobyns' house last summer. Middle of the night. Wife and kids asleep. Flames everywhere. When I spoke with the former Sahuaro High School and UA football player a few weeks ago, I asked: "True story or a twisted rumor?"

"Your house burning down isn't a rumor," he said. "It's horrifying."

Dobyns chose not to talk about the August fire, which began at 3:30 on a Sunday morning and caused about $30,000 in damages. He would not say where he lived, nor confirm that his wife and two teenage children were at home during the Tucson fire.

"My family is fine," he said. "Maybe you can understand why I won't go into detail."

I understand that from 2001 to 2003, Jay Dobyns, a wide receiver of uncommon toughness in his UA days, 1980-83, infiltrated the Hells Angels as an undercover agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. I understand the Hells Angels have made five known threats on his life. I understand he has periodically been on the run, moving from one state to another, in an attempt to protect his well-being.

But until he supplied me with an advance copy of his new book, "NO ANGEL: My Harrowing Undercover Journey To the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels," I didn't understand the degree of his penetration into such darkness.
It is such an absorbing drama that 20th Century Fox has purchased movie rights to Jay Dobyns' life story. And it won't be about that last-minute touchdown pass he caught to beat UCLA in 1983.

"I obviously want to sell books, but 'No Angel' is not for everybody," Dobyns says. "It's a rough story about a rough life, and sometimes it's told in rough terms. I don't want my friends mad at me because they bought it for their kids and later found it to be too aggressive. Consider yourself warned."

I read Dobyns' book in two days. It made me sick. It made me feel dirty, almost depressed, but I still couldn't put it down. It is not new turf; movies were made and books were written about the undercover work done by 1960s New York City policeman Frank Serpico and 1980s FBI agent Donnie Brasco. Dobyns' book/movie will become part of this disturbing serial.

The 340-page narrative nonfiction book, distributed by Crown Publishers of New York, will be available nationally Feb.10 (information: jaydobyns.com). Until now, Tucson's sketch of Jay Dobyns, ex-Wildcat, has been brief. He was a big part of those powerhouse Sahuaro teams of the late '70s. After initially enrolling at Arkansas, Dobyns returned home and became an over-the-middle, possession receiver for Larry Smith's teams that stunned No. 1 USC, undefeated Notre Dame.

Not soon after Dobyns graduated from Arizona, the rookie ATF officer was taken hostage and shot through the chest in the desert near Sahuarita. This is when the post-football picture of Dobyns began to come into focus.

"Getting cheered by 80,000 football fans was an incredible feeling," he writes, "but it didn't even register when compared to the rush of walking the line between life and death when no one was watching."

Long before he infiltrated the Hells Angels, Dobyns was a daredevil without a motorcycle. The rush he got from chasing bad guys became addictive. His book doesn't leave out any of the sordid details. He became, he writes, a "unit of fear; a spoke in the wheel of violence." The book isn't as much about the Hells Angels as it is about Dobyns' evolution from crime-fighter to a trusted part of a twisted brotherhood.

The book's most compelling pieces are those that touch on Dobyns' periodic re-entries into civilian life. Can you imagine what it must have been like to spend two weeks in the presence of a career criminal whose idea of a good day is to drink 16 beers, beat up his girlfriend and arrange to buy $1,000 worth of illegal guns — and to then drive home to work in the yard and barbecue with your family and friends?

"The truth is, the Hells Angels were becoming my family," Dobyns writes. Sometimes he would lie in bed, unable to sleep, weeping about the turmoil created by his double life. In the years since his penetration of the Hells Angels, Dobyns, 46, has become a motivational speaker for the ATF while simultaneously going public with criticisms about the bureau's inability to keep him and his family safe or to properly meet its financial obligations.

Much like Dobyns' spirit for adventure and his passion for risk, nothing is off-limits in "No Angel."  I absorbed the book. I can't wait for the movie.

Greg Hansen

Arizona Daily Star

The Epitome of Toughness

The Wizard of Odds - A College Football Site for Winners ®

by Da Wiz

May 3, 2006

Jay Dobyns was the poster boy of Arizona football in 1984, earning a spot on the cover of the team's media guide. And why not? His last-minute, game-winning catch in 1983 lifted the Wildcats to a stunning 27-24 victory over UCLA.

What has happened to him since is nothing short of amazing. Dobyns became an undercover agent for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and on his first assignment in 1987 he was shot in the back at point-blank range in Tucson.

Dobyns should have died, but he recovered and was transferred to Chicago. In the Windy City, Dobyns was hit by a car; the man driving the car was shooting at him with a machine gun.

He later infiltrated the Calabrese organized crime family and the Hell's Angels, according to a new book, "Angels of Death — Inside the Biker Gangs Crime Empire"

Dobyns remains a wanted man, with the Hell's Angels and Aryan Brotherhood having enlisted hit men to find and kill the former receiver. ø

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Da Wiz - The Wizard of Odds - A College Football Site for Winners ®

Life as Hells Angel a Perilous Existence for ex-UA Receiver

The Arizona Daily Star ®

by Greg Hansen

May 2, 2006

The last time I talked to Jay Dobyns, maybe 1998, a chance meeting at McKale Center, he told me he was "neck deep in violent crime" and someday I should write a book about it.His arms were covered with menacing tattoos, one of them a skull. His head was shaved. He wore two earrings. It was not the Jay Dobyns pictured on the cover of Arizona's 1984 football media guide.

I saw him four or five years later, idling on a very large, very loud motorcycle near Speedway and Craycroft. He had a pistol tucked into the back of his black leather pants. I could clearly see the gun as he sat at the stoplight. I looked away, hopeful he would not recognize me.

He looked more like a Hells Angel than a Hells Angel himself. I drove away thinking that someday soon I would be reading Jay Dobyns' obituary.This was not the same man who once was pictured in 12-foot-high billboards all over Tucson, a marketing vehicle for the 1984 UA football season.

Upon graduation from Sahuaro High School in 1980, Dobyns caught 103 passes for the Wildcats. He was a personable and approachable athlete, an epitome of the toughness that defined Larry Smith's UA football teams. The latter-day Dobyns did not suggest toughness. He suggested violence.Dobyns had been shot in the back at point-blank range in 1987, a hostage while on a Tucson undercover assignment for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. It was his first week as an ATF agent. He should have died. It was in all the local papers.

But I naively assumed he would be given a nice settlement, a monthly disability check and go into something that did not involve bleeding.Now we know that getting shot did nothing to change Dobyns' career plans. He is one of the lead subjects of a recently released book, "Angels of Death — Inside the Biker Gangs' Crime Empire." I read it over the weekend. It all but made me ill. Whatever the ATF pays Dobyns, it cannot possibly be enough.

The book's authors, Julian Sher nd William Marsden, quote Dobyns as saying, "I'm not a worrier; it's not my thing."

This from a man who, after recovering from his gunshot wound in 1988, was transferred to Chicago. In his first assignment, he was hit by a car; the man driving the car was shooting at Dobyns with a machine gun. After that, Dobyns successfully infiltrated the Calabrese organized-crime family.

Sher and Marsden write that both the Hells Angels and the Aryan Brotherhood have enlisted hit men to find and kill Dobyns. They write that Dobyns and his family have moved repeatedly, from safe house to safe house, from state to state, to dodge revenge-bent biker gangs that Dobyns infiltrated and the government indicted in 2004-05.

"The ATF would've had to look long and hard to find a better candidate than Jay Dobyns to penetrate the Hells Angels," Sher and Marsden write. "Everything about him was pure outlaw biker. His tall, lean, muscular body and his fiery, challenging eyes seem to warn you to keep back, this guy could explode. He had rings on every finger and chains around his neck."

Tom Mangan, public information officer of the Phoenix office of ATF, on Monday declined to comment on Dobyns and the book.For several years, Dobyns was a Hells Angel. He lived their life. He attended their weddings and their birthday celebrations. Sometimes he would be gone from his wife and two children for a month at a time, all to gather evidence that would someday put a biker in jail.

"I could see my family slipping away," he says in the book. "My kids don't care that I'm trying to be a Hells Angel. My kids don't care that I was trying to impact crime in the community. All they want is for Dad to come home, to be there and love them. This kind of work eats families alive."

While a UA football player, Dobyns was a possession receiver. That is another way of saying he was willing to go across the middle and get hit. At the time, I thought the toughness thing was related strictly to Dobyns' zeal to be a football player. Now, upon reading "Angels of Death," I understand that the toughness thing is part of his being.

His obsession with catching footballs is probably unprecedented at the UA. He once estimated he had caught more than 10,000 passes as a young ballplayer, all so that he would be prepared for the Big Moment, such as his last-minute, game-winning catch to beat UCLA 27-24 in 1983.

His life as an ATF agent has a similar theme. He is obsessed not with catching footballs but with catching felons. The big difference for Dobyns is that this pursuit might never end. ø

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Greg Hansen - The Arizona Daily Star ®

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Feds Need to Guard Heroes Such as Jay

Tucson Daily Citizen

Corky Simpson

February 10, 2007

We always knew Jay Dobyns would go a long way, but not because he'd be chased by bad guys in the shadowy world of spies and undercover agents.

From down-and-out on a passing route at wide receiver for the Arizona Wildcats, the former Sahuaro High School football player now goes down-and-hiding-out as a government agent.

It's scary stuff because this game is for real. There he was one morning this week, explaining his story - and current predicament - to CNN. The cloud Jay is under, as opposed to the one he walked on as a Wildcat from 1982-84, is terrifying.

According to what he told CNN, Jay infiltrated the Hells Angels undercover, decorated himself with all sorts of tattoos, shaved his head, rode a Harley and witnessed murder and all sorts of mayhem.

Then he testified against the gang in court and helped send some gargoyles in leather vests to the big house. Now there's no place for Dobyns to go but away. Hells Angels are not the kinds of cherubs who drop in to sing the world from its cares.

Not too long ago, I was talking to old friend Bob Vielledent and asked if he knew where Jay was these days. "Nobody does," Bob said. "And if I knew, I wouldn't tell you."

Dobyns is running and hiding from gang members out for revenge, changing his name and appearance and moving from place to place, state to state. Over the years, teammates and friends of his would tell me from time that they'd bumped into Jay somewhere. They told stories of his gunbattles and running shootouts with bad guys as an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Apparently, Jay is a dedicated member of that courageous band of brothers. But according to what Dobyns told CNN, the brotherhood isn't protecting him very well. He said the agency tends to take care of people in the witness protection plan better than its own agents.

Worse, he said, the reason is budgetary. Somebody told him, Jay said, that "it wasn't in the budget" to keep him safe from gangsters. In dealing with the public, other government bureaucrats have been known to act as though they didn't care and didn't care to care.

But you would think a government agency whose people risk their lives every day to protect the rest of us from gangsters would go to the ends of the Earth to take care of its own. If Jay is correct in what he told CNN, it pierces the illusion of one for all and all for one among defenders of the country.

Gang mentality is a blot on creation. Without the help of organizations such as the ATF, we would all be in deep, deep trouble. You don't spit into the wind, you don't yank on Batman's cape, and you don't mess around with gorillas on Harleys.

ATF acting director Michael J. Sullivan told CNN this week that he couldn't comment on the allegations, but that Dobyns' case was being reviewed. At best, Dobyns and his fellow agents lead extremely difficult lives. A sympathetic ache for what they must endure for their daily bread runs through us all.

Those forced to go into hiding must have it really bad. Shells work well for turtles, but they suffocate people. Jay learned the secrets of the temple of doom and spilled them on behalf of law-abiding citizens. Now he has to run and hide - with insufficient protection from the bad guys, he says.

The government - his employer - needs to send enough of its own tough guys in suits and sunglasses to protect him. ø

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Corky Simpson - Tucson Daily Citizen ®

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Jay Dobyns: A Warrior

StrHATE Talk

Tom "T.J." Leydon, former Skinhead and Neo-Nazi

December 14, 2007

I was just at a gang conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Day two of the "Know Gangs" conference kicked off with a bang with ATF Undercover Special Agent Jay Dobyns.

For nearly two years, this man led a double life. He rode alongside the Hell's Angels, becoming a member of one of the nation's most dangerous outlaw motorcycle gangs. But through it all, he was working as a federal agent in an effort to bring the Hell's Angels down.

His deep undercover work into the world of the Hell's Angels from 2001-2003 ultimately helped bring the indictment of 16 gang members and their associates. Mr. Dobyns is an amazing man. He and his family have recieved death threats. In that time he became a full patched member of the Hells Angles motorcycle gang.

He also sacrificed time with his two young children for the safety of others by bringing down this dangerous gang.

As a result, Dobyns was awarded a "Top Cop" award by the National Association of Police Organizations. He also honored by "America's Most Wanted" as one of the "Good Guys".

All I can say about this man is that he is a warrior at the highest level and if one of my five sons grows up to be half the man his is, well...then I did my job.

Thank you Mr. Dobyns for all you did. ø

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T.J. Leydon - StrHATE Talk ®

Hells Angels: The Federal Infiltration

The Arizona Republic ®

by Dennis Wagner

Jan. 23, 2005

The man's body lay crumpled in a ditch, face down, unidentifiable except for a blood-soaked leather jacket bearing the Mongols Motorcycle Club insignia. 

Burly, tattooed bikers stood around admiring their work, taking digital photographs under a blazing sun.Among them was Jay "Jaybird" Dobyns, who had told Arizona Hells Angels associates in advance that he and a companion were going to Mexico to kill a rival Mongols gang member.

Two days later in a trailer near Prescott, Dobyns showed off the jacket and snapshots to admiring Hells Angels brothers, who announced that he would be adopted into the world's most notorious outlaw biker club without a required year-long probation.One of the men grabbed Dobyns and hugged him, saying, "How does it feel to be a Hells Angel?"

The answer came six months later in the form of handcuffs and a criminal indictment. That's how Hells Angels learned that the Mexico homicide was a theatrical ruse: The Mongol was really a federal agent covered with cow's blood and very much alive. Dobyns was a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, working undercover.

Operation Black Biscuit was touted as "...the most successful undercover operation ever pulled on an outlaw motorcycle club." In July 2003, three dozen Arizona suspects were charged with gunrunning, murder for hire and narcotics violations. Five months later, indictments charged 16 Arizona Hells Angels members and associates, including three chapter presidents, in racketeering, conspiracy, murder and drug dealing. Those arrests were synchronized with raids in Nevada, California, Alaska and Washington state netting scores of additional suspects.

Today, there is little doubt that investigators risked their lives to penetrate the club known for its death-head logo and tough-guy attitude, or that the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club across America's West was crippled. The National Association of Police Officers fetéd task force members with "Top Cop" Awards.

But officials failed to mention serious problems with bikers who worked undercover for the government during the two-year sting. One informer used drugs, beat people up and lied to his handler. Another was arrested by state police and had to be pulled off the street. Both received questionable plea deals.

While prosecutors and task force members declined comment, Hells Angels leaders and lawyers say Black Biscuit is a case study in the misuse of informers. As the case moves to trial this spring, records obtained by The Arizona Republic lend credence to that criticism and raise a question: Was Operation Black Biscuit an undercover success that took dangerous gangsters off the streets, an undercover sting that veered out of control or both?

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The Informer

Hard-core detectives have a saying about going undercover: The best way to catch a sleazeball is with another sleazeball.

Operation Black Biscuit began, according to ATF Special Agent Joseph Slatalla, with a drug-abusing felon who belonged to the Solo Angeles, a biker club based in Tijuana. A search warrant affidavit written by Slatalla refers to the man only as "CW," initials for cooperating witness. But court papers submitted by defense lawyers identify him as Rudolph "Rudy" Kramer, 46, of Queen Creek, a pony-tailed biker with 10 aliases and a felony rap sheet. Federal agents and prosecutors have not released the identities of informers or commented on their roles in the case.

It is unclear when Kramer joined the Solo Angeles, but records show the sheetmetal worker moved to Arizona in the 1990s looking for a new life. According to a sentencing memo by defense lawyer James Park, Kramer found his answer in Jesus and a job making helicopters.

"He and his wife wanted, and began to have, a normal life..." Park wrote. "They attended church together...Rudy was on his way to walking away from his past and joining 'Middle America.'"

Instead, Kramer wound up walking into the arms of federal agents. Park blamed a sleeping disorder and a doctor's misguided prescription: Kramer, who suffered from narcolepsy, was given Desoxyn (methamphetamine) in September 2001 and promptly consumed a 40-day supply of pills in 48 hours. The result: psychotic behavior and an arrest by ATF agents for weapons violations.

Court records indicate that Kramer, with a baby at home and facing a long prison term, played the defendant's trump card: He agreed to become, in the criminals' vernacular, a "snitch", infiltrating outlaw biker gangs. In arraignment papers, a federal magistrate noted Kramer's long drug history and wrote, "Substance abusers, especially those who use meth, are inherently unreliable and untrustworthy."

That warning did not deter ATF agents. Two months after the arrest, charges were dismissed. Kramer was out of jail, on the loose and dealing in meth and guns again. Only this time he was operating under the color of law.

Getting in deep

As president of Solo Angeles, Kramer burrowed into Arizona's criminal biker world, making drug and firearm contacts in Tucson, Phoenix, Mesa, Bullhead City and Prescott.He was so busy, in fact, that a pair of Hells Angels intelligence gatherers showed up at his Queen Creek house in June 2002 and announced that they had been sent to interrogate him.

Kramer crafted an answer that appealed to the rivalry with the Mongols Motorcycle Club: According to ATF records, he said he was arming the Solo Angeles in Mexico to combat a Mongols chapter there. He also said he wanted the Solo Angeles in Arizona to collaborate with the Hells Angels on narcotics and weapons smuggling.

The story worked. In July 2002, Kramer met with Robert "Bad Bob" Johnston Jr., president of the Mesa club, and began introducing ATF agents as members of Solo Angeles to Hells Angels leaders statewide.Months of drug trafficking, gun dealing and partying ensued. Task force members set up undercover houses and used hidden cameras to film biker parties. They helped plan warfare with Mongols. They were offered drugs, frisked for wires and forced to strip before trafficking in methamphetamines and firearms.

One undercover agent got so tight with Hell Angels' leaders that Johnston treated him as a confidant, sharing information he hadn't even divulged to the club's Cice President.ATF records show that as operatives conducted black-market business for the investigation, Arizona Hells Angels chapters waged a secret recruitment competition, inviting the undercover agents to become prospects. They were guests at Hells Angels' funerals and weddings. They took part in an annual biker parade past Florence prisons.

They even posed for snapshots with Sonny Barger, the iconic king of outlaw bikers.Barger, who faces no charges in Operation Black Biscuit, declined comment except for a terse criticism of law enforcement tactics: "It's too bad they get away with what they're doing."

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The Sting

In an undercover sting, security is essential. One slip-up could be fatal to informers and agents. And, as the case evolved, Rudy Kramer became a liability.

On Sept. 6, 2002, Department of Public Safety officers stopped his car near an Apache Junction meth factory and found drug paraphernalia inside. No new charges were filed, but within days the old firearm indictment was reinstated and Kramer was incarcerated. Word soon leaked from prison that Kramer was talking to federal agents behind bars. Johnston, the Mesa Hells Angels president, confided to an undercover operative that Kramer might have to be "shanked" in prison.

About that time, Hell Angels leaders in Arizona began hearing rumors from Southern California that the Solo Angeles in Arizona were imposters and should not be trusted.Black Biscuit task force members came up with an ingenious plan to ensure credibility. In mid-June 2003, Dobyns put out word that he and another Solo Angel were heading to Mexico to battle Mongols. After a murder scene was concocted in Phoenix, Dobyns called Arizona leaders of the Hells Angels to report that his lethal mission in Sonora was accomplished.

"The girl down here blew a head gasket.", he explained in code, adding that his companion was killed in the gunplay.The ruse solidified the Solo Angeles status with bikers.Meanwhile, Kramer filed a guilty plea in court and wrote a letter to the judge begging for leniency: "Your honor, I give my word I will never again come in contact with, own, buy, sell or in any way possess another firearm or weapon for the remainder of my life. I swear to you and my Heavenly Father, this is true."He was sentenced to five years in prison and vanished, apparently into protective custody.

Biker respect

Rudy Kramer wasn't the only government plant. Federal agents unwittingly signed up a murderer as well. On Oct. 27, 2001, the Mesa Hells Angel chapter held its weekly "church meeting": a membership assembly at the clubhouse in a residential area near the city's heart. After official business was completed, the bikers began to party. A Hells Angels prospect was instructed to go out and find women. He returned with 44-year-old Cynthia Yvonne Garcia, who joined the festivities.

As the evening progressed, Garcia began "talking trash" about club members and their patches. ATF reports say one of the bikers, 38-year-old Michael Christopher Kramer (no known relation to Rudy) grabbed Garcia by the hair and warned her be respectful. She kept lipping off, so Hells Angels member Kevin Augustiniak allegedly knocked her to the floor and began kicking her face, joined by Paul Eischeid, a prospect at the club.

ATF records say a semiconscious Garcia was loaded in the trunk of a car, driven to Usury Pass Road near the Salt River and dragged into bushes. Augustiniak and Eischeid purportedly stabbed her more than two dozen times. Michael Kramer heard gurgling noises and felt Garcia grab his pant leg. He was given a knife and slashed at her neck. Augustiniak allegedly tried to sever the woman's head, but failed. The corpse was found on Halloween.

Michael Kramer had been a Hells Angel for five years, and a member of Arizona's Dirty Dozen biker club before that. Yet, one month after the killing, he met with Los Angeles ATF Agent John Ciccone and, without disclosing his crime, offered to become an informer. It was an offer the lawman did not refuse.

Testifying at a federal drug trial in California, Kramer claimed he started working for the ATF to avoid prison and to be safe from his accomplices. "I got a conscience," he added. "...What happened out there in the desert was screwed up."

Despite pangs of conscience, Kramer told Ciccone only that he had information on a "hypothetical" incident in Arizona, without providing details. The upshot: On Dec. 1, 2001, the government enlisted a killer as a paid operative. Michael Kramer quit his job as a garbage-truck driver, moved to the San Fernando Valley and began to infiltrate the Hells Angels there, playing the role of an Arizona drug runner.

Federal taxpayers covered Kramer's rent, utilities and other living expenses. He was given cash to buy guns and drugs, plus an extra $500 a week. The informer contract prohibited him from breaking laws except when authorized by agents as part of the sting, a provision he ignored.

Behind Ciccone's back, Kramer repeatedly got high on meth and gave it to bikers, strippers and others. He beat a man with a baseball bat and left a biker dead on the freeway in a traffic accident. He also lured an untold number of people into drug deals.

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Better Knives

Two months after Michael Kramer became a confidential informer, he offered to help solve the hypothetical crime in Arizona.He wanted immunity. Agents wanted to crack an unsolved murder case. A deal was struck.

Kramer came back to Mesa bearing a pair of expensive knives as gifts for his alleged accomplices. In a recorded conversation with Eischeid, he joked that sharper blades would make decapitation a breeze: "I figured this time, you know, instead of having to do it 50 times, we could just (take) one good one and a good (expletive) twist."

"Yeah," Eischeid agreed, "...these are (expletive) great knives."Kramer also brought a knife to Augustiniak, who discussed the likelihood of getting caught. "If you turn out to become a rat on the whole deal, well, then you'll get handled the way she was handled." he said."Same to you, brother." Kramer answered.

In January 2003, 14 months after Michael Kramer became an operative, he signed a plea agreement to serve five years of probation for murder, but not one day behind bars.Eischeid and Augustiniak, who pleaded not guilty, are awaiting trial.Family members of Garcia, the murder victim, could not be reached for comment.Michael Kramer was unavailable, apparently under federal protection.

Legal Battles

By midsummer 2003, Operation Black Biscuit had run its course. Top Justice Department officials decided to spring their enormous trap, raiding Hells Angels clubhouses, homes and businesses throughout the West. Hundreds of law officers were brought in to conduct searches, arrest suspects and turn the Hells Angels inside out.

D-Day was July 8. At 4:42 a.m., Glendale police SWAT officers with an armored vehicle and a videographer moved into position outside headquarters for the Hells Angels Cave Creek charter on a quiet residential street in north Phoenix. Club prospect Michael Coffelt was alone inside, on security duty, when bedlam struck. A voice yelled, "Police! Police!" The armored vehicle rammed through a wall. Officers shot a backyard dog. Flash-bang grenades sailed through the clubhouse window.

Coffelt opened the front door. Amid the confusion, Glendale police Officer Laura Beeler, stationed just outside with a rifle, pulled the trigger repeatedly, hitting Coffelt with bullets and shrapnel.The takedown, practiced at a mock clubhouse, lasted 14 seconds. Coffelt survived to face a charge of aggravated assault after Beeler reported he had shot first. A gun found beside Coffelt had not been fired.

Last month, Judge Michael Wilkinson of Maricopa County Superior Court ruled that the police raid was really an unlawful "attack" and dismissed charges against Coffelt, a decision being appealed by prosecutors. The judge found that Beeler's actions were understandable under the chaotic circumstances. Reviews by the Glendale Police Department and County Attorney's Office cleared the officer. Coffelt has filed a civil suit.

In the scheme of things, it was a minor victory for the Hells Angels. But club members and lawyers say the raid was symbolic of law enforcement practices throughout Operation Black Biscuit.

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Truth by Trial

In Arizona alone, the government assembled 800 hours of bugged conversations, 92,000 phone calls and 8,500 seized documents to prove that Hells Angels is a criminal enterprise.

Investigators confiscated computers and files containing drug ledgers, membership lists, meeting minutes and bylaws. They seized 600 guns along with silencers, explosives, drugs, stolen vehicles, cash and a human skull. The combined evidence paints many Hells Angels as violent, cop-hating, drug-dealing, gunrunning criminals.

As the prosecution rumbles toward an April trial in U.S. District Court, some defendants are expected to cut plea deals. Others are trying to get charges thrown out because of government wrongdoing, especially the role of informers.

Defense attorneys argue that operatives who duped their ATF handlers may have entrapped Hells Angels suspects and are likely to lie under oath in court. They complain that task force members went on America's Most Wanted to brag about their big sting, yet prosecutors won't formally identify the snitches or divulge their deals.

"The conduct of the government violates, irreparably, the rights of the defendants to due process, to a fair and impartial jury.", defense attorney Mark Paige wrote.

Michael Kramer's character is especially problematic. In the California drug case, prosecutors were forced to admit that their paid informer used drugs, assaulted people and lied throughout the operation. If ATF agents cannot trust their operatives, Hells Angels lawyers ask, why should a judge or jury believe anything they say?

"Based on what I've seen, this is not a racketeering case," said Brian Russo, an attorney for Johnston, the Mesa charter president. "This is overstepping by the government."

In court papers, prosecutor Michael Kemp answered that informers were never asked to lie except as part of the sting. He said their testimony is backed by tape recordings, photos, statements from agents and physical evidence. He explained that agents appeared on America's Most Wanted for a legitimate purpose: seeking public help to track down fugitives. In short, Kemp argued, the deceit by informers is not grounds to squelch a huge criminal case.

Today, the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club appears to be a shambles: leadership behind bars, mystique broken, organizational records in government hands. Prosecutors are trying to gain ownership of chapter houses by having the entire Arizona club labeled a criminal enterprise.

Legal jousting continues from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and elsewhere. In Phoenix, Judge David Campbell of the U.S. District Court in Arizona has sided mostly with prosecutors. But it remains to be seen whether Operation Black Biscuit will go down as a historic undercover success, or a sting that went bad. ø

Dennis Wagner - The Arizona Republic ®

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Officials mum about fire at ATF agent's home

by Dennis Wagner - Aug. 17, 2008 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

Criminal investigators in Tucson put up a wall of secrecy last week after a fire that police believe was intentionally set damaged the home of a federal investigator who has faced death threats since he infiltrated the Hells Angels motorcycle club.

Dawn Hanke, a Pima County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman, confirmed that deputies are investigating a blaze at the residence of Jay Dobyns, who is among the most celebrated agents in the history of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Hanke said detectives have not established whether the blaze was set by an arsonist. She declined to provide additional information.

The blaze started about 3 a.m. last Sunday in the back-porch area at a house on a mini ranch in northwest Tucson, according to Willie Treatch, a fire marshal with Rural/Metro. Dobyns was not home at the time, but his wife and two children had to run outside in their nightclothes. Dobyns, an agent for two decades, declined comment for this story. The former all-conference receiver on the University of Arizona football team joined the ATF in 1987 and spent much of his career working dangerous undercover cases. He was wounded twice in the line of duty and received some of law enforcement's highest awards.

Several years ago, Dobyns penetrated Hells Angels clubs in Arizona by posing as a criminal affiliated with another biker gang. The case, known as Operation Black Biscuit, resulted in numerous indictments but mostly fell apart in court amid defense allegations of wrongdoing by snitches, investigators and prosecutors. According to federal records, Hells Angels and other criminals have made threatening comments about Dobyns and his family and once sought to enlist prison-gang members to carry out a hit.

As the operation ended, an outlaw biker in Tucson supposedly warned Dobyns he would always be a target, looking over his shoulder. Dobyns subsequently complained that the ATF failed to protect him and his family despite 20 years of service. He criticized bureau administrators and filed a federal claim for damages.

Special Agent Tom Mangan of the ATF declined comment on the fire and would not say whether the bureau is assisting Dobyns with security. Dobyns' exploits are described in several books, and he has co-authored a new one, set for release in February.