Biker Attack Is Called Clash Over L.I. Turf

Feb. 25, 2002

A deadly attack in which bat-wielding members of the Pagan Outlaw Motorcycle Club from around the East Coast invaded a catering hall here filled with Hells Angels appeared to be a carefully orchestrated response to the Angels' bid to raise their profile on Long Island, where the Pagans once dominated, investigators and those familiar with motorcycle gangs said today.

A bloody melee erupted on Saturday when 10 vanloads of Pagans stormed into the Vanderbilt, a white-columned catering hall more accustomed to holding lavish weddings and political victory parties than biker gatherings. But this weekend, it was home to the Hells Angels' Hellraiser Ball, a convention featuring performances by blues bands, an appearance by a pornographic film star, motorcycle exhibitions and a tattoo contest.

One Pagan was killed by gunfire, and 10 others were injured. About 500 guns, knives, bats, ax handles and other, more exotic weapons were seized, along with what the police said was a large amount of cocaine.

Today, the authorities charged a member of the Hells Angels with second-degree murder and said he was the only person to fire a gun during the fracas. Throughout the day, clusters of bikers were led in handcuffs from Nassau County Police Headquarters in Mineola and taken by bus to First District Court in Hempstead. In all, 75 bikers were charged, 73 of them Pagans.

Those familiar with the world of motorcycle gangs said the explosion of violence was the first such confrontation between the two gangs at a public exposition since the 1970's, and could signal a dangerous new phase in their rivalry in the United States.

''What you saw this weekend was the beginning of a war between these two gangs,'' said Yves Lavigne, of Toronto, the author of three books on the Hells Angels. Motorcycle expositions like Saturday's Hellraiser Ball -- the Hells Angels' first on Long Island -- ''are commonplace wherever they control the territory,'' Mr. Lavigne said. ''It shows they're not afraid, but this time it backfired. This was the Pagans telling them, 'We're drawing the line here.' ''

Police officials said they were investigating several possible causes of the deadly fracas, including the possibility that it was an attempt by the Pagans to retaliate against the Hells Angels because some Pagans had defected to the rival group. More arrests might follow, the authorities said.

All appeared to be going smoothly Saturday afternoon at the Vanderbilt, an expansive building with lighted, marbleized floors. Roughly 1,000 motorcycle enthusiasts perused the exhibits. Outside, a half-dozen uniformed police officers watched from across the street.

Just after 4 p.m., the authorities said, the vans arrived, some pulling up to the spot where limousines usually discharge elegantly gowned and tuxedoed couples. Out marched a collection of long-haired men with scraggly beards and faded denim vests, some of them so beefy that, later, the police had to use three sets of handcuffs to link their hands behind their backs.

As astonished attendees looked down from a sweeping, carpeted staircase, the Pagans began knocking over tables in the hall's pastel-painted lobby, the police said. It did not take long for the Angels to respond. Within minutes, the police said, Raymond Dwyer, 38, a Hells Angel and a tattoo artist from Oceanside, N.Y., opened fire at the invaders with a small-caliber handgun, wounding five people.

At least six other people were also stabbed or cut in the melee, all of them Pagans, the police said, prompting members of the group to bolt out of the Vanderbilt and into their vans.

Nassau, Suffolk and New York State police officers as well as members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who the police said had been monitoring the event, raced to the scene.

The most seriously injured were pulled out of the vans and taken by ambulance to local hospitals. Among them was a man identified as Robert Rutherford, 51, of Lancaster, Pa., who had been shot in the chest and stabbed. Mr. Rutherford died during surgery at North Shore University Hospital here.

This afternoon, friends gathered on a lawn in front of the townhouse in the working-class Lancaster neighborhood where Mr. Rutherford had lived. Neighbors described him as a postal worker who often rode motorcycles with his wife.


Mary Sexton, 55, who lives nearby, said she would not have suspected Mr. Rutherford to be a member of the Pagans.

''When I think Pagans, I think wild, crazy people,'' Ms. Sexton said. ''But I never got that impression from them. I would see them both riding their cycles and parking them in the driveway, but they were never unruly. They were just neighbors who enjoyed Harleys.''

Mr. Dwyer's lawyer, Michael DerGarabedian, said his client was innocent. ''He's adamant he did not pull the trigger,'' Mr. DerGarabedian said. ''He did not commit a murder.''

But prosecutors said Mr. Dwyer, a bulky man in a black Hells Angels muscle shirt, had pulled his long brown hair back into a ponytail and put on ''non-prescriptive glasses'' in an attempt to evade the police after the shooting. He was charged with second-degree murder today and ordered held without bail.
The police confiscated about 500 weapons from the Vanderbilt and the vans, and police officials displayed a selection at a news conference today: brass knuckles, batons, switchblades, daggers, guns, a fake lipstick with a blade inside.

The police said they also recovered a ''large quantity of cocaine'' inside the catering hall.

Today, a parade of bearded, denim-vested Pagans were marched into First District Court in groups of five or six. They were arraigned on charges of first-degree rioting and first-degree attempted gang assault. Some were also charged with weapons possession, and most were held in $50,000 cash bail.

A lawyer representing the group, Mark D. Lancaster of Pittsburgh, said the Pagans had come from as far as Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Ohio because they wanted ''just to participate'' in the rival group's exposition.

''They weren't there to show disrespect,'' Mr. Lancaster said.

But Bob Maganza, 52, president of the Long Island chapter of Hells Angels, said everything had gone smoothly in the ornate halls of the Vanderbilt until the Pagans abruptly interrupted the weekendlong effort to ''promote motorcycling on Long Island.''

''We are not the bad guys here,'' Mr. Maganza said. ''We were doing our own thing, we were minding our own business. The assault came to us. It turned everybody's lives upside down.''

Mr. Maganza would not speculate on why the Pagans had crashed his group's party.

''I couldn't even guess what they were thinking,'' he said. ''They're just different than we are. They're stupid. To think they're going to come into an event like this, what were they thinking? With women and children there?''

Long Island was considered prime Pagan territory until 1998, when the authorities arrested more than 30 bikers associated with the group, including its leader, on charges they had extorted thousands of dollars a year from topless dance clubs on Long Island, threatening club owners with violence and arson.
The vacuum created by the Pagans' low profile coincided with the group's refusal to sign peace contracts with the other three major American motorcycle clubs, Mr. Lavigne said, meaning the Angels were free to tread on Pagan turf.

The Pagans are known as the ''least sophisticated'' of the four major clubs -- also including the Bandidos and the Outlaws -- according to Mr. Lavigne. ''Fat, bearded, long-haired they stand out a lot,'' he said. ''The Angels today are slick, coifed and look more like business people.''

But at the Hells Angels' Long Island headquarters, a squat rectangular building next to a gas station and across the street from the Murda Ink tattoo parlor not far from the courthouse in Hempstead, a group of burly men in leather jackets declined to speak with a reporter.

''Get out,'' one man ordered from behind a green security fence topped with barbed wire and adorned with signs that read, ''Beware of Dog'' and ''No Trespassing.'' ''Get out now.''