James Lee "Frank" Wheeler, chief of the Outlaws gang, goes on trial on racketeering and drug charges.
By GRAHAM BRINK
Published August 20, 2003
TAMPA - Federal prosecutor James Muench told jurors Tuesday that crime fuels the Outlaws motorcycle club.
Muench said the jurors would hear stories about beatings and bombings, extortion and rampant drug dealing, involving Outlaws with nicknames like "Shock" and "Dog" and "Buffalo Wally." Former Outlaws will defy the club's oath by testifying about gang rivalries and killings, he said.
Overseeing it all - and directly ordering some of the criminal behavior - was the Outlaws' leader James Lee "Frank" Wheeler, Muench said.
Wheeler was intent on securing the club's terrority at all costs, even if that resulted in a smorgasbord of mayhem, Muench said. "He wanted, more than anything, to be feared," Muench said during opening statements in Wheeler's trial.
Wheeler faces racketeering and drug charges that could put him in prison for the rest of his life. Courthouse security was stepped up for the trial, which could last six weeks or more. All visitors must pass through two metal detectors to get in. There was no indication that members of the Outlaws attended the trial Tuesday.
Wheeler, 61, looks like the Hollywood cliche of a biker, with a salt-and pepper beard that stretches down to his chest and a face imprinted with a lot of hard living. He has a large tattoo on his back that includes the club's symbol, a skull and crossed pistons.
Wheeler's attorney, Timothy Fitzgerald, told the judge he would defer his opening statement until after the prosecution has presented its case. It's unclear what strategy Fitzgerald will employ, but at trials for other Outlaws, their lawyers have portrayed them as victims of overzealous authorities.
Wheeler took over as the Outlaws' leader after Harry "Taco" Bowman went on the run in the late 1990s, Muench said. Bowman, who led the club for 20 years, was eventually arrested and convicted in 2001 of racketeering and other charges. Bowman is serving a life sentence.
Founded in Chicago, with chapters in Florida and across the nation, the Outlaws is one of the country's largest motorcycle clubs. Members often refer to themselves as "one percenters," an acknowledgment that they live outside the mainstream. But they say they are not the criminal enterprise portrayed by prosecutors.
A familiar saying among the members is "Outlaws we are, RICO we're not" - a reference to the federal racketeering act set up to counter organized crime.
But Muench painted a much more sinister picture.
He played snippets of tapes made by confidential informants talking with Wheeler about a variety of club activities, including targeting rival gangs. On one tape, Wheeler can be heard chastising his lieutenants for not ripping off a gang of drug-dealing Mexicans, Muench said.
"Where are my f------ robbers at?" the deep voice on the tape can be heard saying. "Where's my G-- d--- gangster Outlaws?"
Muench said one former Outlaw will testify how he earned full member status by killing a member of Hell's Henchmen, an ally of the Hell's Angels, the Outlaws' main rival. The Outlaw shot the Henchman three times, but his gun jammed, so he beat the man with the butt of the gun. The death blow came when the Outlaw plunged a screwdriver into the Henchman's neck, Muench said.
Wheeler is the latest Outlaw to be tried in Tampa. Bowman was convicted here in 2001, and in 1995, a federal jury found 14 members and associates of the club guilty of a variety of charges.
