Briefly

Former motorcycle club president appears in court

Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 7, 1999

TAMPA -- Harry Bowman, the reputed former international president of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, made his first appearance in a Tampa courtroom Tuesday.

Bowman was arrested last month in Michigan, two years after his indictment in Tampa on racketeering, arson and drug charges related to his leadership of the motorcycle gang.

Bowman, whose age is listed in records as both 54 and 49, said little at the hearing Tuesday.

Part of the racketeering count accuses Bowman of murdering probationary Outlaw member Arthur Allen Vincent in Ormond Beach in 1982. Bowman is also accused of the murder of Warlocks Motorcycle club president Raymond Chaffin in Edgewater in 1991 and the murder of Outlaw Donald Fogg in Indiana in 1995. The crimes Bowman is accused of committing in Tampa include extortion and distribution of opium and Valium.

Bowman failed to retain a lawyer, so a federal magistrate said Tuesday that he would appoint a lawyer. Another hearing was scheduled for Friday, when Bowman might enter a plea. He is being held without bail in the Hillsborough County Jail.

His arrest comes after two large multi-defendant trials of Outlaws members in Tampa in recent years. In 1997 four men, including former Florida president Clarence Smith, were convicted on a variety of counts.

Man accused in rapes faces two new charges

TAMPA -- Brian Christopher Graham, the Tampa man accused of being a cross-dressing rapist responsible for more than a dozen attacks on young girls and women, was charged Tuesday with two additional counts, police said

Graham, who turned 35 Tuesday, was charged with trying to abduct a 17-year-old girl from a bus stop at N Habana and Henry avenues in March, police said. He also was charged with performing a lewd and lascivious act in the presence of 12-year-girl after approaching her at the corner of N Willow and Yukon streets in December, police said.

Graham was arrested and charged with a string of attacks, including the sexual assault and kidnapping of an 8-year-old girl in June.

Graham is being held at Hillsborough County Jail without bail.

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