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Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins interviewed retired ATF Agent Ignacio Esteban about his book Full Throttle: Riding with the Hells Angels, the Life of Sonny Barger. This book is a free download until Monday, August 15, on Amazon. Ralph Sonny Barger was born October 8, 1938 and died recently on June 29, 2022. He was the original icon of an American outlaw biker. Sonny Barger was also an author of many books and an actor who was a founding member of the Oakland, California, chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in 1957. Ignacio tells us how Barger started life with an alcoholic, abusive father, and a missing mother. In 1955, as a teenager, he lied about his age to join the military. When the army discovered he was underage, they gave him an honorable discharge. He was good mechanically and liked motorcycles. He joined a small San Francisco area gang known as the Panthers, which quickly went defunct. He joined a small club known as the Oakland Hells Angels, and when the leader went to prison, Sonny Barger became president. He learned several other California motorcycle gangs claimed the name of Hells Angels, so he traveled around and convinced them to form one club, even writing rules and bylaws.
An example of the little-known tidbits that Ignacio Esteban passes along in his book is the story about how Barger wrote a letter to President Lyndon Johnson during a time when the War in Vietnam was not going well. Hells Angels President Barger advised United States President Johnson that he and the entire Hells Angels gang would travel to Vietnam, and he promised they would kick the butts of the Viet Cong and win the war quickly. LBJ did not respond.
Transcript
SPEAKERS
Ignacio Esteban, GARY JENKINS
00:00
Welcome all you Wiretappers out there. Back here in studio Gangland Wire with our now regular almost frequent contributor Ignacio Esteban, retired ATF agent. Welcome, Ignacio.
00:12
Hey, Gary thanks for having me again. I enjoy being out here.
00:15
I know you do. And you guys you need to do look him up on Amazon. He’s got a whole bunch of books out there that are easy reads and you can learn anything you want about crime, guns, anything that that you might want to find out about. He’s got a book about it on Amazon. So just look him up. You can just look at the show notes and and I’ll put links to his Arthur page on Amazon and I’ve done other shows with him. So look back at my other shows and, and you can learn more about ATF Retired agent Ignacio Esteban?
00:52
That’s the one with ATF.
00:54
Yeah. How do you? How do you do first? You first retired? Did you feel like did you like did you bother you telling people you retired? It did me. I didn’t like say that was retired?
01:07
Yeah. I mean, it kind of didn’t because I was in headquarters. I did my two years there. Yeah. And I felt good. I mean, most of my career was with doing the investigation that being proactive. But you know, I learned a lot behind the scenes or to what will help you know, things really happen behind the scenes. So I was okay with it. And I really never thought I was dabbling with my autobiography, ATF Undercover. But I never thought I was gonna be a prolific writer like this. I was gonna do this. There’s something I didn’t think about really, yeah. And it’s really taken life. And I never thought I’ll be on podcast shows and YouTube shows. I never thought this and I’ve done over almost, I was telling you earlier about 25 shows and county. I’ve got some I did Australia. I did one in India, which is a written interview. And now I’m doing a show in London. A three part series is going to be doing in a few weeks. And then good thing is there might be something else bigger, which I’m working on a screenplay. So I’ll let you guys know down the road. What’s going to happen if this could be something big, so we’ll see. Great,
02:06
keep us keep us up on that. So what we want to talk about I had noticed that Ignacio had a book on the Hells Angels and Sonny Barger just died and he and he focuses quite a bit on Sonny Barger, and Sonny Barger of the Hells Angels, the Oakland Hells Angels. Correct.
02:25
It’s I spend a little bit how that how that came about because, yeah, there’s Oakland there San Bernardino, Hells Angels. But he was able to merge it all together. Okay. And he came up with the bylaws, and it’s very interesting how he’s able to do it. San Bernardino, Hells Angels start with Otto Fridley. But they were able to work things out because he was really part of the Panthers Oakland chapter that will defunct and I’ll give a little background about him feel like he was a very interesting guy himself. He came from a broken home. His mother left him when he was four months old, was older sister, his dad was a alcoholic. Right? He was a laborer working is just so he was a basketball. He dropped out of high school when he’s in 10th grade. And he ends up joining the military. He forges his birth certificate soon after, says he’s 18 We release 15. And he goes in the army. And he’s in the army for about a year and a half until they discover that this guy is underage. So but they don’t give him a dishonorable discharge, this regular discharge, which I thought was interesting. So it wasn’t he didn’t stay in it for that. But he did what he had to do. And he was out, but he’s only thinking to get as big of the hands and mechanics. So he liked motorcycles. And that’s how he developed with the Oakland chapter there. Well, he liked the name. It has a military background, the Hells Angels, people, you know, during World War Two, so he kept the name but the names were being used. So what happens is he has to work things out with other chapters. And he consolidating, he writes the bylaws by doing so that unifies the Hells Angels in California. And then from there on, he then becomes auto friedli gets arrested. He gets 10 years. Right. And this is about early 60s. So then he becomes a de facto president, National President of the Hells Angels. It’s very smart move on his part. He moves because at the time, the mother chapter so to speak to headquarters was in San Bernardino. He wants to protect Oakland. So then he moves it to Oakland, and all sudden he is it because Fridley never takes over again the rains and he becomes the national and the face for the next switches next 60 years old, the Hells Angels pretty much.
04:32
So now let me recap just a little bit. Is this Otto Fridley? He had something that was the Panthers and then they took the name of the Hells Angels in San Bernardino.
04:43
Heat no heat, no Panthers was something he had in Oakland. Sonny Barger Yeah, it was it.
04:49
Had Panthers okay, then Otto Friedly has got this Hells Angels in San Bernardino. There’s other disparate Hells Angels motorcycle clubs, right? So Sonny Barger being a strong personality every comes out of the army, and a guy that can organize and see the wisdom and organize. Then he starts. friedli goes to jail and Sonny Barger becomes the strong personality and the guy that gets around other chapters and starts putting it together that,
05:22
and very smartly, he moves the headquarters and Mother chapter to Oakland. And that consolidates his base. Yeah. Which kind of changes a lot for him. Because then from then on, he pretty much is He’s the face and he’s running the Hells Angels from then on until the end of his life when he gets sick. And I’ll talk about his cancer and throw and everything else that that kind of changes his life also. So the Hells Angels were involved in a lot of things. Obviously, they were present, I guess, the counterculture movement in the 60s, right when you need to think that you think a sounding board and the Hells Angels. And I put on my book, they had a really, really bad episode. And I didn’t really understand how bad it was in in the ultimate speedway. It was a concert, The Rolling Stones want to organize just after Woodstock, right? I don’t know if you heard about this. Oh, yeah. Yeah, how bad it was.
06:09
I have I know that you tell him about it. Everybody may not know about that. You got younger people.
06:13
I knew something about I didn’t know how bad the melee especially now that the videos are out there. Your audience can look at the videos. How bad it was. It was you know, hindsight is 2020 was a bad decision. Allegedly by the by the Rolling Stones, management should pick the Hells Angel for security. Right? It’s a great move in the world. And especially providing well someone did it wasn’t clear three kegs during the concert. Right. And this was an all weekend all day affair. So they’re doing heavily drinking, the concert goers are back in the 60s. They’re smoking, right? Tripping acid. They’re doing everything. So the Rolling Stones were the last act they have put together but they had all these big names. You know, Grateful Dead Jefferson Airplane. I mean, you name it. That was like the big show. And it was for free. So everybody can because you know, the Rolling Stones were accused of charging too much I guess that summer for a lot of concerts. So they feel bad about so they want to give us a small Woodstock that was free. So this is what’s the West Coast side of Woodstock where they pretty much were I was reading about, obviously before my time, but I was reading about it. I found it very interesting. But I didn’t realize all the video because they had filmed it like almost like doing some sort of concert they were filming it. And then you see the mele. You see how things get broken back. And allegedly Sonny Barger who’s organized puts a gun when they’re playing the Rolling Stones to Keith Richards signing so you guys keep on playing, or things get ugly because they didn’t want things to add. So you have that famous picture video, where allegedly they say, Hey, some of the concert goers hit over the bikes they had. And one of the guys supposed to have a knife or another gun. And it was it was a black male in a green suit and you can see stands out. And the Hells Angel guy comes out with a huge knife and starts stabbing him and you can see clearly in the video and kills him. And that gives the Hells Angels a huge black eye. And the world sees that Rolling Stone magazine roll was there and they document the whole thing and they did a documentary and then they also a magazine. Let it let it be from the Beatles let let it bleed. Yeah, it was what it titled. That whole thing. So yeah, that
08:18
was a huge black guy for the Hells Angels. They kind of had some good publicity, you know, the Summer of Love and San Francisco and the angels were going out to that park, San Francisco park that all the hippies hung out in a lot of publicity. Sonny Barger he was kind of a master of publicity to I think he made this statement back then I’ll never forget this. I was. He said, Vietnam was not going so well. Quickly. People knew that and he said, we just need to take the Hells Angels and take them over there and they’ll get the Viet Cong SATs right back up north Vietnam. And this thing will be over oh my god, the whole country went crazy with that guy was a master at getting the national attention and publicity
09:05
even wrote a letter to LBJ saying that there’s even a letter they obviously the President ever responded. But there’s a letter of him. I was reading that one that he sends it to LBJ. It’s interesting. Yeah. So cool things I didn’t know I started researching this, which I kind of like kept the law for perspective. Obviously, we investigate this guy, but then I’m looking at the person. But there’s a lot of mistakes and unfortunate he develops a really bad cocaine addiction. And that’s starts derailing because they get really involved in drug trafficking. He develops about addiction, cocaine, heroin, become drugs of choice to start trafficking. And then he gets he gets in a big jam in a trial in the early 70s for murdering a drug trial drug career in Oakland, over an $80,000 debt, right? He’s looking at life. Pretty much this a huge trial early 70s Sonny Barger is being is being tried for murder, right. There’s a witness that says he came in with a crew as he was staying. And he shot him when you’re sleeping in the head killed him. That’s a witness what else was there? And then they burned on the property. What was that other Hells Angels? What saves him? And then trial when I was reading an investigation was there was Oakland Police Department sergeant who testified and said that Barger has pretty much was an informant for him. He had worked for him for years. And he would provide information about weapons, explosives, and before Black Panther Party members in that area, and also for the Weather Underground group to you know, leftist organizations. And he’s very, on the opposite. So you know, anti, he didn’t like the protesters. He didn’t like these guys either. So anything he could do to help hurt these organizations, he would help. So in essence, he said Barger was an informant, Danny Barton Hill Hill annuals and apart from Oakland Police Police Department. So I found that interesting. He was acquitted by testifies, and he’s acquitted of murder, even though there was a witness that said he got shot in the head for Drucker, that was a huge win. You can see some of the video and everything else. He dodged. He was looking at life. So that was a big, big win for him. But again, they’re involved in a lot of drug trafficking and other things going on. So he gets hit later with drug charges. And he does about three years and and first encountered in prison. So that’s a big hit. Rico passes in the early 70s and Hells Angels, so back to business by 1980. In San Francisco, they decided to do a huge Rico investigation against Hells Angels. They I think they spent like $5 million at over 150 witnesses testify right? I guess him the Hells Angels in California. This is well suited to pretty much and the Hells Angels ones for all. They think there’s bad news. Yeah. He’s acquitted. Oh, wow. He’s acquitted. His wife’s acquitted, hung jury for most of the guys in the Hells Angels. On jury.
12:05
He’s like the Teflon Don a Hells Angels voters I could guess.
12:09
Yes, that that was a huge win for for Sonny Barger in them. But he then develops health issues. He was a huge chain smoker. When I was looking reading, he was smoked three packs a day, three packs a day, and he would have lung cancer, he would have cancer but throat, which he’ll have to have his vocal cords removed. So that’s why he has learned how to speak through his esophagus. Oh, yeah, he had the voice box in his voice complete changed and, and everything else. So he’s going through that changes there. Then Then he finally does get caught by the Feds an interesting case. Remember he was an informant. Right? Allegedly, according to the sergeant, right? Well, then he has somebody who was a Sergeant of Arms out of Anchorage, decides to work with the feds investigation started wearing a wire and everything else in the late 80s. And this will hurt the Hells Angels big time. Because what the chapter president of Anchorage is killed by Outlaws in Louisville area outside of biker bar, right? So he wants to pay back. But unfortunately, he doesn’t realize he’s been infiltrated. And everything’s being recorded. So they know that he’s planning with other Hells Angels to cross from California to Louisville, to kill these guys who are involved in killing one of their guys. So before all that happens, he gets popped in a conspiracy case by the Feds for for transporting explosives to kill to attempt murder to kill this guy. So he this one he loses. And so the other angels, he ends up getting about four years federal time for that. Yeah. So that said, I think I think it changes him a lot. He then doesn’t want to return back to to California and Oakland. He decides to want to set up a chapter in Cave Creek, Arizona, because he does his federal time in Arizona Federal prison there, right? I guess he likes to whether he likes what he sees. And he wants to he wants to move out there. So he moves out there. And I think it doesn’t three or four years. So now he’s had a few failed convictions. And he wants to take more of a back approach. I guess he’s learned this this hurt. You know what, what he did here. He wants to be more of an advisor type deal. But unfortunately, with alcohol and other things. He’s also a an app put as my book also, he’s also a domestic abuser. And his third wife really suffers a lot from domestic abuse with his stepdaughter and the sheriff’s office out there. Maricopa goes out there and wants them has to arrest him. She’s she’s, you know, bruised, broken bones, a broken spleen, broken ribs, the whole nine yards and stepdaughter also abused tells them that quarter reports and everything that’s out there that she thought he was going to kill her. So that’s another side you have you got the international icon. But you also have this side of this guy which is very abusive, which a lot of people do not like about bots anymore. You’re like that there’s really no need for that. After that he decides to leave Arizona and go back to Oakland by the late 90s. He was I guess you realize that he just couldn’t stay there, he divorced her. And he starts he gets married again or fourth time. And he starts at. This is where he transforms from the iconic side where he makes this a business where he puts hills, he writes his biography autobiography, this becomes a best seller. He helps he helps the Sons of Anarchy show, he’s a consultant, in fact, is probably based on the Hells Angels. What happens there? So that’s interesting there, lots of writing, law publicity work. He tries to change the Hells Angels a lot in that sense, but of course, I think he’s he’s learned after having an informant from within. He wants to take that role, which I think is interesting. There are a few interesting battles. I mean, 2000s I think your audience could probably look it up. And bansa pagans have them back and I think that was in 2002, there was a Hellraiser Expo, which is like a motorcycle slash thing, where the pagans ambush the Hells Angels there and he was present. And it got ugly. And the Hells Angel had to kill pagan and the Feds later because that situation and died over 75 pagans over the whole situation. So you know, and then suddenly Barger tries to become peacemaker, which was pretty interesting. And he started to do a summit later in a few months in, in Laughlin, Nevada, right. They have a big run out there. And but unfortunately, at Harrah’s, there’s a huge brawl between the Mongols, and the hell the day before the peace summit, the Hells Angel the Mongols go at it. And you can see the family everyone knows his famous video you can look all the videos up there. They’re stabbing shooting each other, allegedly started because a police officer told one of the Hells Angels guy Hey, there’s Mongols surrounding one of your brothers, you’re gonna go out there and do something or hey, you may want to look what’s going on. And they really would just check and they’re really just chatting and they’re talking and he got out of control. And a lot of guys were shot some were shot stabbed and killed and it was a bad I think that’s really pushed Sonny Barger way back out of the whole situation after that. So there’s a lot of interesting things about border I put in my book he thinks it’s a short read and it’s more stuff in there. But he was like that Teflon Don for a while until he got popped from within. And that kind of got him there.
17:17
Well that was that was interesting that is really interesting folks, you can you can get this book as a Kindle for free and in your remap to have a Kindle device. You can download the software for you or you can read it online. Just go to Amazon just one click and and it’s getting kind of interesting what I did I noticed that that Ignacio I put that up on the Facebook page and I jumped in there grabbed it right away just to see what it was like and and it was really an interesting read and easy read and you could learn you know what we just learned that a lot more about Sonny Barger and the origin and kind of the history of the Hells Angels. So jump out there and and get that quick is is it out there for free forever or is it a period of time?
18:04
Yeah, if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, it’s free. It’s free forever. If you’re not, it’s free until Monday.
18:11
Okay, all right. So
18:12
get out of there right away. Get out there.
18:16
Until Monday, it said it’s a good read. It’s researched interesting things I didn’t know about Sonny Barger. I had researched and looked into it. fascinating book. I mean, he definitely was the face of the Hells Angels for a long time and it’s a good insurance especially he just passed away and a lot of stuff he went through. You know, he’s an international icon or rebel, but he’s also criminal and domestic abuser, author. I mean, he’s he was everything to movie consult, and even actor he was even on Sons of Anarchy. A few episodes
18:45
to the oh, he was I didn’t know that. Yeah, yeah, he was a consult
18:49
for the show for years. It sounds thematically based, according to show’s creator, on the Hells Angels.
18:55
Okay, all right. That’s that makes sense. The Hells Angels are the when you think of motorcycle gangs, the first words that pop in your mind is Hells Angels. Yeah, that’s for sure. They’re just you know a part of the scene now. There’s so many out there now little little gags and big gangs I’ve just this motorcycle racing fury and there was a local gag that had colors it was like the the what was that the untape untain brothers they up they had colors and and they had two girls with a do women with him then most of these guys look old tired guys looked like me. And these gals with them. They had vast that said property of the UTV Yeah, that’s right. It’s a different lifestyle, ain’t it?
19:49
No, it is. And I think hopefully they learn their lessons when what’s happening because some of these huge racketeering cases have crushed an ATF audience has done quite a Few of these infiltrating Have you know from the Hells Angels to the outlaws to the Mongols to the pagans down to the Bandidos to the bog goes, you know, all of them have been taken down a lot. And it’s going to end up one way or the other, either incarceration, or among themselves. These guys are brutal among themselves. Yeah, they shouldn’t kill themselves. So one interesting one percenter groups, I also wrote a book also on the 1% of the violent biker gang, we really don’t know much about that, I think maybe is a good read to put them both together. Yeah, that’s the idea. Once free, another one, you pay a little bit, but it’s not really that expensive. So I think both of them go together the 1%. So if you really don’t know much about him, or you think I mean, how many groups are there? What’s going on? What I kind of break it down nice and easy. So you can see what’s what they’re all about. They’re not a super long wait. So people say I don’t have time to read long books. Okay. Well, they’re not. I recently, but they’re accurate. I do research them. And I find interesting tidbits. I think it with my books, you can find interesting tidbits and nuggets, which you might not find sometimes in other places. And I enjoy coming on your show. Gary talked about this
21:01
already, guys. Yeah. We love having you on. All right. Thank you, man. Thank you, folks. That was Ignacio Esteban, our good friend, retired ATF agent and we really like having him on. Don’t forget, look out for motorcycles. Regular motorcycle people out there like me look out for motorcycles. And if you have any problems with PTSD, and if you’ve been in the military, the VA has got a really good hotline for that. So check that out, Ignacio thanks a lot.
21:30
Okay, thank you, Gary. I look forward to it. I look forward to it. I look forward to it.
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