Bandidos MC USA President Jeff Pike Guilty (2018)

After nearly three months of testimony and fewer than three days of deliberations, a federal jury in San Antonio on Thursday delivered a gut punch to the Texas-based Bandidos Motorcycle Club. The jury of eight men and four women found former Bandidos Motorcycle Club national president Jeffrey Fay Pike, 62, of Conroe, and ex-vice president John Xavier Portillo, 58, of San Antonio, guilty of all charges they faced in a 13-count racketeering indictment. Although none of the charges were directly connected, the verdict came on the three-year anniversary of Texas’ deadliest biker shootout, pitting the Bandidos against the rival Cossacks. Pike and Portillo looked disappointed upon hearing they were convicted of crimes that include racketeering conspiracy, murder, extortion and drug dealing (or aiding and abetting those activities). The convictions on the charges were almost certain to lead to life in prison, without parole, when they are sentenced this fall, their lawyers noted. Both men plan to appeal. During the federal trial, the two leaders challenged the government’s contention that they were the bosses of what the feds called “the mafia on two wheels.” The pair denied ordering, authorizing or sanctioning the criminal activity of their fellow Bandidos, and Pike claimed local Bandidos chapters were autonomous and didn’t act on orders of national leaders. But federal witnesses that included ex-Bandidos and wiretaps of Portillo’s phone, along with body-wire recordings worn by cooperators, helped sway jurors to agree with prosecutors. But the federal jury did convict Pike and Portillo of conspiracy to murder and assault members and associates of the Cossacks. Government witnesses testified that Portillo, with Pike’s approval, declared in 2013 or 2014 — before the Waco incident — that the Bandidos were “at war” with the Cossacks. According to that testimony, a number of violent acts — before and after the Waco brawl and gunfight — were committed by Bandidos around Texas in furtherance of this “war,” including in Fort Worth, Gordon, Odessa, Port Aransas and Crystal City. “There’s layers and layers, as the jury heard, of levels of protection for those at the highest levels,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Fuchs, the lead prosecutor. “They could give orders, tell only those closest to them about them, and then they would be filtered down so that when it came to trial, they could claim it was hands off and they had no role. The jury really saw through that. They were able go through more than 1,200 pieces of evidence, more than six months of wiretap and really see the sophistication in the organization and hold them accountable.” Among the murders the jury heard about were that of Geoffrey Brady, a supporter of the Cossacks shot by Bandidos members in December 2014 at a Fort Worth bar; street gang member Robert Lara, who was shot by Bandidos in Atascosa County on Jan. 31, 2002; and Anthony Benesh, a purported Hells Angels member who was shot outside an