Three men face federal murder-in-aid-of-racketeering charges in 2015 death of ex-Gypsy Joker
By Maxine Bernstein
The Oregonian/OregonLive
Three men accused of torturing and murdering a former member of their Gypsy Jokers motorcycle club now face federal murder in aid of racketeering and kidnapping charges that could bring a life prison term or death sentence if convicted.
Mark Leroy Dencklau, 56, of Woodburn, Earl Deverle Fisher, 48, of Gresham, and Tiler Evan Pribbernow, 37, of Portland this week entered not guilty pleas to a four-count indictment, charging each with murder in aid of racketeering, kidnapping in aid of racketeering resulting in death, kidnapping resulting in death and conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death.
The federal indictments come just weeks before the three were set to go to trial in Multnomah County court on murder and other felony charges.
On Tuesday, state prosecutors dismissed the charges pending against each, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping and solicitation allegations, said Kirsten Snowden, Multnomah County chief deputy district attorney.
The three are accused of acting together to kill Robert Lee Huggins, 56, in the summer of 2015 "to maintain and advance their positions in the Gypsy Joke Outlaw motorcycle gang,'' said John P. Cronan, an assistant attorney general of the U.S. Justice Department's criminal division.
Huggins' body was found by loggers on July 1, 2015, minutes after it was dumped in a Clark County field. He had a fractured skull, a broken rib, a broken leg, a removed nipple, nails driven through his boots, slash wounds to his back and face, and many blows to his face.
Police believe Huggins was the target of a revenge killing. Police said the defendants acted together to kidnap Huggins from a Southeast Portland home by knocking him on the head with a hard object and zip-tying him; killing him on a rural property near Woodland, Washington; and then dumping his body in a field near Ridgefield, Washington.
Police and prosecutors contend that the men were seeking revenge against Huggins for burglarizing the Woodburn home of the local Gypsy Jokers president, Dencklau, and tying Dencklau's girlfriend to a chair at gunpoint in June 2015.
Police believe Huggins had committed the home-invasion robbery in retaliation for a brutal beating he suffered in 2014 when he was kicked out of the outlaw motorcycle gang. Club members took Huggins' motorcycle and truck as they ousted him from the club -- because they believed he'd stolen thousands of dollars from the club to support his heroin habit, police said.
After a bail hearing last summer, a Multnomah County judge did not find that the legal standard had been met to hold the men without bail based on a state's theory that they had "intentionally caused the death" of Huggins -- in other words, that they set out to murder him.
But the judge did conclude that the standard had been met to keep the men locked up based on a second murder theory -- that they intentionally kidnapped Huggins and caused his death after kidnapping him.
With the federal murder in aid of racketeering charge, prosecutors must show the defendants acted together to kill another person out of their allegiance to a violent enterprise, the gang.
"Pursuing organized criminal organizations and individual members that commit violent crimes and threaten public safety is a top priority for the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Oregon,'' Oregon's U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams said.
Portland police, along with federal agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, investigated the case, with help from the Clark County Sheriff's Office, and Washington and Oregon crime labs.
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/..._murder-i.html
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