The former leader of a violent racist skinhead group will serve nearly 3½ years in federal prison on a racketeering charge.

Jeremy Robinson, 37, was sentenced on Oct. 15 after pleading guilty to a felony charge of interstate transportation in aid of a racketeering enterprise, according to court documents. Though Robinson did not deal drugs, he tried to help his cousin distribute a large amount of marijuana. In court documents, Robinson acknowledged renting a car for another man to bring marijuana from Texas to Indiana. The man, a courier in the cousin’s large-scale drug business, picked up the load but failed to get far before he was pulled over by Texas police, who found 90 pounds of marijuana in the trunk. Robinson also let his cousin use his tattoo shop in Valparaiso, Ind., to receive shipments of marijuana from Texas.

Working as hit men, drug dealers and clubhouse chums: Inside the most notorious biker gang as man turns into undercover police agent to put a dozen Hells Angels in jail.

Robinson was a founder of the now-defunct Outlaw Hammerskins, the group whose challenge in 1999 to the nationwide dominance of Hammerskin Nation signaled the beginning of the end of any unified skinhead movement. The Outlaw Hammerskins emerged after the Dallas-based leadership of Hammerskin Nation ordered an Indiana chapter of Northern Hammerskins to remove the “colors” (insignia) of a wayward member. Several Northern Indiana Hammerskins proceeded to beat the offender with a pool cue and threatened to burn off his Hammerskin tattoos with a blowtorch. The Dallas leaders ordered them to turn in their patches. A dozen or so of the Indiana crew left the Hammerskins to form their own renegade group, the Outlaw Hammerskins.

Under Robinson's leadership, the group forged close ties with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, even designing its structure, rules and patches to closely resemble the Hells Angels. Robinson also gave the moniker “Brown Eric” to Eric “The Butcher” Fairburn after pronouncing Fairburn “too brown” to be an Outlaw. (Fairburn was allowed to hang out with the Outlaw Hammerskins, however, and in 2003 he co-founded the Indiana-based Hoosier State Skinheads along with several former members of the Outlaw
Hammerskins.) Infighting caused the Outlaw Hammerskins’ demise in 2002, but not before the group had left its mark on skinhead culture by defying the once-unquestionable authority of Hammerskin Nation.

In court documents, Robinson said he joined a skinhead group in 1992 because he was upset about his parents’ divorce. The group “became his replacement family for a period of time,” according to a sentencing memo. Between 2000 and 2002, Robinson received two misdemeanor convictions for battery and one for driving while intoxicated. Tired of always being angry, he renounced skinhead life around the time the Outlaws disbanded seven years ago, the memo said. “Mr. Robinson notes that he has evolved from an angry, heavy drinking skinhead who routinely appeared in criminal court to a responsible father and businessman,” a judge wrote in another memo. The judge sentenced Robinson to 41 months in prison, 10 months less than federal guidelines recommended. As part of the plea agreement, three other drug charges were dismissed.

SPLC Senior Intelligence Analyst Laurie Wood contributed to this report.

Working as hit men, drug dealers and clubhouse chums: Inside the most notorious biker gang as man turns into undercover police agent to put a dozen Hells Angels in jail

Published: 03:42 BST, 1 February 2013 Updated: 19:27 BST, 1 February 2013

A Canadian bar bouncer became a millionaire-police agent by infiltrating the world’s most notorious biker gang: The Hells Angels.

During the multi-year sting, Micheal Plante went from a bar bouncer and weight lifter who wanted to make a difference to the man responsible for putting 12 of the gang’s members in jail.

Plante, who has since changed his name and moved to an undisclosed North American city, spoke extensively with The Vancouver Sun’s crime reporter Kim Bolan and she has written a lengthy six-part series detailing the trials that he had to go through to both earn the biker’s trust, and later, break it.

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Right in their midst: Micheal Plante (whose face has been blocked) infiltrated the high ranks of the Vancouver Hells Angels, including top-member Louie Robinson (center left) and drug dealer Randy Potts (right)

Criminal crew: Plante's work put a dozen members of the Hells Angels crew behind bars for various drug trafficking and assault charges

Plante grew up in various Canadian cities, moving around with his single mother and sisters, where he learned to adapt quickly to new settings.

He also developed an inherent love for the police and applied several times to join their ranks, but he was repeatedly rejected, potentially because he is one inch shorter than the minimum height requirement.

After years of working as a power lifter, and hopping between bouncer jobs, Plante decided to take action against the then-infamous Hells Angels.

Plante started working out at Fitness Quest, a Vancouver gym that a number of Hells Angels frequented. Though he didn’t strike up an immediate connection, that move was important to build facial recognition among some of the crew, and also to keep up his strength.

Making a mark: It took years for Plante to fully integrate with the East End crew, who were led by John Bryce (sixth from left)

Big break: Top dog Louie Robinson (left) took notice of Plante (right) after he was working as a bouncer at a strip club and Plante kicked out one of the drunken members of his biker crew

He eventually became a bouncer at a local strip club, the Marble Arch, which doubled as one of the gang’s watering holes.

On one fateful night, Plante made the bold decision to kick out an associate of the Angels as he was on a drunken rampage.

Apparently the move was seen as smart rather than disrespectful and it earned him a personal thank-you from Louie Robinson, one of the senior Angels and the half-brother of the local chapter’s president John Bryce.

‘What built the myth of Mike the doorman was when Louie Robinson and Randy Potts walked in the next night,’ Plante told The Vancouver Sun, explaining that Robinson tended to avoid the downtown bar scene.

‘For Louie to walk into a bar, holy s***, right?’

Biker crew: It wasn't until he really began to rise up the ranks that Plante, a professional weight lifter, actually began to ride a motorcycle, and the police helped him pay for his pricey bike

Hangout: The crew gathered at their formal clubhouse, which they take major pride in

Inside: Plante earned respect by being forced to do grunt work, cleaning the clubhouse

Going into this covert expedition, Plante knew that the men were not messing around. Randy Potts was a man that Plante knew- and later convicted- from a previous bouncer gig where he learned that Potts was a cocaine dealer.

Potts effectively lead to Plante’s first police connection. After being accepted as an acquaintance of the gang- but far from an official member- he was ordered to go out and help Potts ‘take care of’ a rival who had stolen his trademark Hells Angels vest.

‘I could have gotten killed. I didn’t realize how crazy these people are. If you were at my house sticking an Uzi in my face, I would be like, see you later,’ Plante told The Vancouver Sun.

Menace: This Hells Angel motorcycle did damage in East Vancouver, and that is one of the group's lesser crimes

Though Potts backed out and ran, he forced Plante to shoot the offender, but he balked and fired warning shots before running away. Later, that man was found dead, having been shot nine times but none allegedly came from Potts or Plante.

The police eventually tracked Plante down and arrested him for his involvement, charging him with extortion and assault charges.

Rather than bracing for jail while he was being interrogated, he took the opportunity to have an audience with a police officer- after his repeated phone calls offering his covert assistance went unanswered.

Throughout the summer of 2003, he met with police a number of times as an informant, getting paid after providing specifics about times the gang dealt meth or intimidated witnesses.

It wasn’t until 2004, however, that Plante actually became an undercover agent, earning him both immunity from illegal actions (so long as he reported them and had them approved by his supervisors ahead of time) and an official salary. In turn, he also had to wear a wire so that police could build up a legitimate case against the Angels.

After months of grunt duties for the gang- and growing pains with police procedures- Plante was made an ‘official friend’ of the group, showing that he was making strides and earning their trust. Robotstudio download free crack.

‘I hated being around them. I hated talking to them. I hated the whole thing. All they talked about was Hells Angels — drugs, making money from drugs. It is like being around someone and all they talk about is curling. I curl, curling, curling, curling. It was so boring,’ Plante said.

One grisly milestone came when he was told to get a bag and pick up some guns that Potts had stored at his elderly mother’s home, for fear that they were going to be raided by police.

Sting: Angels President John Bryce stands outside the clubhouse after a police raid in July 2005

‘I thought I was picking up a couple of pistols. I didn’t know this was the East End arsenal. I always thought it was a myth,’ he told The Vancouver Sun.

Ends up he was picking up a collection of machine guns, rifles- and even grenades. He turned them over to the police and made up a series of excuses about why they couldn’t access them whenever a random Angel wanted to go shooting.

Anxiety, exhaustion, and frustration finally reached a tipping point for Plante in January 2005, when he was overlooked by the group and not given the title of an official Angel, as they chose one of his younger peers instead.

‘Plus I had big arguments with the cops that week. We are butting heads. My anxiety was through the roof. I said, “I am done,”’ Plante said.

He quit then deserted the group, told the police he was out, and then they helped him decompress by taking him on a two-week vacation to Mexico.

Collecting proof: Through Plante's work, police confiscated the arsenal of the Angels as a result of a tip off

He was paid two installments of $500,000- the first after leaving and working towards his new, hidden life.

The second payment came on October 30, 2012, when the final charge of the multi-pronged was upheld and a dozen gang members were found guilty of various charges.

Six pled guilty to drug-related charges, including the younger Angel- Jonathan Bryce Jr.- who earned his full badge just as Plante was about to quit. Others, including meth cooks and traffickers, were all sentenced as well.

Potts, who was one of Plante’s first connections to the group, faced multiple charges.

Now Plante is trying to revert into a normal, non-gang affiliated life, though the danger still lurks as his face is well-known within the biker community.

‘Are they dangerous? For sure they are dangerous. If I was in Brazil and all of a sudden I ran into some Brazilian Hells Angels, for sure they are going to know who I am. I knew who guys were. We had pictures of guys in the clubhouse,’ he said to The Vancouver Sun.

‘But I really haven’t looked over my shoulder. I live the way I have always lived — I kind of scope things. But I don’t let it get to me.’

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