Outlaw ties disputed

SANDPOINT — Supporters of those arrested during a sweep of Hermanos Motorcycle Club members contend the men are being unfairly tarred with a broad brush.

“Being part of a motorcycle club does not make you an outlaw,” said Nicholas Mattison, who is friends with some of those caught up in the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office gang enforcement operation.

Mattison said those who were arrested in Monday’s sweep are working-class men with families who pay their taxes, hold down legitimate jobs and steer clear of drugs such as methamphetamine.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested three people during a series of simultaneous raids on homes in Ponderay, Sandpoint and the Upper Pack River and Rapid Lightning valleys. Bryan Michael Lukezich, the 33-year-old president of the local Hermanos chapter was arrested, as were the chapter members Steven Jay Beal, 32, and Dale Michael Champine, 41.

Lukezich is charged with recruiting criminal gang members. Beal and Champine are likewise charged but face additional charges of obliterating manufacturers’ identification numbers of motorcycle parts.

Mattison is not a member of the local Hermanos chapter, but was compelled to speak out on his friends’ behalf because of the way they were portrayed in media coverage of the sweep.

Mattison concedes his friends might have had troubles in the past, but said they have turned a corner in their lives by giving up drugs and focusing their energies on motorcycles and the camaraderie of a motorcycle club.

Hermanos is a supporter of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, a group which has garnered a reputation as a “1-percenter” gang. The designation refers to a conventional concept that 99 percent of the motorcycling community is composed of law-abiding citizens, while the scant remainder are outlaws.

Mattison contends his friends are among the 99 percentile.

“None of these guys are bad guys. They’re being made to look like 1-percenter Bandidos,” said Mattison.

Mattison also took exception to the Hermanos being lumped in with the broader confines of Operation New Hight, which has led to scores of drug arrests of people with no affiliation to the Hermanos.

Mattison emphasized that search warrants that were executed on his friends’ homes yielded no evidence of illegal drug operations.

“All they got was a bunch of hats and T-shirts,” he said.