Another Hermanos member arrested

SANDPOINT — A North Idaho man awaiting trial in Bonner County on theft and gang charges was arrested Thursday on a federal warrant.

Dale Michael Champine was arrested when he arrived at the Kootenai County Courthouse on an unrelated criminal matter. Federal agents from the North Idaho Violent Crime Task Force arrested Champine on a tip from the Bonner County Sheriff’s Criminal Interdiction Team.

Champine was indicted by a federal grand jury in July, although the nature of the charge was not disclosed because the indictment remains sealed.

His arrest comes a day after Steven Jay Beal was arrested in Bonner County on a federal warrant. Beal was indicted for conspiracy to trafficking in stolen property by a grand jury in Missoula, Mont.

Beal, 33, and Champine, 41, are members of the local Hermanos Motorcycle Club. They were indicted by a Bonner County grand jury on charges of grand theft by possession of stolen property and criminal gang recruitment.

They were arrested last fall during “Operation New Hight,” an expansive investigation by the Bonner County Sheriff’s CIT.

Champine is set to be tried on the theft and gang recruitment charges in June. The Idaho courts database indicates Champine was scheduled to be arraigned in Kootenai County on Thursday in a felony malicious injury to property case.