Assault charges for Hells Angel prospect
Former Renegades biker faces two counts in connection with domestic incident
A prospect with the Kelowna Hells Angels chapter has been charged with common assault and assault by choking after a weekend domestic incident.
Court records show Jason Dennis Townsend, 43, was charged on Aug. 8. Both counts are related to an incident that took place a day earlier in Kelowna.
He’s next due in court on Sept. 15.
Kelowna RCMP media relations officer Const. Solana Pare said Monday that police were called to “an alleged assault in progress at a residence in the 500 block of Yates Road” at about 2:40 a.m. on Friday.
“Front-line officers immediately attended the scene and found the male suspect had fled the residence prior to police attendance. Officers spoke with the female victim, who had been assaulted and suffered minor injuries,” Pare said.
“During the course of the investigation, it was determined that the victim and suspect were known to each other. Later that day, the male suspect turned himself in to police.”
Townsend is a former member of the Renegades motorcycle club in Prince George, which operated as a support or “puppet” club to the Hells Angels before it disbanded after the murder of a leader and the arrest of several members.
He was later accepted into the Hells Angels program in Kelowna and last fall became a prospect, the final stage before becoming a full-patch member of the notorious biker gang. Only full-patch members can wear the threepiece death head patch on the back of their vest.
Earlier, Townsend was sentenced in 2014 to two years in jail for a vicious attack on three people in Prince George in December 2013.
He was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault and one count of assault causing bodily harm for the assault on two men and a woman outside a local nightclub. The entire incident was captured on video, showing Townsend punching a man in the face, then kicking him after he fell to the ground, smashing his head on a brick wall in the process.
A woman who tried to stop Townsend was punched in the face and knocked out. The third victim, a man who also tried to intervene, was punched in the face and then curb-stomped by Townsend.
Townsend fled after the attacks but was arrested several days later in Dease Lake, about 1,000 kilometres north of Prince George.
Townsend also had earlier convictions for assault, drug trafficking and firearms possession.