HIGHWAY TO HELL!
Outlaw biker boss murdered crooked doc’s wife to save $1M drug racket
NEW JERSEY motorcycle gang boss Ferdinand “Miserable” Augello earned a one-way trip down the Highway to Hell when a jury decided he cruelly murdered radio show host April Kauffman because she knew too much about his drug empire!
But justice was a long time coming for the outlaw biker, branded by prosecutors as “the leader of a racketeering organization, whose hands were dripping red with April’s blood.” She was gunned down — in her own home — six years ago by another gang member acting on Augello’s orders.
Lawmen say the president of the Jersey Shore chapter of the savage Pagans Motorcycle Club and the victim’s husband, Dr. James Kauffman, wanted April dead to shut her mouth. Investigators say she threatened to expose an Oxycontin ring run by the doctor and the gangster.
Under the scam, the dirty doctor gave free painkiller prescriptions to anyone that Augello sent to his medical practice, usually members of the Pagan bike gang. Kauffman would either take a $100 payment or charge the person’s medical insurance for each visit. The gang members would use the pills or sell them illegally for big bucks. Augello received cash payments of $1,000 for his role in the operation.
When April threatened to reveal the $1 million ring in a bid to get a hefty divorce settlement, Kauffman said he’d sooner kill her than lose “half his empire.”
So Augello, now 62, began looking for a hit man. Gang member Francis Mulholland eventually signed on, authorities say.
Mulholland was driven to the Kauffman home in Linwood, N.J., where the doors were left open, and given a gun.
April, 47, was shot twice. Mulholland, who authorities say got $20,000 for the job, died of a heroin overdose in 2013.
Dr. Kauffman killed himself in jail this past January, shortly after he and Augello were arrested when another member of the Pagans sold them out to avoid 40 years in the slammer for his crimes.
Prosecutor Damon Tyner insists the crooked physician was ultimately “tried by a higher jury. It cost him his life. He couldn’t live with the weight of the evidence that would have been presented against him.”
Now Augello — who insists he’s being framed — is in for a miserable time in a cage.