Judge rejects bond for alleged Bandidos leader

Reputed vice president of motorcycle gang deemed a danger to community

SAN ANTONIO — The reputed national vice president of the Bandidos was denied bond Tuesday, more than a month after he and two other alleged high-ranking members were arrested in a federal operation.

The decision by U.S. Magis- trate Judge Henry Bemporad to keep John Xavier Portillo in jail capped a lengthy hearing in which the feds cast him as the day-to-day leader of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, which the government says used extortion, violence and murder as part of its efforts to maintain a stronghold on its home state of Texas.

Bemporad did not find Portillo was a flight risk but did determine he was a danger to the community, saying the “turning point” for his decision was information that federal agents found three guns, an ounce of cocaine and a small amount of methamphetamine at Portillo’s Southeast Side home when they raided it Jan. 6 and arrested him.

Portillo has a 2009 conviction for possession of less than a gram of drugs and, as a

convicted felon, is prohibited from having a gun.

Also indicted in December were Jeffrey Fay Pikeof Conroe, the group’s reputed president, and Justin Cole Forster, the alleged national sergeant-at-arms.

All face federal charges that they conspired to direct and oversee the Bandidos’ racketeering enterprise.

Portillo pleaded not guilty.

“The rhetoric is ... they want to paint him as a drug kingpin and a crime boss when the reality is he’s a family man,” one of his lawyers, Mark Stevens, told the judge.

The defense called six witnesses who testified they knew Portillo as a hardworking man who ran an air-conditioning and ductwork installation busi- ness, someone they would trust with their lives. The witnesses included former Bexar County sheriff ’s Lt. Bill White, retired since 2003, who testified he did not know Portillo was a member of the Bandidos until a few days ago.

But prosecutors Eric Fuchs and Joey Contrerassaid Portillo led “parallel lives.”

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer Cobey Crow testified that the Bandidos have international chapters and more than 1,500 members who follow an outlaw mentality.

Crow said Portillo did “significant decisionmaking in furtherance of the goals of the Bandidos, including criminal activity ... and to include murder, drugs and assault.”