Former motorcycle club leader gets 15 years in prison for dealing methamphetamine

RIVERSIDE » The former president of the Riverside chapter of the Peckerwoods Motorcycle Club was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison for his role in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine in the San Diego area.

Steven Edward Moncrief, 59, of Temecula, was a “mid-to-high level distributor of kilogram quantities of methamphetamine in San Diego County,” according to a prosecutor’s sentencing memorandum, which also identified Moncrief as “an organizer, leader, manager or supervisor of this criminal activity.”

The investigation led law enforcement officials to search Moncrief’s Riverside County home in 2018, during which they found around 10 pounds of methamphetamine, firearms, cash, scales and packaging material, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Nearly 40 defendants have been charged in the overarching investigation, with 26 pleading guilty to date, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Moncrief pleaded guilty last year to a federal count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

Prosecutors said the search of his home also yielded paraphernalia espousing white supremacist ideology. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Peckerwoods Motorcycle Club members often display hate symbols on their vests, including Nazi SS Bolts and Swastikas, and its current president has pleaded guilty to a racially motivated attack on a Black man that left the victim paralyzed.

The sentencing memorandum states the club was founded in East San Diego County in 2005, but has chapters elsewhere in California, as well as Arizona, and Nevada.

“The trafficking of narcotics in our community to support a hateful ideology will not be tolerated,” Acting U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman said. “This conviction demonstrates that we will pursue our investigations past the foot soldiers of trafficking conspiracies to those who organize and manage the enterprises.”