Feds go after notorious biker club’s trademark
LOS ANGELES — When federal prosecutors finally managed to put mobster Al Capone behind bars, it wasn’t for murder or bootlegging, but tax evasion.
Fast forward several decades and government lawyers in Southern California say a similarly novel tactic could be the key to taking down the Mongols, a notorious motorcycle club that has long been targeted by authorities for killings and drug trafficking.
Instead of tax returns, the court battle this time will be won or lost in the decidedly unexciting trenches of trademark and forfeiture law.
If the government prevails in a racketeering case in Orange County against the group’s leadership, prosecutors plan to seek a court order to seize control of the club’s coveted, trademarked insignia, which its members wear emblazoned on the back of their biker jackets.
Both sides agree the insignia — a muscled, Asian man with a ponytail and sunglasses riding a motorcycle beneath the club’s name in capital letters — is a vital and potent part of the club’s identity. In trying to wrest it away, justice officials are banking on the idea that if they own the trademark, they will be able to choke off the club’s lifeline by preventing current and future members from wearing the image.
But it’s an open question whether the untested legal ploy will work, trademark experts said. “It’s a strange tool to use to try to stamp out an organization,” said Ben M. Davidson, a trademark attorney in Los Angeles. “This club doesn’t exist because of its trademark, and I don’t think losing it is what’s going to stop them from being a club.”
The Mongols were formed in the 1970s in Montebello, outside of Los Angeles, by a group of Latino men who reportedly had been rejected for membership by the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. It has expanded over the decades to include several hundred members in chapters across Southern California and elsewhere.
Like many social clubs, the Mongols have a constitution and bylaws, while top officials in the club’s “Mother Chapter” in West Covina collect dues from members, according to court records. But the Mongols are also a group that investigators say kept a cache of assault rifles, other weapons and bulletproof vests at its headquarters.
The Mongols club has been in the federal government’s crosshairs for years, along with several other groups authorities have identified as “outlaw motorcycle gangs.” Despite their claims of being innocent social clubs, the groups, which include the Hells Angels, Vagos and The Outlaws, have long track records of warring with each other and, according to authorities, operate as criminal organizations that subsist on the drug trade.
In 2008, nearly 80 Mongols members were charged in a sweeping racketeering case that included an array of alleged murders, assaults and drug deals. The charges were the culmination of Operation Black Rain, an investigation that centered on Mongols who had become paid informants and four undercover agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who infiltrated the club’s ranks.
The idea of stripping the Mongols of their insignia was born in this earlier case. At a news conference announcing the charges, then-U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien laid out plans to take control of the trademark — a move that he said would give the government the authority to force Mongols members to remove their insignia from their riding jackets.