Pagan's Motorcycle Club

History

The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Pagan's Motorcycle Club page on 1 May 2020, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Pagan's Motorcycle Club, or simply The Pagans, is an outlaw motorcycle club formed by Lou Dobkin in 1959 in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The club rapidly expanded and by 1959, the Pagans, originally clad in blue denim jackets and riding Triumphs, began to evolve along the lines of the stereotypical one-percenter motorcycle club.

The Pagans are categorized as an outlaw motorcycle gang by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). They are known to fight over territory with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) and other motorcycle clubs. They are active on the East Coast of the U.S. states: Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, West Virginia and Puerto Rico.

The Pagans were established in Prince George's County, Maryland, by then-president Lou Dobkin, beginning in 1957 and officially organized in 1958. The group started out wearing denim jackets with embroidered insignia instead of the more standard three-piece patches utilized by most OMGs, and riding both American and British motorcycles, Harley-Davidsons and Triumphs. Originally they were a "brotherhood of 13 motorcyclists. In the 1960s they adopted a formal constitution and formed a governing structure, choosing a national president whom was paid the same amount as the U.S. President, which worked out to a $100,000 salary per year. and calling the gesture "a show of class."

They were a fairly non-violent group until 1965. After gaining a swelling mass of new members which put the Pagans on the path to evolve into an outlaw motorcycle gang (OMG). It was largely a semantic gesture made after they gathered at a motorcycle race in Maryland; the ensuing incident found them branded as "The 1% of motorcyclists whom caused problems" in local newspapers. The Pagans then both invented and adopted the 1%er patch, referencing the newspaper articles of the time. This 1%er patch quickly adopted by most other OMGs.

With ties to other organized crime groups, the Pagans quickly became dominant in the Mid-Atlantic region. They were the only large OMG in that region as well as a large portion of the Northeast USA. Their growth under the leadership of John "Satan" Marron, saw the Pagans grow to nearly 5,000 members in the early 1970s. Their "Mother Club" is never in a fixed location, but it has been generally located in the northeast. The Pagans' top echelon of leadership must always number 13 members. There are also chapter presidents, with the largest chapter at times located in the Philadelphia area.

Though primarily concentrated in the northeast and mid-Atlantic, the Pagans began expanding into Florida in the 1990s and west, with chapters beyond the Mississippi River. The Pagans have grown slowly through a natural cycle of attrition in the smaller OMGs, the practice of patching over other chapters or entire clubs. The practice of incorporating smaller OMGs was prevalent from the 1970s to the early 1990s.

The Pagans MC patch depicts the Norse fire-giant Surtr sitting on the sun, wielding a sword, plus the word Pagan's [sic], in red, white and blue. The image of Surtr was taken from an illustration by Jack Kirby in issue 97 of the comic book Journey into Mystery.

Though historically not wearing a bottom rocker, a patch denoting the location of where a one-percenter bike club is based, the Pagan Motorcycle club has since started wearing an "East Coast" insignia on their vests.

Members wear blue denim vests called cuts or cutoffs with club patches, known as colors, on the front and back.

Article Index

Date	Article	Author/Source
6 October 2009	Federal Grand Jury Indicts 55 Members and Associates of the Pagans Motorcycle Club	U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of West Virginia
16 July 2015	Superseding Indictment Adds Charges and Members of the Pagans to Pill Mill Case Against Pennsylvania Doctor	Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs
29 January 2016	Pagans Motorcycle Club Members Sentenced for Firearms Violations	U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Florida
13 October 2016	Member Of The Pagans Outlaw Motorcycle Club Sentenced To 9 Years In Prison For Role In Prescription Pill Mill	U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
17 February 2017	Member of the Pagans Outlaw Motorcycle Club Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Prescription Pill Mill	U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
16 August 2018	Sixteen Individuals, Including Several Members Of The Pagans Motorcycle Club, Charged For Conspiring To Distribute Methamphetamine	U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida
27 February 2019	Federal Jury Convicts Key West-Based Drug Trafficker Who Conspired With Members Of The Pagans Motorcycle Gang To Distribute Methamphetamine	U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida
9 April 2019	Leader Of Pagans Motorcycle Gang In Florida Sentenced To Eleven Years In Prison For Role In Methamphetamine Distribution Conspiracy	U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida
21 May 2019	Key West-Based Drug Trafficker Who Conspired With Members Of The Pagans Motorcycle Gang To Distribute Methamphetamine Sentenced To Twenty Years In Prison	U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida
9 December 2020	30 Members and Associates of the Pagans Motorcycle Club Facing Federal Charges	U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Pennsylvania
3 February 2023	Leader of the Pagans Motorcycle Club Sentenced to 75 Years in Prison for Methamphetamine Distribution, Firearm Distribution and Money Laundering Convictions Christopher Lamar Baker, 49, a Raleigh-based national leader of the Pagans Motorcycle Club – which is recognized by law enforcement as an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang - was sentenced today to 900 months in prison following a conviction by a jury in September for drug trafficking, firearm, and money laundering charges.	Press Release (text) Publisher: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of North Carolina Dateline: Wilmington, North Carolina Topic: Pagan's Motorcycle Club
15 August 2024	18 Motorcycle Club Members Indicted for Armed Assaults Against Rivals A law enforcement operation conducted today resulted in 15 arrests along with the execution of seven search warrants; two of the defendants were already in custody.	Press Release (text) Publisher: U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Missouri Dateline: Kansas City, Missouri Topic: Pagan's Motorcycle Club
26 July 2024	“Ghostface Gangster” Sentenced to 30 Years for Supplying Meth to a Raleigh-based DTO Run by a Leader of the Pagan Motorcycle Gang On November 29, 2023, Ted Cannon, aka “Bam,” pled guilty to one charge of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing methamphetamine.	Press Release (text) Publisher: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of North Carolina Dateline: Wilmington, North Carolina Topic: Pagan's Motorcycle Club