Original subtitles

PAT MATTER: You know, there's something about that patch,

that death head patch.

You wanted to be a Hells Angel.

Pat Matter, he ran the state of Minnesota

with an iron glove.

PAT: I mean, if I was surrounded by other people,

I'm going to go out there and try to (BLEEP) make sure they think I'm dangerous.

Never in a million years did I think I'd just pack up and move into his house,

but I did.

He was the biggest organized crime figure that I'd ever seen.

I was making $3 million a year selling methamphetamine,

but there were other rivals that wanted to have me gone.

I could have got killed real easy. Let's put it that way.

It started a war.

When I say war, I'm talking about people dying.

Our end goal is to get Pat to cooperate.

It was a really hard decision, but I chose my family.

I have never told my life story on camera before.

This is the first time.

MAN: Over and over, they say they are not criminals,

they're rebels, rebelling against a society for which they have no respect.

We never gave a (BLEEP) about what anybody else thought.

We're mostly a bunch of happy-go-lucky guys

trying to make it in this world, you know.

KERRI KRYSKO: They're misfits, they're outlaws.

And they defy the laws of attraction.

I don't know, I idolize 'em, I adore 'em.

They're my whole life.

Angels forever, forever Angels. Speaks for itself.

The Hells Angels are not a criminal organization.

Why don't you people go home?

GEORGE CHRISTIE: It's an organization with criminals in it.

The Hells Angels run a massive propaganda scheme.

And the unknowing gulped down that Hells Angels Kool-Aid.

Everybody just cool out.

Hells Angels, everybody.

JAY DOBYNS: That is all designed to hide murder, rape, drug trafficking,

gun running, extortion, assault, arson.

I'm not trying to glorify my life,

but I'm certainly not gonna apologize for it.

I'm doing extreme stuff.

-For what? -I'm telling it the way it really happened.

I never thought I'd be talking openly about this stuff.

-INTERVIEWER: Are you ready for this? -I'm ready.

My name's Pat Matter, and I was the president

of Minneapolis Hells Angels for 21 years.

People don't understand belonging to an organization like the Hells Angels.

I mean, there's a bond there.

It's your life. I mean, that was my whole life.

My mom and dad divorced in the '50s.

Uh, I lived in Fort Dodge, Iowa, with my mother,

but, uh, my mother, uh, left me,

and, uh, I had to quit school in the seventh grade.

Just, kind of, basically raised myself.

REX LEE: Pat and I both grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.

We grew up tough. Nobody cared.

And it leads into the whole outlaw thing,

just happens, you know.

You don't plan on that. It just happens.

PAT: I went around with some friends there in Fort Dodge

that, uh, were bikers.

So they took me in, and, uh, that's how I ended up

really, uh, loving the club thing.

And if you're in a club, you always want to move up.

They had a club called the Grim Reapers.

The club, they knew I would stand behind them.

I was a fighter.

(CLAMORING)

I was working at a place called R&M Manufacturing.

And, uh, I was dating a girl by the name of Leslie.

And she had turned me onto some meth.

And the feeling I got off of it...

I mean, like, the first time, I didn't go to sleep.

If you drink beer, you can drink twice as much.

If you're partying, you can have a good time all night.

It gave me a lot of energy, and I thought,

"Man, you know what? This is good stuff.

"A guy can make some money with that" because I worked night shift.

And all the guys, I start selling them just small amounts.

By the time payday rolled around,

they was giving me most of their check. (CHUCKLES)

I was diming it up. Starting out with a gram that cost me $25.

And by the time the end of the week rolled around,

I would get $400 in return.

$400 was a big thing for me. Back in that day,

it was a lot of money.

Fort Dodge was kind of a rough, tough town,

and drinking and fighting went hand in hand.

Uh, it was crazy.

One night, Rick, my best friend, and I were out bar hopping.

When we come up to a bar named Crinnegan's, some guys were walking out.

They had guns. They pulled them out immediately,

as soon as they seen me and Rick.

It was just so fast.

Rick got hit.

I kind of grabbed him.

My hand actually went into the wound.

He was dead then because it went right through the heart.

I, uh, felt pretty bad about that.

You know, it took me a while to get over it.

But it just made me want to be a Grim Reaper that much more

because Rick gave his life for it.

And he believed in brotherhood,

and he was there because of that.

I doubled down on the club.

And I moved to Minneapolis

and become the president of the Grim Reapers.

But I wanted to go further.

I met a Hells Angel that was just got out of prison.

His name was Gramps, Roger Sheehan.

He sold methamphetamine to me.

We become pretty good friends.

And not only that,

he really wanted me to be a Hells Angel.

And I thought about it.

And the Hells Angels were the club.

I want to be just like that.

I said, that's where I'm going.

It took a year to patch over.

We wasn't members yet, but we was being brought up for members.

KERRIE DROBAN: They've got this whole system,

whereby if you're prospecting for the club, they have a number of tests.

And so some of those tests include ingesting drugs, you know,

because a law enforcement officer is not going to ingest drugs.

And some of those tests involved throwing women at prospects.

PAT: Thunder was the president of the North Carolina chapter.

And, uh, he, uh, called one night and said,

"Pat, I want you to go to the club

"and, uh, pick up, uh, my girl

"and, uh, bring her back and then call me."

So I brought her back, and he said, "You got her there now?"

I said, "Yeah." He said, "Now punch her in the (BLEEP) mouth for me."

So I punched her in the mouth.

And then he said, "Now, (BLEEP) her."

Well, I had to follow through on that, too.

DROBAN: The Hells Angels are notorious misogynists.

Women, you know, be crass, are passed around like bike parts.

Certain groups will call them pass arounds.

They're sheep.

They're there to service the club's agenda.

They are essentially objects.

It made me stop and think "What did I get into?"

I thought, "God," you know.

Uh, I can't back up.

Or otherwise I wasn't gonna be a Hells Angel,

and I wasn't gonna stop that for nothing.

PAT: We became Hells Angels in September 18th, 1982.

I mean, we were so happy.

I can't even tell you how I felt.

I'll never forget it as long as I live.

When I opened up the charter in '82,

it also opened up opportunities selling methamphetamine.

Hells Angels don't burn people on drugs.

You know what, they just don't.

It's bad business.

So during that time, business started to expand.

In the '70s, methamphetamine,

no matter what you got caught with,

it was only a five-year sentence.

With Reagan in office,

it went from a class B drug to a class A.

Well, the difference in that is it could be 25 years,

could be life.

As time went on, you had to get smarter because times were changing.

I, uh, had one incident where I went down in Charlotte, North Carolina,

and a friend of mine named Billy West, a ballsy guy, you know,

and he had what he called a booster vest with...

They had a sew in pocket all the way around his...

I said, "Well, how are we going to get it back?"

He said, "We're going to fly it back."

Three pounds were on my buddy Billy West's vest.

And I thought, "Well, (BLEEP).

"Well, I'm going to go to jail with him anyways."

We, uh, grabbed a plane and flew back to Minnesota.

We got away with that, and I look back, and I laugh at it.

Uh, but it wouldn't have been too funny if I got caught.

So I established a way of getting it to Minnesota,

where I didn't even have to leave the state.

I had it flown in by a personal pilot.

And after I picked up the dope,

got it where I wanted to put it,

I went back with the money.

It was very smooth.

He ran the state of Minnesota with an iron glove.

A lot of clubs stayed out of the state of Minnesota

because they know he was a no (BLEEP) around guy.

He was a mood swing guy, you know?

I remember one time, uh, we were in a bathroom.

They had a little bag of speed.

And they're taking little bumps off of it and (BLEEP).

And I didn't do it. I've never done it.

Pat walks over, and he pokes a knife in the bag and goes,

"Here, sniff this,"

you know, puts it up to my face.

I turn my head. I said, "I don't want to," you know?

And he says, "Hey, do this or I swear to God, I'll stab you."

I said, "(BLEEP) it. Stab me."

He just... (SNIFFS) He just sniffed it up.

And then he looked at me and he goes, "You know what, Charlie?

"Are you sure you don't work for the police?"

PAT: When you're dealing methamphetamine,

naturally, you're always looking over your shoulder.

But I had a circle that was so tight,

and it was all bikers,

that I never had to deal with John Q. Citizen.

It was somebody I knew and I trusted.

So I was kind of buried in there like a tick.

I did it relatively fast,

from $400 a week to probably $3 million a year selling methamphetamine.

I never had no fear of nothing at the time.

I don't know why. That's why I was good at it.

Being a Hells Angel, I went through two marriages.

I mean, I gave up so much.

I lost track of what I was supposed to be doing at home.

TRISH MATTER: I was working at a little restaurant,

and I was a waitress there.

Then one day, in walks Pat.

And they're all like, "He wants to date you."

And I said, "He's not my type."

PAT: I would come to find out her name was Trish,

and I wasn't going to give up.

TRISH: I think he came in every day, like, that whole week.

That was right around my birthday,

and started singing Happy Birthday to me.

I could not sing a (BLEEP) lick.

I, uh, broke out happy birth... you know,

and I sang that with everybody looking at me

"Would you please shut the (BLEEP) up?"

TRISH: One day, he comes in and he has these two tickets to Hawaii.

I said, "Are you going on a trip?"

And he's like, "If you'll go with me."

And a week later, we were in Hawaii. (CHUCKLES)

And had a blast.

It also could have been the thing that could have ruined it,

uh, because, ironically, while I was in Hawaii,

where I stored my drugs got raided,

and I had to come home a week early.

And I didn't know if Trish was gonna put up with that.

And when we got back, uh, I thought she'd be gone.

She stuck it out.

TRISH: Never in a million years did I think

I'd just pack up and go to Hawaii

or pack up and move into his house,

but I did.

So I'm going, "Well, I guess we're kind of a couple."

He was, kind of, tinkering around,

building bikes out of the garage,

and I would cook for the guys.

And we always had somebody over.

All of a sudden, one day, he takes me in this old building,

and he's like, "I'm thinking of renting this and making a bike shop."

Anything illegal or whatever, any kind of a dealing he was doing,

he made sure I, like, never knew anything.

I mean, I'm not dumb.

I suspected. I... It wasn't... It wasn't hard to figure out.

REPORTER: The Outlaws are one of the nation's largest motorcycle gangs.

Their violence now seems directed

towards members of rival motorcycle gangs,

what investigators believe is a war to control drug markets.

PAT: Uh, living the lifestyle I did,

there were other rivals that, uh, wanted to have me, uh, gone.

ANNOUNCER: Pat Matter is the most consistent pro stock racer

in the country right now,

and he is on the starting line.

In the '90s, I started drag racing,

so I ran into the Outlaws everywhere.

REPORTER: These are members of the Outlaws motorcycle gang.

The Outlaws are one of the nation's

largest motorcycle gangs and one of the most violent.

The Outlaws are believed to make large profits from drugs.

MAN: Yeah!

PAT: The Outlaws are another motorcycle club,

uh, that the Hells Angels don't get along with.

And it's something that probably will never end

because, uh, of membership being so stubborn on both parts.

When I was in Georgia, they surrounded me.

And I told them, I said, "Hey, look, I'm going to be at these racetracks.

"they're very important to me. And the racetracks ought to be neutral."

TRISH: We pretty much did everything together.

And once he started racing, we went to all of the races.

I knew the Outlaws were a rival gang.

I won't say that I didn't feel that I was,

like, scared of the danger or whatever.

But I always knew when there was something wrong

because he was always a little bit stressed.

PAT: The next race was in Milwaukee.

And, uh, there's the first time

I ever met their leader, Taco Bowman.

He was in charge of the whole Outlaw club.

And he, uh, didn't like me racing in Milwaukee,

so he showed up at this motel just before we went to the track.

The Outlaws come in, about 25 to 30,

and the first thing that comes in is a Lincoln.

And they pull over, and, uh, they pull out the MAC-10.

They sit on top of the roof of the car.

My guys were on the second floor

with the windows open and with their guns.

And Taco said that I could not race with my patch on.

He said, "Not only was this our charter, it's our living room,

"and you're going to be out here racing with your patch on?

"No, no, it ain't gonna happen."

And I told him I'm going to race with my patch.

And, uh, he said, "Well, if you decide to race without it, I'll see you there.

"If you're going to race with your patch, we're gonna have a problem."

So they packed up and left.

And at that point, Kevin Cleary, the East Coast president,

he didn't think it was a smart idea,

and he knew I was a bull head.

Went in and called Sonny Barger and said,

"Sonny would like to talk to you on the phone."

And he says, "Man, don't race there."

He said, "You know what? Don't get killed just because,

"you know, you're not thinking this over real well."

And he talked me down.

And, uh, you know what?

I wouldn't be here today

if Sonny wouldn't have talked to me on the phone.

That confrontation with Taco, uh, didn't end there.

PEEWEE: Now, the Hells Henchmen

were in Rockford, Illinois, South Bend, Indiana,

and four chapters of them in Chicago area.

They're a big club.

Pat was the one that went down and talked to 'em,

and they all decided, "Hey, we want to be Hells Angels."

PAT: They wanted to be Hells Angels.

I figured they should have that chance.

And as soon as the Outlaws got wind of that, that really pissed them off

because, uh, it was in Chicago, their home charter.

Outlaws didn't want another major club,

especially the Hells Angels, (BLEEP) in Chicago.

CHRIS OMODT: Pat Matter coming down there and trying to patch over

the Hells Henchmen to Hells Angels,

that's about as big as an insult as you can get.

PAT: A guy that was buying a bike from me

wanted me to ride in his new Lincoln,

and he talked me out of driving my pickup.

We were about three blocks from the shop,

and we hear this loud explosion.

It was my truck, and, uh, it was C-4 encased in a steel 9x6

with a mercury-activated switch with aluminum on the top,

so the blast would have been directed

straight up under the driver's seat.

I could've got killed real easy.

Let's put it that way.

OMODT: A bomb going off in Minneapolis, I had never heard of it.

It raises the hair on the back of your neck.

PAT: I knew it was the Outlaws and I knew it was Taco.

Uh, it was pretty obvious.

Law enforcement asked me,

I said, "Well, that's for you to determine.

"I really don't know."

These crimes are not easy to solve.

It's a secret society.

And trying to break through that secret society is extremely difficult.

Pretty much all law enforcement at that time was put on high alert, saying,

"Be aware of what's going on between these two gangs."

When the bomb went off, it didn't deter me wanting to be a Hells Angel.

It just made me want to dig in more, you know.

OMODT: After Pat's truck got bombed,

law enforcement knew there was going to be payback.

LEE: Well, this bomb on Pat's vehicle,

any kind of attack like that

from one motorcycle club to another,

it has to be retaliated in some way, shape...

It just has to be. You can't let that go.

You know, when this bomb went off,

that put me in a position I, I really never wanted to be in.

Now I gotta do something.

I mean, something had to happen.

There was a tattoo parlor in Milwaukee that one of the Outlaws owned,

and I wanted to send them the message loud and clear.

Hey, we're going to fight back.

PeeWee at that time was a prospect up here.

And, uh, what better way to check out his, uh, capabilities?

(EXPLOSION)

No, Pat...

Pat never asked me to go bomb anything.

DROBAN: Biker gangs got into using bombs

because they made a statement.

You know, it was also very hard to track it back.

That was pretty impossible.

And so it really made law enforcement,

sort of, you know, run in circles,

trying to figure out who was actually doing this.

My name is Wolf, and I was a member

of the Outlaws Midwest chapter.

The Outlaws, they all knew who everybody was in the game.

And when I say you're at a high risk of danger...

Somebody like Monte.

He was a Hells Henchmen,

and he owned this badass motorcycle shop.

And he was there every day, 9:00 to 5:00.

(WOLF SPEAKING)

(BREATHES DEEPLY)

PAT: That night, I was at the clubhouse and got a phone call.

And on the other end of the line, the guy says,

"Uh, how many members does it take to have a charter?

"Six. Well, you're one short in Rockford."

And then he hung up.

I don't know who it was, but it definitely was one of the Outlaws.

(WOLF SPEAKING)

It was pretty sad, you know.

Monte was a very, very well liked and respected, uh, gentleman.

Now the war with the Outlaws is escalating,

and they made another move again.

PEEWEE: The Hells Henchmen clubhouse in, uh, Chicago.

We were all there partying.

And then we left to go hit some bars

so the place was actually empty.

(EXPLOSION)

(OVERLAPPING CHATTER)

REPORTER: Pieces of the destroyed Ford Taurus

are visible more than two blocks from the explosion.

In between are shattered windows, burned car parts

and holes blasted through nearby buildings.

PEEWEE: It was a big bomb.

It was, like, the third in the United States' history.

Oklahoma being one

and the World Trade Center being two

and (SCOFFS) Grand Avenue clubhouse being three.

It's weird, bro. It's just like

normal people would probably just get up and go,

"I'm done with this (BLEEP)."

Just keep going on to another day, man, I don't know.

I never thought about that.

I never, ever said "I'm gonna quit this."

PAT: I don't know what there is about me,

but, uh, I mean, if I was surrounded by other people,

I'm going to go out there and try to (BLEEP) make sure they think I'm dangerous.

And you know what? I didn't care.

I don't know what's different about me, but I never feared that stuff.

The Hells Angels never thought about backing out.

And the Hells Henchmen weathered through it.

I mean, you've got members being killed, they're being stalked.

But they stuck it out.

And they knew they was being scrutinized for trying to be Hells Angels.

And it was brought up for patch in December 5th, 1994.

And they was voted in unanimously by every charter.

OMODT: The war's been going back and forth.

You've got the killing of members, you've got the bombing.

There's a lot of pressure to get this thing solved or stopped.

PAT: It is a game of cat and mouse, you know.

I was under surveillance by law enforcement for what I was doing.

And to add to the equation, Trish and I just had a new baby boy.

And, uh, I had to think about what I was getting into and what I was doing,

but I wasn't gonna quit in the middle.

Gotta remember, Hells Angels is number one.

The family comes second.

OMODT: Our special operations detail at that time

started an active investigation on Pat.

There was a high rise across the interstate from their clubhouse,

and we were able to get a room in that high rise near the top floor,

and we had cameras up there where we would surveil them.

If you're gonna do a good case,

you better know who you're going after.

With Pat, I studied everything I could on him.

And we all suspected him of dealing drugs, particularly methamphetamine.

But Pat was a really good drug dealer.

He flew below the radar.

PAT: The authorities were always watching us.

We would always come out of the clubhouse,

if you could see them or not,

we'd always give them the finger, you know, like, (BLEEP) you.

They'd look up, and you see them going like this.

We laughed about it. I'm sure they laughed about it, too,

because they know they're being surveilled.

But, uh, yeah, we got a kick out of that.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING)

We got an unexpected breakthrough in 1997

after learning of a couple Harley thefts in south Minneapolis.

PAT: There were some bikes stolen from a friend of mine's house.

I hired a private investigator

to find out who the bike thieves were.

I went and had a chat with these folks.

Actually, I'd probably use the word kidnapped 'em, you know,

and, uh, told them if I didn't get them bikes back

and, uh, what else they stole, there'd be a serious problem.

They was young punks and they didn't know what they got into,

but, uh, everything come back.

OMODT: This was a critical error for him.

Pat lost it.

And, uh, that was his critical mistake.

It wasn't a solid case by any means,

but we were able to get some people to come forward

about what happened and how they were threatened by the Hells Angels.

That's how we got to Pat.

PAT: When they raided the house,

they used that motorcycle thing as a warrant.

Our task force raided the Hells Angels clubhouse.

The way to get to guys like Pat is to follow the money.

And he had the motorcycle shop in north Minneapolis.

We figured that that was the front for running this money through.

Cash from drug sales was being brought through the business

with falsified receipts made up and stuff like that.

They finally put together enough of a case to charge me

with continuous criminal enterprise.

November 25th was my sentencing date.

And that morning, the hardest thing I ever did

was drop my son off, knowing I wasn't going to see him,

uh, at home again for a long time,

and it was a tough day.

The judge come into the courtroom,

and he gave me 17.5 years.

LEE: That kind of a sentence, it's over.

Now you've buried a guy.

TRISH: I came home, and it was like this is so weird.

His boots are at the top of the stairs,

his keys are on the bar.

Connor's like, "Where's Dad?"

It was weird.

Yeah.

This is stupid. I don't wanna cry on TV.

I've always been in control of my situations,

and, man, this one, I wasn't.

And, uh, it was a helpless feeling.

I knew I could lose my wife,

uh, my son could be living someplace else, have a stepfather.

It's all things that I feared.

And, uh, it was all my own fault.

The ultimate goal, obviously, was to get Pat to roll over.

OMODT: Our end goal was to get Pat to cooperate

and build a case against the Hells Angels as an organization.

His knowledge of the inner workings

of the Hells Angels had to be vast.

And Pat was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison.

It was pretty much a death sentence for a person that was Pat's age at the time.

I think that became a motivator.

I met Chris Omodt and some of the folks that was doing this case,

and, uh, they asked me about cooperation.

People don't understand belonging to an organization like the Hells Angels.

I mean, there's a bond there. I mean, that was my whole life.

I had been in motorcycle clubs 31 years.

OMODT: I know for Pat to cooperate

against his brothers in the Hells Angels,

was probably the toughest decision

he's ever made his entire life.

PAT: You know, it's really hard to describe,

uh, what a man's feeling in that situation,

when you're so dedicated to an organization

that has nothing to do with family,

but you're putting them at the same level.

You know, who thinks like that?

Well, I did because I was a Hells Angel.

It was a tough decision to come to

because I really loved being in a club.

TRISH: I think anybody, if they are looking

at that kind of time, you're going to think real hard.

And I think Pat in his mind just kind of thought life's too short.

You just never know what's going to happen.

And you're just going to do what's best for you.

It was a really hard decision, but I chose my family over that.

Pat gave up information

on his main source of methamphetamine.

He also gave up the vice-president of his chapter,

who was one of his buyers of his product.

So he gave up the guy above him and the guy below him.

There's no guarantee now that my wife's going to be there.

I had to think about that, too.

But I signed everything I own over to her

and, uh, power of attorney

and, and told her I understand

if she's not there when I come home.

I was given transportation right to my front door,

and as soon as I pulled in the driveway, there my wife and my son was.

We took a walk around the yard and Connor was just so happy.

And he was just ecstatic to be home.

PAT: You'd have to just about go through that to feel that kind of...

It was a lot of emotions.

LEE: I've never, ever heard of anybody waiting ten years.

I've heard of them making five, but never ten.

She's one of a kind.

He got lucky. That's what it was...

Wasn't anything he did. He got lucky.

PAT: I look back, and what I see is that I made the right decision.

I got to experience other things in life,

which I would have never done when I was a Hells Angel.

As far as regrets, uh, I was very proud of being a Hells Angel,

and that's who I was at that time.

And I did it to the best of my ability.

The only one who could judge me is God now.