In 1956, Barger joined his first
motorcycle club, the Oakland Panthers, which he founded with a group of fellow military veterans. Barger was not the founder of the Hells Angels as is often claimed – the group was founded in 1948 – but he became its best known member to such an extent that he is often misidentified as the club's founder. He and the Oakland Hells Angels were initially unaware that there were several other, loosely affiliated clubs using the same name throughout California. Some of Barger's rules included "no using dope during a meeting" and "no drug burns" (rip-offs). The Hells Angels worked as "part-time distributors" of drugs in the 1950s and early 1960s. According to George Wethern – who left the Hells Angels in 1972 and went on to testify against the club before entering the
Federal Witness Protection Program – in his 1978 book
A Wayward Angel, Barger convened a meeting of the leaders of the Hells Angels and other California motorcycle clubs in 1960 in which the various clubs parleyed over the mutual problem of police harassment. The clubs voted to ally under a "
1%" patch to be worn on their respective "
colors". The term refers to a comment allegedly made by the
American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) that 99% of motorcyclists were law-abiding citizens, implying the last one percent were outlaws. In 1961, Barger opened the first Hells Angels chapter abroad in New Zealand. The Oakland chapter, with Barger serving as its president, assumed an informal position of authority within the Hells Angels that began following a confrontation with local police and the
California Highway Patrol in the aftermath of an outlaw motorcycle meeting in
Porterville in September 1963. In the 1965 incident, he forced his pistol into a bar patron's mouth after the man had made disparaging remarks about the Hells Angels. Barger claims the gun fired by accident, but wrote in his 2000 autobiography ''Hell's Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club'': "since the motherfucker was already shot in the head, I bent him over the pool table and shot him again". Barger was convicted of assault with the intent to murder. When a rival club of bikers stole Barger's
motorcycle, he and his members assaulted them with spiked dog collars, whipped them with bullwhips, and then used ballpeen hammers to break their fingers. The Oakland Hells Angels maintained a prominent position as "first among equals" by having the largest membership of any U.S. chapter and because of Barger's esteem among club members internationally. The author and journalist
Hunter S. Thompson wrote in his 1967 book ''
Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs'' that "in any gathering of Hell's Angels, there is no doubt who is running the show", describing Barger as "a 6-foot, 170-pound warehouseman from
East Oakland, the coolest head in the lot, and a tough, quick-thinking dealer when any action starts", and saying of him: "By turns he is a fanatic, a philosopher, a brawler, a shrewd compromiser and a final arbitrator." In 1964, Barger and another Hells Angel, Michael "Tiny" Walters, told an
Oakland Tribune columnist: "Our oath is allegiance to the United States of America. If there should be trouble we would jump to enlist and fight. More than 90 per cent of our members are veterans. We don't want no slackers." Six Hells Angels members were arrested and a Berkeley police sergeant suffered a broken leg in the brawl. The Angels maintained that the attack was done "in the interest of public safety and the protection of the good name of Oakland, California." President Johnson did not reply to the letter. After the spate of publicity the Hells Angels received in 1965, Barger had the club's name copyrighted. The Hells Angels were
incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1966. Onscreen, Barger was identified but did not speak in
Hells Angels on Wheels (1967) and was one of several members of the Angels who had speaking parts playing themselves in ''
Hell's Angels '69'' (1969); he appeared in several additional films. Barger features prominently in Hunter S. Thompson's book, ''Hell's Angels''. He was unimpressed with Thompson, and said of the writer: "When he tried to act tough with us, no matter what happened, Hunter Thompson got scared. I ended up not liking him at all, a tall skinny, typical hillbilly from Kentucky. He was a total fake." Barger and the Hells Angels are also depicted in
Tom Wolfe's
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), during
Ken Kesey's
La Honda encampment. In December 1967, Barger visited Ohio to oversee the merger of two Cleveland motorcycle gangs to form a local Hells Angels chapter. Barger ordered Crouch to eliminate the city's remaining biker gangs in order to conquer the methamphetamine market in the Cleveland area. For at least five years beginning in 1967, Barger and the Hells Angels surrendered hundreds of guns and hundreds of pounds of explosives, as well as the locations of caches of weapons and narcotics, to the
Oakland Police Department in exchange for the release of jailed Hells Angels members and other considerations from authorities. Oakland and Berkeley suffered a spate of approximately 80 bombings in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and police made the arrangement with the Hells Angels in order to acquire black market weapons which could otherwise be used by "subversives" such as
Black Panther Party and
Weather Underground radicals. Barger denied ever making such an offer. Ingalls was forced to ingest a large quantity of
barbiturates until he suffered a fatal overdose. In the late 1960s, Barger began selling
heroin and also developed an addiction to cocaine. On July 30, 1969, Barger opened up the first Hells Angel chapter in Europe with a chapter being founded in
London, followed by another in
Zürich in 1970. In 1969, he opened up Hells Angels chapters in
New York,
Salem and
Rochester, giving the Angels a strong presence in the
Northeast.
Altamont Free Concert Barger was one of the Hells Angels present at
the Rolling Stones'
Altamont Free Concert on December 6, 1969, at which the bikers were reportedly given $500 of beer to provide security. Concert goers and musicians alike were subjected to violence from the Hells Angels, including
Marty Balin of
Jefferson Airplane, who was knocked unconscious, and audience member
Meredith "Murdock" Hunter, who was stabbed to death. Barger admitted in his autobiography that the Hells Angels had "beat the fuck out of them" (the people attending the concert). One of the Hells Angels pointed a gun at
Keith Richards when he wanted to leave the stage owing to the violence in front of him. Barger claimed to have been sitting on stage drinking beer when the violence was taking place. Barger maintained that the Rolling Stones were ultimately responsible for the violent events that took place at the concert, saying: "They agitated the crowd, had the stage built too low, and then used us to keep the whole thing boiling. They got exactly what they wanted – a dark scary atmosphere to play '
Sympathy for the Devil' ... Just because you sing well doesn't mean you can act like a bunch of assholes to your fans – and that's what they did that night at Altamont". He blamed the Rolling Stones' extended delay before making an onstage appearance for worsening the hostility of the crowd, and said the Hells Angels refused to act as bodyguards for "a bunch of sissy, marble-mouthed prima donnas" when the band asked the bikers to escort them to the stage. He also claimed that he stuck a gun into Keith Richards' side, to force the Rolling Stones to keep on playing through the riot despite the band's misgivings. Barger took umbrage with what he felt was the Stones' refusal to take responsibility for the catastrophe and he said in the days after the concert: "...
Mick Jagger, like, put it all on us. He used us for dupes". Barger wrote in his autobiography: "All that shit about Altamont being the end of an era was a bunch of intellectual crap. The death of
Aquarius. Bullshit, it was the end of nothing ... Altamont may have been some big catastrophe to the hippies, but it was just another Hells Angels event to me". After Altamont, Barger sought to expand the Hells Angels and improve the club's image. Members who were of little value to the Hells Angels were drummed out, and intravenous drug use was banned by the club. Barger also stripped the Hells Angels' "colors" of offensive patches, such as Nazi regalia and various colored wings awarded to members as a reward for sexual adventures performed in the presence of other members. The club also hired public relations specialists and began participating in charity
fund drives. In March 1983, Clarence Crouch, a founding member of the Hells Angels' Cleveland chapter, testified before the
Senate Judiciary Committee that the club had an "open
contract" on members of the Rolling Stones and had made two failed attempts on the life of Mick Jagger. He again refuted the claims of a murder contract on Jagger in an interview with the
Phoenix New Times in 1992, saying: "I personally don't like the guy, but that doesn't mean I want him dead. There are seven [Hells Angels] chapters in England and he comes over here a lot. If there was a contract out on him, then he'd be dead. It's that simple, he wouldn't still be singing." During this period, Barger's main lieutenants were Sergey Walton, James "Jim-Jim" Brandes and Kenneth "K.O." Owen. A police report from April 1970 stated: "The subject [Barger] is influential with motorcycle clubs all across the nation. Barger has been unemployed for years and yet is seen with large amounts of money. The money may come from dues he collected from his own chapter and the franchise money he obtains from chapter charters he has sold in various states. It is known that all Hells Angels deal extensively in the narcotic trade". On April 11, 1970, Barger was arrested on narcotics charges after Donald Howarth, a film studio property manager and 1967
Mr. America from
Studio City, was apprehended while walking towards Barger's home with a suitcase containing 17 ounces of cocaine and 30 ounces of heroin, with an estimated retail worth of $350,000. Barger temporarily resigned as president of the Oakland chapter in June 1970 to fight the charges, but returned to the position within months after his successor, John "Johnny Angel" Palomar, was sentenced to a ten-year prison term for shooting a bartender. He was, however, sentenced to ninety days in jail after walking out of a court session. Barger and the others were charged with attempted murder, kidnapping, and assault with a deadly weapon. Hood and Jarman told police that the incident was merely an initiation
hazing. Along with fellow Hells Angels members Sergey Walton, Donald Duane "Whitey" Smith, and "Oakland" Gary Popkin, Barger was charged with the May 21, 1972 murder of Servio Winston Agero, a drug dealer from
McAllen, Texas, who had traveled to Oakland with a consignment of narcotics for sale. The incident allegedly occurred following a dispute over an $80,000 cocaine deal. A prosecution witness, Richard Ivaldi, testified that he witnessed Barger shoot Agero dead as he slept at the home of an absent acquaintance, and that Barger subsequently ordered the others to set fire to the residence. According to Barger's chief attorney James Crew, Ivaldi himself was involved in the conspiracy to kill Agero and, knowing he was a prime suspect and fearing retaliation from the "Texas Mafia", he tried to shift the blame to the Hells Angels. Ivaldi had led investigating detectives to the location of the automobile in which Long's corpse was found. During the trial, Ted Hilliard, Barger's
handler in the Oakland police, and Barger himself testified that he had been cooperating with police for over five years in return for deals on arrests, bail reductions and other considerations. Barger began studying
sociology in prison. During his incarceration, a bikers' magazine ran a "Free Sonny Barger" campaign, selling T-shirts and
bumper stickers, which helped pay his legal expenses. He and fifteen others were arrested during a series of raids carried out in the Bay Area by around 200
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents. The bombings prompted the
California Department of Justice to issue a warning to police departments that the Angels were engaged on a campaign to eliminate law enforcement personnel who investigated their drug activities. Barger was held on a $1 million
bail and spent 14 months in
San Francisco County Jail before and during the trial. The prosecution team, representing the
federal government, attempted to demonstrate a pattern of behavior to convict Barger and other members of the Hells Angels of
racketeering offenses related to illegal weapons and drugs. Barger himself admitted during the trial that he had used and sold narcotics in the 1960s, but asserted that his actions did not involve the Hells Angels. Over a two-year period starting in 1980, the
Melbourne chapter of the Hells Angels led by
Peter John Hill shipped three hundred liters of
P2P (a chemical necessary to manufacture amphetamine) to the United States. Hill sent two cans of P2P per shipment, that provided enough P2P to make $50 million worth of amphetamine. Hill and the rest of the Melbourne charter received no share of the profits and were told that this was their contribution to helping Barger and the other Hells Angel leaders pay the legal fees related to the RICO case.
War against the Outlaws The Hells Angels developed into a sophisticated and structured criminal organization largely as a result of Barger's leadership. He oversaw the club's expansion across the United States by establishing chapters in new territories, often by "patching over" existing biker gangs, in pursuit of controlling the drug trade nationwide. By 1978, the Hells Angels had branched out from their home state of California and had established additional U.S. chapters in Nebraska, Massachusetts, Ohio, New York, Connecticut, North Carolina and South Carolina to become the largest and most organized motorcycle gang in the country. which held similar expansionist ambitions. During a summit of various chapter presidents held in Rochester in November 1978, the Hells Angels declared war on the Outlaws. Barger allegedly ordered Hells Angels across the country to kill any Outlaw they encounter on sight. Barger addressed such allegations by saying: "I'm sure there are some individual Angels who've sold methamphetamines. Just like I'm sure some cops have sold methamphetamines. I'm sure some of our members own guns, whether legal or not. And I'm sure the government makes a living off of us." In October 1982, Barger was part of a large group of Hells Angels from across the country who attended the murder trial of Jack "Jack-O-Lantern" Gentry, a member of the club's Cleveland chapter accused of shooting Outlaws member Ralph "Real Time" Tanner behind the Outlaws'
Toledo, Ohio clubhouse on November 30, 1980. Cleveland Hells Angel-turned-government witness Clarence Crouch testified for the prosecution that Gentry had murdered Tanner as part of an initiation process into the Hells Angels. The trial took place in
Lucas County circuit court in Toledo, a city considered Outlaws territory. Barger and his Oakland contingent rented a house on Toledo's Sylvania Street, and the Angels showed a significant presence in the city throughout the court case. A female juror was excused from duty after her son was threatened by a group of Hells Angels at a
downtown Toledo bar that he would have "lots of problems" if his mother did not "vote the right way". When Gentry was acquitted after a four-day trial, Barger sent invitations to the jurors to attend a party he threw for Gentry at a local
Sheraton Hotel.
Operation Cacus In 1984,
Anthony "Taterhead" Tait, the
sergeant-at-arms of the Hells Angels chapter in
Anchorage, Alaska, volunteered to become a paid informant for the FBI, commencing a three-year nationwide
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation known as Operation Cacus. Traveling the country at government expense, Tait made documented purchases of firearms, explosives, and drugs from various Hells Angels chapters. He also covertly recorded club meetings by
wearing a wire. Barger promoted Tait to sergeant-at-arms of all Hells Angels chapters on the
West Coast, allowing the informant to reach a senior position in the club's national hierarchy. In April 1986, Barger had a member of the Oakland chapter, Terry Dalton, expelled for stealing. On May 14, 1986, Barger had a photograph of Dalton issued to all Hells Angels chapters along a with note saying that Dalton was "fucking up" by socializing with the Hells Angels, especially with the members of the Vallejo chapter who were close to Dalton. In July 1986, Barger, who was angry that the Vallejo chapter were still friends with Dalton, invited them to the Oakland clubhouse where he had them all beaten. Tait, who was present during the beatings, wrote: "Several people gathered [Vallejo chapter president] Derrick Kualapi and took turns beating him". Tait described Barger as the man in charge of the beatings. On August 12, 1986, John Cleave "J.C." Webb, a member of the Anchorage chapter, was shot and killed after an argument with two Outlaws, Leonard Wayne "Cool Ray" Mullen and Marshall Howell Duncan, outside a
biker bar on
Dixie Highway in
Jefferson County, Kentucky, prompting Barger to say that it was "time to start killing Outlaws again". and Barger appointed Anthony Tait to lead the campaign. Barger sent a stolen copy of a government document prepared by the
El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), which contained the identities and personal data of Outlaws members and associates, via
express mail to Webb's sister in Louisville, Debbie Mansfield, who then turned it over to Hells Angels members from Anchorage. He also displayed another copy of the EPIC manual and explained how to use it to fellow Hells Angels at an Oakland chapter meeting on August 17, 1986. When another chapter member, Elliott "Cisco" Valderrama, suggested calling the Outlaws to inquire whether Webb's killing was an isolated incident, Barger replied: "Call them
collect." He lent the EPIC manual to Tait for photocopying after Anchorage chapter president Edwin "Eddie" Hubert, who also expressed retaliatory sentiment after Webb's killing, instructed Tait to acquire a copy of the manual in September 1986. The incident gave rise to a second retaliation plot against the Outlaws in the Midwest headed by the Cleveland chapter. Shortly afterwards, Tait told Barger that he had been to
Chicago and
Milwaukee to carry out reconnaissance on Outlaws clubhouses there and that he would require an alibi if he was to carry out an attack, to which Barger responded: "That would be no problem." On October 18, 1987, Tait informed Barger of a fictitious plot to bomb the Outlaws' Chicago headquarters, which he purported would likely kill five or six people, and Barger replied: "That'll be really nice after that Joliet thing". Barger was among thirteen people taken into custody in the Bay Area, where over 400 FBI, ATF, and
California State Police personnel carried out 26 raids on homes and other properties, seizing more than 100 weapons, approximately $1 million in cash and drugs, and three methamphetamine laboratories. Around a hundred Hells Angels wearing full "colors" attended the trial, as did the country singer
Johnny Paycheck, a friend of Barger. Barger and three other defendants were also convicted on the
misdemeanor charge of knowingly converting a copy of a government document, while five others were acquitted of all charges. He stated following his conviction: "I think we won very handily in there. It was just too bad that Irish [O’Farrell] and I were convicted, but we will probably win an appeal. I think it was a devastating blow to the government, and I couldn’t be happier with the verdict except if I had been found innocent myself." On April 21, 1989, Barger was sentenced to 57 months' imprisonment at the
Federal Correctional Institution, Phoenix, Arizona and fined $6,000. As inmate 82740–011, Barger came to be fond of Arizona as he later wrote: "I dig the desert; it's the new California. It's wide and free". At
Christmas 1989, he sent one of the prosecutors in the case, assistant U.S. attorney Cleve Gambill, a card from prison, showing him posing on a towel as if he were on the beach, with the message: "Nice weather. Wish you were here." On the day of his release, Barger took a flight to
Oakland International Airport and attended a homecoming party at the Mountain House, a bar at
Altamont Pass in
Livermore, at which Johnny Paycheck performed. Colorado state senator Nighthorse Campbell had allegedly tried to use his influence to have Barger released from prison earlier. In an attempt to quell the increasing tensions between the clubs,
Ventura Hells Angels chapter president
George "Gus" Christie twice attended peace talks with Bowman in Florida, firstly in December 1992 and again in May 1993. The proposed peace treaty ultimately broke down, however, when Bowman suddenly withdrew from the negotiations on the advice of one of his lieutenants, Kevin "Spike" O'Neill, who thought agreeing to a ceasefire would make the Outlaws appear weak. In August 1993, in
Paris, leaders of the Hells Angels and the
Bandidos signed the "Pact of Paris" that divided up much of Europe between the two clubs. Hostilities between the Hells Angels and the Outlaws increased significantly when the Angels recruited the Hell's Henchmen, a biker gang operating in the Outlaws' territory in the
Chicagoland area. The Hell's Henchmen resisted the Outlaws' attempts to forcibly amalgamate the gang and began "prospecting" for the Hells Angels instead in 1993 before "patching over" to become the Angels' chapters in Chicago,
Rockford and
South Bend in 1994. The Hells Angels' expansion into Illinois and Indiana, and the Outlaws' attempts to prevent the Angels from infiltrating their territory, resulted in a number of shootings and bombings in the Midwest. At the same time, Barger handled the outbreak of the
Great Nordic Biker War in Scandinavia. In early 1994, Barger summoned
Thomas Möller, the president of the Hells Angels
Malmö chapter, to remind him that the "Pact of Paris" was a non-aggression pact. A summit was held between the leaders of the Hells Angels Oakland chapter and the Bandidos
Houston chapter where it was agreed that the Bandidos would abide by the "Pact of Paris", which had assigned Sweden to the Hells Angels. The attempts to avert a biker war in Scandinavia failed largely because the Danish Bandido leader
Jim Tinndahn kept trying to expand the Bandidos into Sweden contrary to the "Pact of Paris", and the American leaders of the Bandidos were unable to control Tinndahn. Harry Bowman allegedly placed a $100,000 bounty on Barger's life. In early 1995, Bowman sent a team of Outlaws members to California to carry out surveillance ahead of the assassination of either Barger or George Christie. The plot was thwarted when three members of an Outlaws hit squad were arrested in Ventura after federal agents intercepted details of a planned assassination of Christie on a
wiretap. In 1997, the government of Denmark contemplated banning all outlaw biker clubs in response to the Great Nordic Biker War. To forestall this possibility, Barger attended the peace talks in
Seattle representing the Hells Angels along with Thomas Möller, who was in charge of all the Hells Angels in Europe. The Bandidos were represented by their international vice president George Wegers, Charles "Jaws" Johnson of their Houston chapter and Jim Tinndahn of the
Helsingborg chapter. The meetings ended with the American leaders imposing a truce on their Scandinavian chapters as neither the Bandidos nor the Hells Angels wanted to see a biker ban. The Canadian journalist Yves Lavigne wrote that Barger's ability to impose a truce on the Scandinavian branches of the Hells Angels showed that his power over all of the Hells Angels chapters around the world was real, not nominal, and it was significant that he only took action in response to the possibility of a ban on outlaw biker clubs.
Move to Arizona On October 18, 1997, the five-chapter strong
Dirty Dozen biker gang of Arizona "patched over" to become Hells Angels chapters. Barger was keen to establish Hells Angel chapters in Arizona and courted the Dirty Dozen (which despite its name number had 120 members) for five years prior to the "patch-over". Barger cut the period of time serving as "prospects" for the Hells Angels by half. The Dirty Dozen were described by ATF agent Joe Slatalla as the "largest and most violent gang in the state". The Dirty Dozen had beaten off attempts by the
Mongols, the
Vagos and the
Devil's Disciples to establish chapters in Arizona. Barger praised the Dirty Dozen as "friends and allies". The Angels' amalgamation of the Dirty Dozen was promulgated during a meeting in Oakland. Barger transferred over from the Oakland chapter to the newly formed
Cave Creek charter in October 1998. In 1999, Lavigne wrote: "The Hells Angels obviously have big plans for Arizona. Sonny Barger would not pull up roots, after forty years in the Bay Area, on a whim. Talks of his retirement are premature. His move to Arizona will allow Hells Angels Ventura chapter president George "Gus" Christie to take over the political reins of the gang, but Barger will help legitimize the gang in the business world from the dry desert state. The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club is Sonny Barger's life. He will retire only when he dies. He has nothing else to live for". Barger's role within the Arizona Hells Angels was reportedly an advisory position, as he did not hold officer status and he rarely attended
rallies or public events. He founded a motorcycle repair company in Arizona named the Big Red Machine, a reference to a popular nickname for the Hells Angels. Barger was later a member of the
Yavapai County chapter. Barger's 21st century books represented a change of image as Sher and Marsden noted that his earlier writings in the 20th century had "gloried in self-congratulatory tales of rapes and murders" while his later books presented himself as a more family friendly character. A reviewer in the
Los Angeles Times on April 21, 2002, called Barger the writer of "romantic tales of hell and heck raising". In later years, Barger worked to promote motorcycle safety: he co-authored a book on the subject with Darwin Holmstrom (the author of ''The Complete Idiot's Guide to Motorcycles
(1998)) titled Let's Ride: Sonny Barger's Guide to Motorcycling'' (2010). In August 2000, Barger visited the United Kingdom to promote his book despite advice from the police for the
Home Office to deny him a travel visa under the grounds that he had a criminal record. Barger was allowed entry under the grounds he was no longer a threat to public order. He drew large crowds for his British book signing tour. The media reaction was largely favorable.
The Daily Telegraph called him "a legend".
The Times wrote that Barger was "affable, big-hearted, warm".
The Independent stated that Barger was an "American legend". Barger was present at the Hellraiser Ball, a tattoo and motorcycle trade exposition in
Plainview, New York, sponsored by the
Long Island chapter of the Hells Angels which was ambushed by dozens of members of the rival
Pagans motorcycle gang on February 23, 2002, resulting in one biker being killed and at least ten injured. A Hells Angels member was charged with second-degree murder and seventy-three Pagan members were indicted on federal racketeering charges in the aftermath of the incident. Increasing tensions between the Hells Angels and other motorcycle clubs led to Barger organizing a
peace conference scheduled to be held in the Arizona desert, following the April 2002
Laughlin River Run motorcycle rally in
Laughlin, Nevada. The meeting was canceled as a result of the
River Run riot, a confrontation between members of the Hells Angels and the Mongols at the rally which ended with three deaths. About the Laughlin River Run riot, which put the Hells Angels and the Mongols on the front page of
The New York Times, Barger stated: "Publicity has always been good for the Angels". On July 14, 2002, Barger called the police to say that he had beaten his wife, Beth Noel Barger, so badly that she is "paralyzed and cannot move". Barger stated he and his wife were fighting over a "slut" as Beth called his mistress. Barger in his 911 call said: "She tried to pull a gun on me and I kicked her and she says she can't move". Barger then changed his story when the police arrived and said that his wife was merely going for a gun hidden in their car when he kicked her. Beth Noel Barger stated that Barger had attacked her while she was sitting in a patio chair and denied going for a gun. A doctor's report revealed that Beth had suffered a broken rib, a broken back and a lacerated spleen. Beth also stated "Sonny had beaten her before, but she never reported it". On March 6, 2003, Beth Noel Barger called the police to accuse Barger of beating her up along with her 13-year-old daughter, Sarah, by a previous marriage. One of the sheriff's deputies in his notes of the incident wrote: "Sonny Barger admitted to me that he did physically grab his wife by the arms and possibly by the throat". While Noel was being treated for her injuries at the hospital that night, she told the FBI agent Stephen Smith that Barger had a
STAR 9mm semi-automatic handgun at his ranch, which would be a violation of Arizona law, which forbade felons from owning guns. Noel also claimed to have been paid $1,000 to become a "confidential informant" for the FBI, but gave conflicting and confusing statements to the FBI. A gun matching the description provided by Noel was found on the Barger ranch, but it remain unclear who was the owner of the gun. On March 11, 2003, a hearing was held to decide if there was enough evidence to go to trial. However, there was no evidence beyond the statements of Noel that the gun belonged to Barger. Barger's lawyer, Brian Russo, during his cross-examination of the FBI agents, established the FBI had never dusted the gun for Barger's fingerprints. When the judge asked the prosecutor if he knew the reason why the gun had never been dusted, he received the reply: "I do not. Anything sounds like an excuse". The judge dismissed the case under the grounds there was "no reliable and credible evidence" that the gun belonged to Barger.
Jay Dobyns, an agent for the ATF, met Barger in Arizona while he was serving undercover in 2003. Dobyns told Sher and Marsden: "He's the shot caller, the deal broker. His reputation precedes him, so when people talk to him they know who they're talking to. Without a doubt you know that he's the Guy. He's very personable, he's charming. You can see how he developed this club. He's a politician. He's a salesman". Dobyns stated: "He's not a big guy, not a physically threatening guy. But he's got this charismatic leadership personality that allowed him to build this club. When you talk to him, when you speak to him, he makes you feel that there is nothing going in his life except that conversation with you. He makes you feel important, like he is personally interested in you". Many of the younger Hells Angels resented Barger for the way he became a rich man by selling his books and paraphernalia. Dobyns stated that Barger was unpopular as the feeling within the Hells Angels were: "All he's concerned with is promoting himself, his books, his movies, his products". Papers filed in court after Barger's wife, Noel Barger, filed for divorce on April 4, 2003, revealed that Barger made $330,328 in royalties from the sale of his autobiography in 2001, $340,843 in 2002, and $230,541 in 2003. Barger also received $150,000 from the
Twentieth Century Fox studio which purchased the film rights for his autobiography. One police officer stated that the Hells Angel leaders in California disliked the way that Barger refused to step aside as he said: "You can't be the heir apparent if Sonny continues to keep calling the shots and running things. Sonny didn't leave and people are still in battle with that". A number of other Hells Angel leaders such as George Christie, the powerful president of the Ventura chapter, were described by Sher and Marsden as "rivals" who were waiting for Barger to die. On March 22, 2003, Daniel "Hoover" Seybert, the president of the Hells Angels Cave Creek chapter to which Barger belonged to, was murdered. At the time, Barger told the media: "I'm just going to miss him. He put the club before anything else in his life". When Barger learned of
Operation Black Biscuit, as the ATF operation against the Arizona Hells Angels had been code-named, after the arrests of July 8, 2003, he accused the police of killing Seybert as he maintained that Seybert was hostile towards Dobyns. Barger seldom appeared in public for several years following Seybert's murder without Louie Valdez, the sergeant-at-arms of the Cave Creek chapter, accompanying him as a bodyguard.
Later years Together with his lawyer, Fritz Clapp, Barger owned and managed Sonny Barger Productions, a media firm designed to promote his image. Clapp told Sher and Marsden in 2005: "When we were in Europe, he was greeted like the pope. Limos at the airports, anything we wanted. It was a great time". When Sher and Marsden in an interview asked Barger about his involvement in the Angels–Outlaws biker war, the Great Nordic Biker War and the Quebec Biker War, he replied: "I didn't know anything about the biker wars. I have never been involved in one, and therefore I cannot talk about it". Marsden and Sher described Barger as a deeply dishonest man as they noted he had been convicted of conspiracy to murder members of the Outlaws in 1988, which in their view counted as involvement in a biker war. Marsden and Sher described Barger as a man who wanted to promote his image as an "outlaw", and was clearly uncomfortable about their questions about crimes involving the Hells Angels. On November 30, 2010, Barger made a guest appearance as
Lenny "The Pimp" Janowitz on the
season 3 finale of the
FX television series
Sons of Anarchy, about a fictional outlaw motorcycle club, allegedly based on the Hells Angels. Show creator
Kurt Sutter spent time with Barger and other members of Hells Angels researching for the show, and acted opposite Barger in his scene. Barger returned on November 29, 2011, in the
season 4 finale, part one. Barger's third guest appearance on
Sons of Anarchy was during
season 5, episode 10, which aired on November 13, 2012. One novel written by Barger,
Dead in 5 Heartbeats, was made into an
independent film in 2013, which Barger and his fourth wife, Zorana, produced and appeared in
bit part roles. The film was promoted as having been rejected from the
Sundance Film Festival and every other film festival it was submitted to. He remained a popular figure both in the United States and abroad. In May 2017, when Barger visited Paris to promote a French translation of his autobiography, he attracted huge crowds of fans to the Paris clubhouse of the Hells Angels for the book-signing. The Norwegian anthropologist Tereza Østbø Kuldova described Barger as a man who had turned himself into a brand, having become a global icon who symbolized a very ruggedly tough, macho definition of American masculinity, which explained the large crowds of Parisians who wanted him to autograph copies of his autobiography. On May 3, 2018, Barger testified in the racketeering trial of former Bandidos national president Jeffrey Fay Pike and former vice president Xavier John Portillo after being called as a defense witness by lawyers for Pike. Unable to travel to the trial in
San Antonio for medical reasons, Barger testified via video link from the federal courthouse in San Francisco, denying that the Hells Angels and the Bandidos were enemies. Barger's testimony challenged earlier assertions by government witnesses who testified that Anthony Benesh, a motorcyclist who was shot dead in
Austin on March 18, 2006, after attempting to establish a Hells Angels chapter in the city, was killed by Bandidos members because he had ignored the club's warnings to not set up a HAMC chapter in Texas. Barger kept a low profile in his final years, although his 81st birthday — the numbers 8 and 1 are used by the Hells Angels to refer to their corresponding letters of the alphabet, H and A — was celebrated in a major event hosted at the Oakland chapter clubhouse in October 2019. == Personal life ==