THE TRANSITION FROM THE 1980S TO THE 1990S was a rough one for bikers in general, and for one-percenters in particular. The world was changing and personal freedom was disappearing. Being a one-percenter was primarily about the pursuit of freedom at all costs, and the restrictive 1990s and the outlaw motorcycle club community were not a good match.

For Terry it was a time of massive change at all levels. On the personal front he was dealing with his on-again, off-again relationship with Pam. As the 1990s approached, Terry and Pam spent more time together. He would fly to Grass Valley from time to time and Pam would return to the city, and even attended club events with Terry. It all seemed mature and adult. They had already known each other and shared a positive family life for more than three decades. Pam knew the Vagos culture and respected Terry’s leadership role. She enjoyed escapes to Hawaii as much as Terry. Terry enjoyed Pam’s love of animals and nurturing character, but he couldn’t move to Grass Valley or to her ranch in southern Oregon.

But in 1991, they decided to wed in a massive, star-studded Grass Valley extravaganza. More than 1,000 brothers traveled from as far away as Japan and Mexico to attend the gala event. The celebration was a crowning achievement, but the marriage didn’t have a prayer. Even during their Hawaiian Island honeymoon, Terry recognized the lack of chemistry. It was as if two siblings tried to wed for protection and a myriad of other comforting, practical, and secure reasons.

Being a one-percenter was primarily about the pursuit of freedom at all costs, and the restrictive 1990s and the outlaw motorcycle club community were not a good match.

After they recognized their inability to make the marriage work, Pam often asked Terry to return, but Terry knew better. “I knew I’d end up killing someone over her,” Terry said. Still they remained friends right up until a car accident on Indian Wells Road in Grass Valley took Pam’s life in 2010.

On the club front things were even more chaotic. As Terry and the Vagos moved into the 1990s and their court case raged on, Terry grappled with leading the baddest club in Southern California, or at least attempting to lead them, trying to keep members out of jail and afford them some rights in the growing asphalt jungle of 10 million, all while attempting to be a responsible family man.

His life was a swirling mixture of violent circumstance, contradicting personalities, and diverse social elements. He wanted to be a good father and keep a decent, well-kept home, but the unlit side of his moon contained torn leathers, oil-soaked Levi’s, fights to the death, and territorial wars. One day he mowed his lawn; the next night, he relied on the killer sitting next to him to watch his back while sizing up the sonuvabitch across the table who wanted to kill him.

Monster Red, a Berdoo member of the Vagos, standing on Rosarita beach, near Tijuana, Mexico. The big man wears Vago green with pride and the recently reformed Vago patch. Terry worked to make the gargoyle more distinctive and the center patch more resilient in 1990.

One drug after another sent bikers into jail cells or coffins.

The whole notion of outlaw organizations wearing affiliated patches changed drastically from the 1970s to the 1990s. One drug after another sent bikers into jail cells or coffins.

“PCP and Cannabidiol (horse tranquilizer) nearly wrecked this club,” Terry said. Cannabidiol—CBD—is a cannabinoid found in marijuana—it is the “canna” in “cannabis.” It has a sedative effect and has been used as an animal tranquilizer, but it can also increase alertness. It relieves convulsion, inflammation, anxiety, and nausea, and it inhibits cancer cell growth. It has also been proven to work as an antipsychotic for the treatment of schizophrenia and may reduce the growth of aggressive human breast cancer cells. It also gets the user higher than shit.

PCP has an even more potent intoxicating effect, but doesn’t have any of the positive benefits and is only used to tranquilize animals . . . and bikers. Use of both PCP and CBD reached epidemic proportions among members of motorcycle clubs in the 1970s and ’80s. In this regard, the Vagos were no exception to the rule. When the buzz of horse tranquilizers wore off, the club shifted to costly cocaine, then bennies, but ultimately cheaply cooked methamphetamine took over.

“I initiated a zero-tolerance effort,” Terry said. “If you got caught on drugs you were gone. Drugs took everything. Some brothers sold their motorcycles for a pinch.”

The surviving club members had watched brothers fall prey to drugs, bad busts, beatings by cops, and unlawful searches and seizures.

During the 1990s, the Vagos wasn’t the only organization battling bad cops. Clubs had run amok for a couple of decades, and police all over the nation were leaning on the hard-riding madmen. Too often they twisted laws or tossed them out the window as they dealt with bikers, and one-percenter clubs in particular.

As club members reached their thirties, some semblance of the survival instinct started to kick in. The surviving club members had watched brothers fall prey to drugs, bad busts, beatings by cops, and unlawful searches and seizures. Those activities prevented outlaws from moving around freely without harassment, even in their hometowns.

The biker magazine, Easyriders, started a grassroots organization, ABATE (A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments) in the early 1970s. This forerunner of the motorcycle rights movement grew into a rough rabble of legislatively active state organizations across the country. By the mid-1980s, more than 30,000 uneducated bikers in twenty-eight states were learning the ways of politics through ABATE chapters. State leaders knew their local elected officials by first name. Outlaws, who generally shunned any connection to straight society, were forced to learn to protect their own rights. The Vagos’s Hawthorne case proved enlightening and built confidence on the streets. The bikers were learning the ways of the Man.

In January 1986, an attorney named Richard Lester established the National Coalition of Motorcyclists (NCOM) to accomplish two goals: afford a national forum for state motorcycle rights groups to share information about helmet laws, restrictive legislation, and rights violations, and to form of a nationwide network of attorneys, linking them to groups of prospective customers all over the country. It worked, to the chagrin of some hardcore motorcyclists who didn’t care for the connection to a group of ambulance-chasing attorneys. On the other hand, as the organization was accepted and the network of attorneys grew, more and more legal minds stepped forward to help motorcycle rights advocates on a pro-bono basis.

Terry followed the progress of Richard’s business model on the pages of motorcycle magazines, and because he was based near Lester’s Van Nuys office, they came in contact from time to time.

In February of 1990, the Vagos had won a $2 million court settlement against the Hawthorne Police Department and club brothers across the country were beginning to feel the empowerment and strength, like a group of immigrants who had been mistreated but finally received citizenship.

But they hadn’t collected their court settlement yet. In May of 1990, a headline in the South Bay Edition of the LA Times read, “Two Insurers Balk at Hawthorne’s Debt to Motorcyclists Liability: City may have to pay part of $1.95-million settlement to members of the Vagos motorcycle club.”

According to Terry, the judge told the Hawthorne city attorneys at the conclusion of the trial, “They (Vagos) will own your town if you don’t pay quickly. Get your policies and come to my chambers.”

Hawthorne authorities were scared at the prospect of having to cover the settlement. Two insurance companies battled over which one should pay. One insurance carrier filed a lawsuit against the city and the other bobbed and weaved. Insurance reserves were rapidly depleting under the constant police problems with individuals in their city, and the PD’s use of excessive force was costing them dearly. The city coverage called for insurance coverage for each occurrence under the terms of the insurance program, and they were attempting to use the small print to dodge this significant bullet.

“We hope the insurance companies don’t abandon us, because we could not afford to pay the whole amount ourselves,” said City Manager Kenneth Jue.

Canadian Insurance Company of Costa Mesa, California, the primary city liability carrier, noted that their policy required no more than a $1 million payment be made for a single occurrence. Since they determined the entire Vagos case to be a single occurrence, their liability did not exceed 1 million.

The secondary insurance carrier, Protective National Insurance Company of Omaha, Nebraska, contended that each violation of human rights was a separate occurrence and Canadian should be responsible for the entire $1.95 million settlement.

“It was obvious to me and Protective National that the case against the city of Hawthorne constitutes multiple occurrences, at least, more than two,” said Lance Orloff, an attorney for Protective National.

The judge told the Hawthorne city attorneys at the conclusion of the trial, “They (Vagos) will own your town if you don’t pay quickly.”

Of course Orloff also complained about the timing of the settlement. He didn’t like being notified so close to the conclusion of the case.

“(Hawthorne attorneys) thought they were going to win the case in the beginning,” Orloff said. “Protective National wasn’t even given notice that the lawsuit was going on and that the city was in trouble until, all of a sudden, they called up and said, ‘Gee, the witnesses aren’t going as well as we thought they would.’

“Every time the police went out and destroyed someone’s property, that was an additional occurrence,” Orloff said. “The evidence admitted during the trial indicated that police had a long history of going after the motorcycle gang, for whatever reasons.”

Protective had a poor track record and financial difficulties of their own, and dodged involvement in other cities, including a $5.5 million judgment in Torrance, which they refused to pay. The city became restless and afraid they would be caught with the bill.

An appeal was put forth and payment was delayed in Torrance, although Torrance threatened to sue Protective.

The slime balls began to surface as far away as Nebraska, with Protective financial problems stemming back to the mid-1980s. The Nebraska Insurance Department was monitoring Protective’s operations. In December of 1989, they had a surplus of $18.9 million, which was slipping rapidly, and Nebraska officials were attempting to maintain its solvency.

The parent company, Central National Insurance of Omaha, faced additional desperate circumstances. Earlier in May of 1990, Nebraska insurance officials took over day-to-day operations. It wasn’t looking good for the plaintiffs in the Vagos case.

“Ultimately, we were paid,” said Terry the Tramp. “I think the state stepped in.”

In several groups, members of the group of plaintiffs were called to the ACLU offices in a seedy industrial section of downtown Los Angeles to pick up individual checks of $21,000 apiece. For Terry it was far less than the actual funds he raised personally to cover the initial legal fees, or the value of his time, but it was worth it for the club.

Said Terry of the settlement, “Everybody got to buy a new car.”

Through the 1980s clubs had learned that they weren’t the only bad-asses on the block, that cheats and miscreants flourished all over the planet in the form of insurance executives, cops, and police chiefs.

In June of 1992, Terry and the Southern California Vagos tested their knowledge of the law when they sued an Anaheim bar. The bar instituted a dress code that prohibited “motorcycle attire.” Nineteen Vago members sued the Loose Moose Saloon on Katella Avenue, claiming they violated the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which prohibits arbitrary discrimination by a business.

In early 1991, the bar owner, David Koontz, who was a part of a Nevada-based corporation, posted a “No motorcycle attire allowed” sign, denying Vagos entry. Wearing club colors was also mentioned by employees as a reason for keeping Vagos out.

The club sued and successfully forced the restaurant chain to relinquish the dress code, and the court awarded the Vagos a meager settlement of $1,600, which Terry and his brothers gave to the National Coalition of Motorcyclists to support future efforts by Richard Lester’s growing motorcycle rights group. Club brothers were learning the legal way of the land.

Harley-Davidson had an impact with its new, more reliable Evolution engine, and by the late eighties, more and more clubbers were riding across the country.