March 12, 2009 - Thursday

This is a letter published on agingrebel.com
Mon, Feb 9, 2009..

If you are reading this now you probably already know all about Dave Burgess. You know
about his arrest and his conviction and you know about the stain that he must now wear for
the rest of his life like a scarlet letter.

Most of what you think you know about Burgess is the work of a very competent, 31-year-
old reporter named Matt Joyce. Joyce works for the Associated Press (AP) in Wyoming
and whether you did or did not see his name at the top of your page, whether your anchor
person mentioned him or not, Joyce was the guy who told you about the case.
Joyce deserves his job. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree from Colorado College in
Colorado Springs -a very expensive, liberal arts college for, mostly, the children of
America’s ruling class. He holds a Masters from the University of Texas at Austin. And
besides the AP Joyce has worked for the Durango Herald and the Waco Tribune-Herald.
But, it is also fair to assume from his work that Joyce does not fear, hate or even distrust the
police. Probably, he has never been "subdued" or lectured about life by a little, fat man in a
judge dress. Nor is Joyce a member of what was once called the "working press." Joyce
belongs to what is now generally regarded to be the "professional press."
So Matt Joyce accurately reported what he saw and heard, he got some quotes and he
moved on. He self-evidently never bothered to give Burgess’ indictment and trial the
thought it deserved. And, that is at least unfortunate.

Because a broader, less hurried and slightly more skeptical approach than Joyce took to the
matter of the United States of America, Plaintiff, v. David Burgess, Defendant, No. 07-CR-
298-J raises vexing issues about the policing of America in the new millennium.
In fact, the longer you stare at the case the more it starts to look like Dave Burgess might
have actually been framed.

David Burgess makes a good villain because he is an interesting man. And, as there is a Chinese
curse, "May you live in interesting times," so there may be a way to curse a boy: "May
you grow up to be an interesting man."

Even his enemies concede he has a few redeeming qualities. Burgess is artistically inclined.
He likes to take photographs and he has posted many of them to a web site called
DavesWorld81. Here and there among the snapshots are some real photographs. They are
indistinguishable from the little frozen moments that hang on gallery walls on La Brea and
in Chelsea. But, Burgess never tried to sell them. He just basically gave away what he saw to
anybody who wanted to look.

He didn’t have to sell his photographs, anyway. He usually had money, cars, motorcycles
and a home. He married a knockout blonde. She was a former Budweiser girl and after they
separated they remained business partners. Some men dream of harems. Burgess owned a
whorehouse called the Old Bridge Ranch. And, in a year when Harley-Davidson is
promising a guaranteed dose of outlaw mystique with the purchase of each and every 883cc
Sportster, Dave Burgess was the President of the Nevada Nomads charter of the Hells
Angels Motorcycle Club.

Burgess now may be one of the four Angels’ patch holders every citizen knows: Sonny
Barger, George Christie, Chuck Zito and Burgess. Whether you like him now or not, many
men regard Burgess fondly. Ironically, many people find his sentimentality toward children
to be his most appealing quality.

But, he could have been wiser. For example, he still calls himself "The Alpha Male," which
begins to hint at the extent to which he miscalculated his life. Everybody who takes a
moment to think knows that Dick Cheney is the new American Alpha Male.
Consequently, while Dick Cheney negotiates the price of his memoir Dave Burgess sits in
the United States Penitentiary at Lompoc. The man who likes to see what other men cannot
is currently trapped in a grey, concrete box surrounded by the exquisite California coast.
His release date is May 7th, 2021. If authorities think he becomes sufficiently rehabilitated
he will be eligible for parole in 2013. If he is paroled on the earliest possible date he must
still submit to the nagging indignity of supervision by a parole officer until 2023.
And, he must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life because last July he was
convicted of the federal offense of possession and interstate transportation of child
pornography.

It started on a lonely road in Wyoming.
The Routine Traffic Stop
US 80 is one of four Interstate Highways along with the 10, 40 and the 90, to which the 80
is sometimes joined, that traverse the entire breadth of the contiguous states. Burgess and
another Hells Angel named Shayne Waldron got on the 80 in Reno and by ten o’clock in
the morning on July 24, 2007 they had gotten as far as Uinta County in the southwest
corner of Wyoming.

Uinta County is cattle country. It holds fewer than 20,000 people. And, by the time you get
there Route 80 has become a monotonous, four lane, split grey ribbon. It is surrounded by
low, tan prairie at the Utah state line but soon climbs into a confusion of rocky hills.
The men were travelling in Burgess’ white, Freight Liner motorhome. Waldron was driving.
The men were going to a Hells Angels national run in Eureka Springs, Arkansas and they
were towing their bikes in a trailer. Looking out the window Burgess would have seen the
original, transcontinental railroad line playing hide and seek with the modern interstate.
That section of road is regularly patrolled by a career, Wyoming Highway Patrol officer
named Matthew Arnell. Arnell is a thick, jowly Navy veteran who is entering early middle
age. He takes himself and his work seriously. He is on the Board of Directors of the
Wyoming Highway Patrol Association. And, like any professional highway patrolman in
any state he knows how to milk a traffic stop.

He stopped Burgess and Waldron because the license plate on the bike trailer was expired.
The two men said, yeah, they knew and explained that they were on their way to Wamsutter,
Wyoming, which would have been an hour and half away, to pick up another set of plates
from the trailer’s owner.

Some lazy cops might have written the men a ticket and let it go but Arnell was not lazy. He
investigated. He wondered why the men called each other "brother" and yet had different
last names. He looked in the trailer. And, either through markings on the bike or tattoos on
the men or psychic powers or some combination of all of the above Trooper Arnell soon
determined that the men were Hells Angels.

The Dog Alerts
Wyoming does not have a gang problem but it thinks it does. Wyoming thinks gangsters
are moving in from, as one official put it, "urban areas like Utah" and Trooper Arnell
obviously decided to give these two out-of-state gangsters a good, old-fashioned Wyoming
welcome. Arnell stalled the stop and requested the assistance of a Uinta County Sheriff’s
Office K9 unit.

Uinta County does this all the time. The small, mostly rural county has only two "Range
Detectives" but it has three K9 units. Eventually, a thick man in blue jeans and a tan shirt
arrived with a happy, slightly goofy Labrador retriever.

Arnell would later state, maybe, that during the traffic stop he smelled the odor of "burned
marijuana." Smell is one of the most subjective senses but what is undeniable is that the
there was no marijuana burning in the motorhome at the time of the stop and neither
Burgess nor Waldron were stoned. The subject of driving under the influence never even
came up.

Arnell, it seems obvious, was just looking for an excuse to toss the motorhome. And, he is
probably a professional enough cop to know that if he had come across the motorhome
parked he could never have searched it because, legally, it would have been a residence. But,
because he stopped it while it was moving it was only a vehicle and the rules for searching a
vehicle are less strict than those that secure the privacy of a home.

The cop tried to get consent to search. He said something like "There are no illegal drugs,
atomic bombs, biological weapons, gold from Fort Knox, anything like that in there is there,
gentlemen. Nothing in there you don’t want me to know about, is there? Then you won’t
mind if I search the vehicle."

Burgess said he minded. You know, on account of the Constitution and all.
So then the Labrador alerted. The dog alerted on the state of Wyoming. The dog was
outside the Freight Liner, on the driver’s side and smelled something.
But that alert led the K9 officer to lead the Lab around to the home’s door and in its
enthusiasm, as is the way with Labradors, the dog ran inside. Both Arnell and the dog
handler observed that the Labrador looked "confused" and interpreted the dog’s confusion
as evidence that the dog was attempting to alert on multiple locations where drugs could be
found.

The Roadside Search
The two cops then believed they had probable cause to search the motorhome without a
warrant. Really, in hindsight, it seems logical that the point of the search was to give a
couple of Hells Angels a hard time and gather "gang intelligence." It was a most through
roadside search.

The Freight Liner had two rooms and in the back room, the bedroom, Trooper Arnell found
a K-Mart shopping bag with a small wood pipe inside. The story, the legal fiction, goes that
Arnell thought the pipe "smelled like" marijuana and he then observed what he thought
were "traces" of marijuana in the bag.

He searched all the clothing in the motor home and when he found nothing which aroused
his suspicion he searched all the clothing again. This time Trooper Arnell found a piece of
" tissue paper" inside a shirt. After searching the tissue paper he found what appeared to be
a small amount of cocaine.

The drugs probably were not planted. Arnell may carry small amounts of cocaine around
with him to plant on deserving suspects but he probably did not do it this time. Unless
Wyoming really intended to prosecute the two men for possession of small amounts of
recreational drugs, all Arnell had to do was say he found the drugs, anyway.All that is
necessary legally, to effect a search is to find "felony amounts" of an illegal drug and the
whole point of the detention was to comb the motorhome

Burgess admitted that the pipe in the plastic bag was his.
The whole drug charge was a sham and was eventually dropped. Although Arnell never
mentioned it in his affidavit he would have seen a Compaq laptop computer and a palm
sized, Seagate, portable hard drive sitting in the bedroom. The whole point of fabricating a
drug charge was, probably, to gather "gang intelligence." The whole point of seizing and
searching the motorhome would have been to search the computers..
You Have The Right….

Burgess and Waldron were both Mirandized and taken into custody. The home on wheels,
the bike trailer and the bikes were all towed to a Wyoming Highway Department garage in
Evanston.

Evanston is a nice, little city with a great view of the mountains for which Uinta County is
named. It looks like the town in the movie Shane, only 140 years farther on in the history of
the Republic. In Evanston, Arnell was met by a local Agent of the Wyoming Division of
Criminal Investigation (DCI), named Russell Schmitt.

Schmitt tested the "white powder" Arnell "found" in the motorhome. Sure enough, it
tested positive as cocaine and at that moment, Russell Schmitt became the lead investigator
in the case. Schmitt actually wrote the affidavit and went with Arnell to obtain the search
warrant. All of what Arnell and the dog handler had supposedly, previously done and said
and observed were all actually written down by Schmitt. And, Schmitt has a little history
with affidavits and search warrants.

Schmitt began his law enforcement career in a little department in Green River, Wyoming
and while employed there he appeared in the middle of a case any Wyoming lawyer should
know. Schmitt seems to have bullied and lied his way into effecting the arrest of a Green
River "drug dealer" named Richard D. Cordova. Cordova was not exactly an outlaw which
hindered his defense. He basically threw himself on the mercy of the cops and wound up
doing a couple of minutes in the penitentiary.

Probable Cause
But the affidavit Schmitt wrote to get a search warrant was questionable enough to
eventually be reviewed by the Wyoming Supreme Court. "We agree that the affidavit in
question comes uncomfortably close to violating the protections guaranteed Wyoming
citizens," the court wrote about the pretense Schmitt had used to get the warrant. But "in
deference to the judicial issuing officer," which is to say the judge Schmitt talked into
issuing the warrant, Wyoming let Cordova’s conviction stand.

In the end, the legal razor’s edge that cut Cordova but not Schmitt was the fine line of
" intent" -which may be even more subjective than the sense of smell. Cordova could not
prove that Schmitt intentionally tried to violate the Constitutions of Wyoming and the
United States. The Wyoming Supreme Court ruled that even if Schmitt had lied he had not
lied "deliberately" and if he disregarded the truth he did not do so "recklessly."

So a cynic might think that Schmitt knew how to lie his way into a search of almost
anything. Unless you live in Fairyland you understand that Arnell and Schmitt had already
booted up the computers and looked around before they ever applied for the warrant.
Schmitt carefully worded the affidavit and later, almost certainly, perjured himself in an
evidence hearing by stating that it was perfectly normal and reasonable to search through all
the records on somebody’s personal computer if you could just catch them with personal
use amounts of common recreational drugs.

" Based upon training and experience, your Affiant knows that persons involved in
trafficking or the use of narcotics and dangerous drugs often keep photographs of
coconspirators or photographs of illegal narcotics in their vehicle," Schmitt claimed. "Your
Affiant knows that paraphernalia for packaging, cutting, weighing, and using is commonly
kept in the vehicle of the drug trafficker. Subjects involved often keep pay-owe sheets, and
receipts of customers and subjects also involved with drug trafficking keep weapons to
protect there (sic) Narcotics and drug proceeds."
This was two guys on vacation in, like, an off-brand Winnebago.

Let’s Bust Bush
The last three Presidents have all admitted to using marijuana, although Clinton
preposterously claimed to have never "inhaled." George W. Bush is, reportedly, a
recovering cocaine fiend. So, does that mean that if George W.Bush is travelling through
Wyoming one day and Russ Schmitt catches him with one of his old marijuana pipes that
Schmitt can then go through all of Bush’s computer records? Because Bush might be a
drug dealer? Because he probably stores his drug dealer’s scrap book on his PC?
Who believes that? A Circuit Court Judge named Michael Greer believes that. He issued the
warrant.

You decide if Schmitt perjured himself or not. This is from a transcript of an evidentiary
hearing.
Schmitt Speaks
Question: And why did you think that it was important to take that computer and that hard
drive that you saw right there?
Agent Schmitt: Well, ‘cause, you know, we’d already found cocaine and marijuana, and,
you know, there’s a good chance that, one, it would have pictures of coconspirators or other
people or e-mails of drug trafficking or the person that drove the vehicle itself standing there
with drugs to show that, yes, this person is into drugs or, I mean, several reasons.
Question: So photographs certainly?
Agent Schmitt: Yes, sir.
Question: Names or information pertaining to other people that might be engaged in illegal
activity?
Agent Schmitt: E-mails.
Question: E-mails that might show or relate to illegal activity relating to these controlled
substances or controlled substances; is that correct?
Agent Schmitt: Yes. In a lot of them we’ve confiscated several computers where they are
actually downloading things on how to make methamphetamine, recipes. And I think that-to
be honest, I believe that’s-I know there wasn’t methamphetamine found at this, but that kind
of started the trend for taking computers 2 years ago because of the downloading of
methamphetamine recipes, and then it just kind of went from there to be more mainstay all
the time.

Schmitt and Trooper Arnell tossed Burgess’ motorhome a second time. We are to believe,
everyone is supposed to believe, that Trooper Arnell’s roadside search, when he unfolded all
of Burgess’ and Waldron’s shirts twice and went through their socks and their underwear
was a "cursory search." And, the reason we should believe this is because Arnell never saw
the computer and the portable hard drive just sitting there. The two men did not discover the
computer equipment until the second search.

Discovering A Computer
And then later during this second, more thorough search at the Evanston garage, and aided
by his ghost writer Agent Schmitt, Trooper Arnell "discovered" a second, palm-sized,
portable hard drive. Arnell found a Maxtor drive, according to public records, "under one of
the couches in the motor home, when he slipped his hand into a very small opening under
the seat of the couch and had to remove his wristwatch to get his hand back out of that
opening."

No other drugs or evidence of drug dealing or drug manufacture were found. No other
contraband was found: No guns, switchblade knives, samurai swords, atomic bombs,
biological weapons or large amounts of cash, that sort of thing.
Can you smell anything yet? Does it smell like burned marijuana?
Thorough professionals that they are, Arnell and Schmitt then stepped away from the case
and went to do more important police work -keeping gangs, presumably, from moving into
Wyoming from urban areas like Utah. Agent Schmitt turned the computer equipment over
Wyoming DCI Intelligence Analyst Elvin Ehrhardt on July 25th, the day after the traffic
stop.

And, the fact that the hardware was turned over to Agent Ehrhardt is interesting because it
demonstrates where the state of Wyoming, and particularly the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), were going with the case. Ehrhardt is the Wyoming DCI "authority"
on street gangs. It was his job to gather and interpret "intelligence" about motorcycle
clubs.

Internet Crimes Against Children Team
Agent Ehrhardt took the computer and drives to the offices of the Wyoming Internet Crimes
Against Children (ICAC) Team. That’s right. Read it again.
The ICAC comprises five DCI agents, one Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
agent and one agent from the FBI. Even if the Department of Justice had not known that
they had Burgess by the short hairs before, the FBI knew after that. And, where they stored
Burgess hardware was in an office full of child pornography.
Since Ehrhardt is a "gang expert," and most law enforcement agencies consider the Hells
Angels to be a "gang" you might expect him to retain custody of this "evidence." But,
Ehrhardt transferred custody of the hardware to another DCI cop, Special Agent Randall
Huff.

Huff is a very experienced and computer savvy cop. He served as a uniformed officer for
six years. He has worked for the Division of Criminal Investigation since 1990 and he has
worked as a trainer for other departments throughout the United States on how to seize and
exploit computer evidence. Most of his work involves child pornography.
Most of Agent Huff’s work does not involve, as Agent Schmitt so eloquently put it,
"… computers where they are actually downloading things on how to make
methamphetamine, recipes. And I think that-to be honest, I believe that’s-I know there
wasn’t methamphetamine found at this, but that kind of started the trend for taking
computers 2 years ago because of the downloading of methamphetamine recipes, and then it
just kind of went from there to be more mainstay all the time.".

Preliminary Forensic Examination
Agent Huff held the hardware for a week, without looking at it -so the story of the official
chain of custody of the evidence goes. Then he gave the hardware to yet another DCI cop,
Special Agent Scott Hughes. And, then Agent Hughes finally began his "preliminary
forensic examination" of the laptop and the two hard drives.

Then he paused for 20 days. Maybe the ICAC is a no-smoking office. So, maybe he went
out for a cigarette. The official version is that he was waiting for a copy of Judge Greer’s
Search Warrant.

Maybe Agent Schmitt had to walk that warrant all the way to Cheyenne. Anyway, the
warrant finally arrived on August 21st. And, then the next thing Agent Hughes did was he
went and he had a meeting with the Senior Assistant Attorney General of the State of
Wyoming, David L. Delicath. Let that sink in for a minute, too. Not a staff attorney.Not

even an Assistant Attorney General.


David Burgess’ computer hardware, the evidence that had been seized -rather than
subpoenaed-because it might reveal fleeting intelligence about the identities of drug dealers
or possibly a new recipe for crank was passed from cop to cop four times, stored in an
office containing child pornography and at least one known FBI Agent, and then before
anyone would examine it the Agent who had custody of it asked "the advice" of the Senior
Assistant Attorney General of the State of Wyoming.
Purportedly, the conversation was about "the scope of the search warrant." But again,
cynics who have actually been to court might be inclined to think that what was happening
was all the cops were getting their stories together.
And then, sixteen days after that, Agent Hughes, according to public documents, finally
" began the process of acquiring (or copying) and previewing the contents of the Maxtor
External Hard Drive." The Maxtor was the hard drive Trooper Arnell found hidden in a
couch. And, its discovery was so memorable that Arnell remembers he almost lost his
watch.

Nice detail in the story there. Very nice. It lends what writing pros call verisimilitude. It is a
graphic detail that makes a story sound true.

Computer Forensics
There is a fairly standard protocol for the forensic examination of computer hardware called,
Forensic Examination of Digital Evidence: A Guide for Law Enforcement.It was published
by the Department of Justice in 2004 and the deliberateness with which Agent Hughes
conducted his examination seems to indicate he had a least heard of the document•
One of the key first steps in a computer forensic examination is to ensure that the hard disk
is "write protected." Agent Hughes, simply by reading the manual, would have known to
do that, but there is no indication that any of Burgess’ computer equipment was ever write
protected before August, 1st.

The software Agent Hughes employed to search the Maxtor hard drive is a low end -about
$700-but standard suite of evidence acquisition tools used in computer forensic
examinations called "EnCase." Law enforcement agencies use EnCase because it is a most
excellent tool for finding only what the search warrant says the cops are looking for.The
EnCase developer brags

:
" SMART EVIDENCE COLLECTION: no other forensic tool gives organizations the
ability to forensically preserve only the relevant evidence without capturing the entire hard
drive."

And, in Burgess’s case Hughes, purportedly, would have been looking for "text strings,"
what geeks call words, like "crack," "crank," "HA" or maybe, "my new recipe for
making methamphetamine."

Recreational drugs were still what the case was supposed to be about. Every cop connected
to the case, including Agent Hughes, testified under penalty of perjury that from July 24th
until September 6th the case against Dave Burgess was about suspicion of drug dealing.
The putative reason for conducting a search of Burgess’ hard drives was to find evidence of
drug dealing. But Agent Hughes did not look for that.

Discovery Of Child Exploitation
According to public documents, Agent Hughes, 44 days after the traffic stop: "…on
September 6, 2007, began the process of acquiring (or copying) and previewing the contents
of the Maxtor External Hard Drive. The EnCase preview function utilized by Special Agent
Hughes permitted him to view images while the process of acquiring the contents of the
hard drive proceeded. This preview revealed ‘multiple images of child exploitation.’ Special
Agent Hughes testified he noted the name of the file, minimized the image, allowed the
acquisition process to continue, but immediately stopped looking at images. Thereafter, a
search warrant was applied for and obtained in Laramie County, Wyoming, which
authorized the search of the laptop and the two external hard drives. Following execution of
the search warrants specific to the laptop and external hard drives, further evidence of child
exploitation was found and the instant charges were brought against defendant Burgess."
What Hughes found is what lawyers call a "smoking gun." What everybody is supposed
to believe is that prima facie evidence of a damning crime was discovered in the course of
routine police work in a highly professional police laboratory. Just like on CSI. And, if you
are a moron who has never before heard the term "computer forensics" it sounds pretty
bad for Dave Burgess.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm
There are, however two exculpatory possibilities: The hardware seized from Burgess was
altered; or, the hardware seized from Dave Burgess was replaced.
Everybody who does computer forensics understands that portable hard drives are used to
archive data that was originally collected and assembled somewhere else. But no evidence of
that collection and assembly of Burgess’ alleged, mind-boggling collection of kiddie porn
was ever found.

The police looked. The FBI looked. Agents assigned to the Reno Resident Agency of the
Las Vegas Field Office of the FBI raided Burgess’ home and seized every piece of
computer equipment they could find. They also would have looked for photographs, books
and magazines. But they never found how or where Burgess got the pictures.
It was never offered as evidence but the FBI would have also tracked all of Burgess internet
use for years but no evidence of the origin of all this pornography was ever found. The FBI,
at least during the Bush Administration, would not even have needed a search warrant. The
FBI could have just used a National Security Letter (NSL.) NSLs get issued everyday. But
nobody ever determined where the pornography originated.
It is more certain, because of traceable serial numbers, to determine where the Seagate and
Maxtor hard drives were bought. Credit card records prove that Dave Burgess bought
portable hard drives similar to those "recovered" from the motorhome. He bought them in
Reno, near where he lives. The drives Hughes examined were purchased in Las Vegas, at the
opposite end of the state.

The Point Of The Case
Supposedly, Burgess’ computer hardware contained a carefully cataloged library of 60,000
images and the point of prosecuting people who possess these images is to protect the
children in those pictures. It might be an inherently flawed strategy. It might be like
prosecuting random crack addicts for running the Cali Cartel.
But whether it is a good law or not, a smart law or not, almost everybody who might read
this will agree wholeheartedly and unreservedly that child pornography is wrong and should
be stopped and the children who are exploited should be rescued.

So, the question might then be raised, how many children were rescued as a result of the
photographs found on Burgess’ hard drive? How many missing children were identified?
How many children? Nobody would expect the Wyoming Internet Crimes Against Children
Team, or the FBI, or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to identify any
of these kids but where were they? When were they? Isn’t that the point of this case?
Or, was the point of this case to link the text strings "Hells Angels" and "Kiddie Porn"
together in a headline?

.
The Mustang Ranch
Before you make up your mind about Burgess you should also know that the FBI has been
trying to pin something on him for a very long time-maybe as far back as the mid-seventies.
Dave Burgess is the nephew of Joseph and Sally Conforte. Joe Conforte opened a legal
brothel called the Mustang Ranch in 1971. In its heyday the Mustang was the third largest
employer in Storey County, Nevada -after a pet food factory and the school system-and the
taxes it paid provided about an eighth of the County’s budget.

The Mustang Ranch replaced the "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" as the most famous
brothel in the world. To the world outside Storey County, the place, in the words of one
author, "represented ‘badness’ on multiple levels." Despite, or maybe because of, its
" badness" the Mustang eventually became three whorehouses: Mustang One, Mustang
Two and, about 150 yards away from those two buildings, the Old Bridge Ranch.
The Mustang was notorious for almost 20 years and Dave Burgess was managing the place
shortly before it was eventually closed down by the Federal Government in 1990. Joe
Conforte and a Storey County Commissioner named Shirley Colletti were indicted for fraud
and racketeering and Conforte disappeared. Some say he disappeared to South America.
The Feds never got him.

By the time his uncle escaped Dave Burgess had split off and was operating the Old Bridge
as a separate business. That and the fact that he was his uncle’s nephew and that he had
managed the Mustang were probably enough to make him one of the FBIs "usual
suspects."

Everybody Breaks The Law
All cops know that everybody breaks the law. Everybody. It can’t be helped. There are so
many laws.Most of the time cops just stare out at everybody until they see one of us breaking a law.
Sometimes, if cops do not like your attitude, they will ignore everybody else and just stare at
you.

Something like that happened to Dave Burgess. The cops paid extra special attention to the
Old Bridge Ranch.

Federal prosecutors went after Burgess’ in-laws. Burgess’ father-in-law, Jay "Cowboy"
Rigas and his son Troy were indicted for being the "drug kingpins" of Northern Nevada.
Both men worked at the Old Bridge Ranch, which they all seemed to consider as a "family
business," and both were convicted after an almost year-long trial for selling cocaine.
It was a classic example of legal musical chairs. Twenty-four people were alleged to have
sold cocaine in Nevada, Northern California and Washington. Twenty-two of them turned
state’s evidence, sat in witness chairs and testified that it was all Jay and Troy Rigas’ idea.
Jay and Troy were left standing when it came time for somebody to be sentenced. Jay Rigas
is still in jail and many law-abiding people honestly think that his trial was a miscarriage of
justice.

Dave Burgess’ mother-in-law, Yvonne Rigas, was so incensed by what she considered to be
the railroading of her husband and son that she passed out leaflets in the courthouse
parking lot. The leaflets were the product of a Libertarian group in Montana called the
" Fully Informed Jury Association." The papers said, "True Or False? When you sit on a
jury, you have the right to vote your conscience."

So, after her husband and son were locked up Yvonne Rigas was indicted for conspiracy
and jury tampering for putting the papers on the wind shields of cars. It was a blatantly
bogus charge. And, it could also be interpreted to mean that the United States of America
was conducting a vendetta against the family that still ran what was left of the Mustang.

The Hells Angels
The long history of the official harassment of Dave Burgess and his uncle and his in-laws
could fill a book. Burgess had numerous tax audits and suits disputing whether whores are
employees or independent contractors and whether Troy Rigas, who Burgess rehired after
his release from prison, was a moral enough person to work in a whorehouse and so on.
It is a dreary litany. Washington and Jefferson might have found it sad.But then, what
would Andrew Jackson have done to Trooper Arnell?

The more Burgess was legally harassed the more alienated from the legal process he
seemed to become. It was particularly not helpful to his cause that he became a member of
the Hells Angels. Troy Rigas and another brother named Sohn Rigas also became Hells
Angels and Sohn Rigas picked up a charge after the great biker brawl in Laughlin in 2002.
Most police agencies assume that the Hells Angels are a criminal organization. No one has
ever actually proved that the Hells Angels are the Mafia but that is exactly who police think
they are. So, as time went by and the files the FBI kept on Burgess grew, Dave Burgess
started to look more and more like Michael Corleone.

Worst of all, the cops could never get Burgess. He was convicted of "conspiring to possess
marijuana" in 1990 but that one conviction was overturned on appeal. So he had a clean
record. He was legally an innocent man.

The cops must have laughed bitterly. The real Michael Corleone! An innocent man! Hah!.

Framing Dave Burgess
Then, Burgess was riding as a passenger in a white motorhome that was stopped for a
routine traffic violation in Wyoming in late July, 2007. And, suddenly the guy who was so
smart that law enforcement couldn’t touch him was revealed to be a moron who was so
stupid that he never even bothered to encrypt his giant collection of child pornography.
Or, maybe Dave Burgess was framed. Maybe.

Maybe in the George W. Bush America, during the war on terror, during the Alberto
Gonzales administration of the Department of Justice, after Tommy Chong, in an age when
even the Girl Scouts can legally be categorized as a "street gang," maybe a "naive"
person, maybe an idealist might think it might be possible that Dave Burgess was framed.
And all of this happened before the AP’s man in Wyoming, Matt Joyce, ever heard Dave
Burgess’ name. Then the headlines started."HELLS ANGELS! KID PORN!!"
Burgess’ Reno home was invaded by a SWAT Team in October, the house was searched
but no evidence of child pornography either in digital or printed form was found.
Burgess has stated publically, on his MySpace page, that at the time of that raid he was told
by FBI Agents, "…if I did not agree to get the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club involved in
some criminal adventure they (the FBI) would make sure to make me look so bad that even
my brothers in the Hells Angels would disown me, and that I would spend the next 20 years
in prison branded as a pedophile!"

Burgess has also publically protested that the "…U.S. attorney offered me a deal, but part
of the deal was that I would lose my brothel (not sell it, just close it and lose it.) Again, I
said ‘NO DEAL.’"..

Indictment And Trial
Burgess was indicted on November 14th. He appeared before a judge 12 days later and at
that hearing the prosecutor, James C. Anderson, actually asked the magistrate to deny
Burgess bail because he was a member of the Hells Angels. Burgess pleaded not guilty the
next day and went on trial in April.

" Investigators found tens of thousands of child pornography images, carefully organized
and explicitly labeled, on computer equipment belonging to Nevada brothel owner and Hells
Angel member David Burgess," was how Matt Joyce led his story on Wednesday, April
16th.

America was further informed that Burgess’ computer hardware "revealed just an almost
unimaginable amount of child pornography" on those hard drives. "We’re talking about
crime scene photographs of young children being treated in a way that no child should be
treated."

Burgess was represented by a Public defender named James H. Barrett. Burgess had a $2
million IRS lien against his personal assets at the time of his indictment. And, both Burgess
and the prosecutor seemed to regard Barrett as a nitwit..

The Public Defender
Barrett knew it, too."The Defendant has indicated in open court that he lacks confidence in
Counsel and has, as well…indicated the likelihood that he will seek to
question the effectiveness of counsel in the conduct of his defense," Barrett complained to
the Judge in the last of multiple attempts to withdraw from the case. The judge let Barrett
resign after Burgess was convicted. Burgess’ attorney at sentencing was Dion Custis.

The prosecutor also seemed to sense the coming of an appeal based on the ineffectiveness
of Burgess’ advocate. So, Anderson tried to get the judge to deny Burgess’ indigent status
but that motion was overruled.

The jury was reminded over and over that Burgess was a member of the Hells Angels who
ran a whore house.

Troy Rigas and Burgess’ estranged wife Ingrid both testified that Burgess. whether he was
an outlaw or not, whether he used recreational drugs and ran a legal whorehouse or not, was
not a man fixated on the sexualization of little children. Troy Rigas said the Hells Angels
would not tolerate it. Ingrid Burgess testified that she had "known David for many years,
almost 30 years. I’ve been around him a lot, and I know he wouldn’t do anything like
this."..

Conviction
The jury was unmoved. The jury believed the cops. Burgess was convicted that Friday. The
jury deliberated less than four hours.
Burgess continued to protest his innocence and that annoyed the judge, an experienced and
sometimes liberal jurist named Alan B. Johnson. "I would hope that at some point this
defendant will be able to acknowledge his preoccupation with child pornography and the
damage it has done to his life, his business and his family members," Johnson lectured
Burgess.

Then Judge Johnson sentenced Burgess to 15 years in prison, ten years of supervision
upon release, lifetime registration as a sex offender and a fine of $20,000.
Burgess still claims he is innocent. But the longer you stare at his case the more it seems to
be more than a simple matter that an innocent man might have been wrongly convicted.