Takedown: A Small-Town Cop's Battle Against the Hells Angels and the Nation's Biggest Drug Gang: A Small-Town Cop’s Battle Against the Hells Angels and the Nation’s Biggest Drug Gang

340 Pages·2016·2.35 MB·English

by  Buck

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Table of Contents
About the Author
Photos
Copyright Page

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For my mother, father, and sister, who were always there
Acknowledgments
All drug cases and books are true team efforts. For help along the way of both
this case and this book, I’d like to thank and acknowledge: Sheriff Drew
Alexander, Mayor Sam Alonso, Phyllis Azar, assistant editor Elayne Becker,
Sergeant Rick Beverly, Sergeant Jeff Breznak, Kathi Buck, law director Paul
Carpenter, the Honorable Derek Champagne, dispatchers of the City of
Twinsburg, publisher Tom Doherty, Detective Jim Gilchrist, editor Bob
Gleason, attorney Gary Himmel, Congressman David Joyce, Captain John
Korinek, Jon Land, Special Agent Bill Leppla, publicist Emily Mullen, attorney
Ken Myers, Narcotics Border Task Force, Franklin County, New York, officers
of the City of Beachwood, officers of the Village of Reminderville, Lindsay
Preston, associate publisher Linda Quinton, Detective Rod Smith, Lieutenant
Kirk Snodgrass, Detective Larry Weppler, and Chief Keith Winebrenner.
The Lineup
Yulia Abramovich: The Russian woman I arrested on a domestic assault beef in
October 2008 who provided the first clue to drug dealing in my Ohio backyard
by elements of the Russian mob.
Ralph “Sonny” Barger: Founder of the Hells Angels and kingpin who turned the
biker gang into a criminal force coast to coast and, ultimately, north of the
border.
Robert “Robbie” Barnes and Frank Courtland Teek: The two sources that
provided product to Richard Heckman.
Al Beauchamp: Fairlawn, Ohio, police detective who helped me score a
“reverse” drug deal after we arrested Kevin Sorin.
Maurice “Mom” Boucher: Joined the Montreal chapter of the Hells Angels in
1987 after completing a forty-month sentence for sexually assaulting a teenager.
He led the Hells Angels in their war against the Rock Machine.
Rudolph Brancel: Subject of another of my biggest drug investigations, resulting
in him being imprisoned.
Kathi Buck: My wife, mother of my daughter, and the woman who’s been by my
side through almost all of my career.
Salvatore Cazzetta: Successor to Sonny Barger as head of the Hells Angels, a
position he held when the Angels solidified their hold on the Quebec drug trade
and their “arrangement” with the Akwesasne Nation.
Derek Champagne: Ambitious, driven Franklin County, New York, district
attorney cross-designated as an Assistant U.S. Attorney who wanted to put an
end to the drug trade originating with the Hells Angels and members of the
Akwesasne Mohawks as much as I did. He’s currently a family court judge.
Matt Cody: Low-level target of the Geauga, Ohio, drug task force investigation
that could have destroyed my case.
Kim Cook: Danny Simonds’s fiancée, who introduced Danny to Alan Jacobs and
then helped pick up the slack after Danny was murdered.
Derek Cooke: Alan Jacobs’s boyhood friend who helped him sell drugs and one
of the thugs who attacked Danny Simonds. No relationship to Kim.
Daniel Desrochers: An eleven-year-old boy killed in a Hells Angels bomb blast
in Montreal, the incident attributed with igniting the Quebec biker wars.
Chad Edwards: One of the thugs that attacked Danny Simonds.
Sam Fields: The Native who introduced Alan Jacobs to the world of drug
running on the reservation when Alan was just a boy.
Harold and Sabrina Fraser: Franklin County farmers who replaced Danny
Simonds as Kevin Sorin’s suppliers.
“Frenchie”: Undercover drug officer from the Ontario Provincial Police who was
working Operation SharQc north of the border while my task force was working
our investigation south of the border.
Leo Fritz: A lower-level drug dealer who became a confidential informant and
helped me break one of my biggest drug cases ever involving a kingpin named
Brancel.
Phil Garillo: DEA agent who assisted me on the Heckman case.
Richard Heckman: Kingpin of a national, and international, drug network
another of my investigations brought down.
Bryan “Wildcat” Herne: Alan Jacobs’s chief enforcer and leader of the thugs
who attacked Danny Simonds.
Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau and Frédéric Landry-Hétu: Full-patch members of the
Hells Angels of Quebec involved in the drug trade north of the border.
Mike Hughes: A Reminderville, Ohio, uniformed policeman I enlisted as part of
the multi-jurisdictional task force that extended from Ohio to Franklin County,
New York.
Ivan Ivashov: Computer salesman friend of Kevin Sorin’s and boyfriend of
Yulia Abramovich whose tip was the beginning of my entrance to the case and
Kevin’s ultimate undoing.
Alan Jacobs: A drug runner from boyhood who rose to become de facto head of
the drug trade on the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation reservation and spearhead of
moving drugs through the reservation supplied by the Hells Angels out of
Montreal.
Rosalie Jacobs: Alan’s mom and currently CEO of Jacobs Tobacco Company.
Curtis Jones: A high-level drug dealer who tried to evade my arresting officers
by jumping out a fifth-story window in my last case undercover.
Dave Joyce: Chief prosecutor from the Geauga County Prosecutor’s Office and
now an Ohio congressman.