![]() In fact, Matter insisted that all the members in his charter had to have legitimate jobs. They live a pretty clean life, and you've got to catch them." That's why the Hells Angels don't get that much heat. Selling drugs, Matter said, is "about making the money and being low-profile. ![]() That's who I dealt with, and you don't think it's going to trickle down to anybody else." It became a big thing later on, but bikers have always been doing it. All these other folks weren't into methamphetamine. He wasn't really thinking about who was using the drugs, Matter said, "because methamphetamine used to be the bikers' choice of drugs that's who did it. "It was the lure of easy money."Įventually, he said, "I had a multimillion-dollar business." "I didn't have much of an education, and I saw there was money to be made there," Matter said. By February 1978, he quit his job and started dealing full time. While he was still working at a manufacturing plant, he started selling to guys he worked with and other Grim Reapers. Matter was introduced to crystal meth in 1977. No one caused Matter any trouble at the party. But, then I smiled and said, 'That's funny, because where I come from, we shoot people for trying to take our patches, you know?' " Matter wrote that the Hells Angels said when they see red and white patches, "we take 'em, you know?" Later, at an anniversary party for the Hells Angels in Charlotte, N.C., Matter was wearing the Minneapolis red and white Grim Reaper patch - colors that belong to the Hells Angels. "The shooting helped my reputation I wasn't afraid to stand up to anybody and use whatever force was necessary," Matter wrote. I was ready to back it up, and I usually had a handful of very serious people with me who could roll with it, whatever way it turned out." "It was what you had to do in those situations. ![]() "I was very confrontational," Matter said. "Breaking the Code" is filled with examples of how Matter built his reputation in the biker world. I imagine that's true, but the Hells Angels and clubs like them like to turn the claim on its head and take the 1 percent part as a kind of badge of honor." It comes from the claim often used by motorcycle enthusiasts to defend their interest in bikes: Ninety-nine percent of motorcyclists are law-abiding citizens. "One-percenters," Matter explains in the book, "were what we motorcycle clubs called ourselves. ![]() That's why they weren't a 1-percenter club. The Grim Reapers were more of a club that wasn't that serious. That's where I found my family, my camaraderie, with the Hells Angels especially. "I wanted to put a chapter in Minneapolis. They offered to move Matter to Omaha, where he could join an established chapter, but he said no. So, I went on to become the president of the Grim Reapers in Minneapolis, and because I was that tough of a kid, the Hells Angels were interested in me." Wingerson's death, Matter said, "made me tougher. Wherever we went, we were coming out together," Matter said. Matter still describes Wingerson, who was the best man at Matter's first wedding, as being "like another big brother to me." Matter offered a different take: no witnesses willing to testify. The Chadas were charged with first-degree murder, but they later pleaded guilty of manslaughter and were sentenced to serve no more than eight years.Īttorneys at the time pointed out that the plea deal saved taxpayers money. "You'd had to have been there to believe it, and that's where Chris comes in." The no-holds-barred story of Matter's life is chronicled in a new book, released this month, and co-authored by a retired captain from the Hennepin County sheriff's office in Minneapolis who helped send Matter to federal prison. His expansion of the Hells Angels into Illinois escalated a decades-old war with the gang's rival, the Outlaws, who once retaliated by planting C-4 explosives under his truck. His biggest source of income? Dealing drugs. Matter was also the founder and 21-year president of the the Hells Angels motorcycle gang's Minnesota chapter. He manufactured his own line of V-twin motorcycles, was a nationally ranked pro-stock motorcycle racer and a top-fuel racer. Matter, who dropped out of Fort Dodge public schools in the eighth grade, went on to build a multimillion-dollar empire. Pat Matter's story could be considered that of a hometown boy who made good - by being very bad.
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