Mixed verdict in killing of man whose body was found in Clark County field

A federal jury on Tuesday returned a mixed verdict for three Gypsy Joker Motorcycle Club members on trial in the 2015 torture killing of a former member whose body was dumped in a field north of Vancouver.

The jury found the president of the Portland chapter, Mark Leroy Dencklau, 59, guilty of racketeering conspiracy and murder and kidnapping in aid of racketeering in the slaying of Robert Lee Huggins Jr., The Oregonian reported.

Club member Chad Leroy Erickson, 51, was found guilty of murder and kidnapping in aid of racketeering, and kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap. He was acquitted on a charge of engaging in a racketeering conspiracy. The jury also acquitted the club’s national president, Kenneth Earl Hause, 64, also known as “The Wiz,” of a single racketeering conspiracy charge, according to The Oregonian.

Jurors deliberated for four days following a five-week trial in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Six co-defendants from the Gypsy Jokers and support clubs cooperated with prosecutors.

Huggins, 56, of Portland, a former enforcer and treasurer for the Gypsy Jokers known as “Bagger Bobby,” was banned from the group in September 2014 after he stole money to buy heroin, a detective with the Portland Police Bureau said in 2016.

Tiler Evan Pribbernow, 40, the lead witness, testified that Dencklau ordered the attack on Huggins after Huggins robbed Dencklau’s Woodburn, Ore., home and tied up his then-girlfriend. Huggins was kidnapped on June 30, 2015, and was tortured and killed in Woodland before his body was dumped in Clark County, The Oregonian reported.

Pribbernow of Portland; Earl Deverle Fisher, 52, and Ryan Anthony Negrinelli, 38, both of Gresham, Ore.; Joseph Duane Folkerts, 64, of Battle Ground; Ian Christopher Jung, 44; and Ray Loren Rockafellor II, 52, have all pleaded guilty to conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise and await sentencing, according to The Oregonian.

Dencklau and Erickson are scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 28.