Gypsy Joker Motorcycle Club leader gets life for murder

PORTLAND — A judge has sentenced the Gypsy Joker Motorcycle Club Portland chapter president and another club member to life in prison for the torture-style killing of an ex-club member.

U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman issued the mandatory minimum sentences for Mark Leroy Dencklau and Chad Leroy Erickson in federal court in Portland Thursday, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

Prosecutors described Dencklau as the “ringleader” of a criminal enterprise who orchestrated the kidnapping, torture and killing of 56-year-old Robert “Bagger” Huggins Jr., on June 20, 2015.

Huggins was abduction from Oregon and taken to a shed in Washington where he was killed, Assistant U.S. Attorney Leah Bolstad said. Huggins’ body was found in a field near Rigefield in July 2015.

Huggins was a Gypsy Joker member pushed out of the club in 2014 for stealing money from the Portland clubhouse to pay for heroin. The killing was punishment for robbing Dencklau’s Woodburn home, prosecutors said.

Lawyers for Dencklau, 60, of Woodburn, and Erickson, 51, of Rainier, both urged a lesser sentence, saying a life sentence amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

A jury in November convicted Dencklau of racketeering conspiracy, murder in aid of racketeering, kidnapping in aid of racketeering resulting in death, kidnapping resulting in death, and conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death.

Erickson was convicted of murder and kidnapping in aid of racketeering, conspiracy to kidnap and kidnapping resulting in death and found not guilty of engaging in a racketeering conspiracy.

Both men plan to appeal their sentences.

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