LEADER OF BIKE GANG GETS 5 YEARS

With the sentencing of the last of five motorcycle gang leaders
Tuesday, federal officials closed the book on what once was one of the
biggest methamphetamine rings in recent San Antonio history.

Ernest Cortinas, 35, received five years behind bars for helping deal
speed on the same Texas streets he cruised as San Antonio chapter
president of the Bandidos -- one of the nation's biggest biker groups
with members on highways as far away as Australia and Denmark.

Cortinas, dressed in prison khaki instead of the club's colors, was
the last of five Bandidos -- including the group's national president
and former international president -- sentenced in recent weeks for
conspiring to manufacture and distribute methamphetamines.

The remaining members will serve 10-year prison sentences; Cortinas
got a lesser sentence because he urged his accomplices to accept a
package plea deal.

"This is probably one of the more significant 'meth' cases through
this district in 30 years," Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Anderson
said.

Use of methamphetamine -- sometimes labeled speed, crank or the poor
man's cocaine -- is reportedly on the upswing in Western and Southern
states.

But as the market grows, law enforcement officials say biker gangs
like the Bandidos -- long reputed to control methamphetamine production
- -- are losing their grip on the industry.

"That was kind of their specialty. Biker gangs would manufacture it,"
said Milton Shoquist, special- agent-in-charge of the Drug Enforcement
Agency's San Antonio division. "In the past few years, we've seen it
in all walks of life."

Federal authorities believe the same Mexican cartels that slip
cocaine, heroin and marijuana into the country are setting up "meth"
labs in California and south of the U.S.-Mexico border, dwarfing
previous operations.

In October 1994, DEA agents raided a home in the 23000 block of Open
Cove in southern Bexar County, finding enough chemicals to make about
15 pounds of methamphetamine and almost 30 grams of the finished drug.

An ousted Bandido, Jay Lane Roberts, helped federal agents link those
drugs to five of his former buddies. Court documents indicate he also
told officials the group dealt more than 1,000 pounds of
methamphetamine over nine years.

Roberts went into the witness-protection program. His accomplices
will head for prison next month.

They each pleaded guilty to one count of making and conspiring to
distribute methamphetamine. One by one, they were sentenced in a
string of hearings that ended Tuesday with Cortinas.

With hands clasped in front or behind them, the Bandidos often
appeared more mild than wild. Testifying to their better natures were
letters of support from family and friends, including a
motorcycle-riding minister.

The Bandidos national president, 40-year-old Craig Johnston, who was
caught with 59 grams of methamphetamine inside a locked briefcase,
insisted after his sentencing that not all Bandidos deal drugs.

Others simply refused to discuss their case and their
club.

Also sentenced were Longview-resident Terry Larque, 43, Bandidos
national secretary-treasurer; Richard Benavides, 44, vice president of
the San Antonio chapter; and James Lang, 43, the former international
president.

Cortinas already is serving a 22- year sentence for his part in
transporting marijuana from Texas to Michigan. His sentences will run
concurrently.

Lang was named last month in another methamphetamine case, this one
arising in a Houston state court. His attorney said Lang is fighting
the charges.

Previous prosecutions of Bandido leaders have not dismantled the

32-year-old club. This case hasn't either, Johnston said.

"It's alive and well," he said, before fingering a large ring bearing
the letters BFFB -- "Bandidos forever, forever brothers."

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady