He said his name was Billy, Billy St. John, and he dealt meth, and handled machine guns and teetered in dark, violent bars, pulling at bottled beer and winning the trust of men he would later betray in the name of the law.
He said he wanted to join the Mongols, an East L.A. motorcycle gang that was desperate for new members. With a Willie Nelson beard and a face mapped with wrinkles, Billy looked the part.
FOR THE RECORD
Los Angeles Times Thursday August 30, 2001 Home Edition Part A Part A Page 2 A2 Desk 2 inches; 59 words Type of Material: Correction
Undercover agent--In an article on Sept. 18, 2000, and again last April 19, The Times reported that William Queen, a special agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, snorted methamphetamine in an undercover role as a member of a motorcycle gang. Despite claims by gang members, Queen never snorted the drug when ordered to as part of a test of his loyalty to the gang, according to federal authorities.
Rocky, Panhead, Silent, Conan--men with names that implied explosive violence--had no idea they were about to be duped by a supremely elaborate undercover disguise. The federal government had gone to great lengths to make sure the bikers would never suspect what awaits them in federal court next month: Billy on the witness stand, Mongols at the defense table, the prospect of long sentences for murder, drug dealing and other charges hanging over them.
"Yeah, looking back at it, there were little things he did like leaving bars too early and wearing long-sleeve shirts in summer that now seem like giveaways," said J.R. MacDonald, a 250-pound Mongol nicknamed "Hoss," who is charged with dealing in stolen motorcycles. "But at the time, he was just Billy. He rode with us. He partied with us. He was our treasurer. Nobody ever thought twice about it."
Two and a half years ago, Billy, whose name is really William Queen, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, swung a booted leg over his Harley Softtail and roared off on a journey destined to become an undercover legend. He swaggered into one biker bar after another from the San Fernando Valley to Daytona Beach, Fla., lingered in Harley shops and tattoo parlors and apartments stashed with methamphetamines and cocaine, climbed straight up the ladder of Mongoldom from "hang around" to "prospect" to full patch member and then finally, somehow, to the organization's inner circle.
"The Mongols are some of the more hard-core bikers around," said James Pollock, a San Fernando Police Department detective who has investigated motorcycle gangs. "An agent like that, if he wasn't careful every second he was out there, would have the life expectancy of a fruit fly."
Billy's protection was his completeness. He had a whole life story, part invented, part probably real. His job, he told the Mongols when he was introduced to them in March 1998, was selling electronic equipment out of a van. He lived in an apartment in Diamond Bar. He claimed to have two daughters, whom other bikers would hear him calling at night, saying, "Hi sweetheart, it's Daddy." The bikers now think he was talking to another agent in code.
