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Two trials shaping up for three defendants in rival biker-club killings
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Trial dates are now set in July for the three men charged in the June 18 double killing and double injuring of rival Warren-area biker-club members in a shootout at Shorty’s Place bar on Highland Avenue in Warren Township.
The shootings shocked the community because few people ever learned of earlier conflicts between the two clubs. One was a 2012 shooting at the Powerhouse Bar in Warren. Prosecutors pointed out the involvement of the clubs in that incident in a court filing after the Shorty’s episode.
James A. Gardner, 48, of Iowa Avenue Northwest, is scheduled to go on trial July 10 in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court on two counts of aggravated murder and two counts of felonious assault.
Scheduled to go on trial on those same charges in a trial starting July 31 are David Bailes Jr., 45, of Warren and Leavittsburg; and Charles Dellapenna III, 47, of Bane Street Southwest. They will be tried together.
Gardner, Bailes and Dellapenna are members of the Forever Two Wheels club of Warren. Bailes, who suffered at least one gunshot wound to his abdomen and attends hearings in a wheelchair, was president of Forever Two Wheels.
All three defendants are in the county jail awaiting trial.
Both trials will be before Judge Andrew Logan, who set those dates Tuesday during pretrial hearings. All three cases are being prosecuted by Mike Burnett, assistant prosecutor.
Burnett said Gardner will be tried separately from Dellapenna and Bailes because Gardner’s case “doesn’t meet the legal standard to be joined” with the others. Burnett said he could not elaborate on the reasons because that would reveal evidence in the case.
Gardner’s case is different from the other two, however, according to court documents.
A memorandum of understanding filed in the case April 4 says Gardner agreed to take a polygraph test that his attorney said would prove Gardner did not fire a weapon. The results can be used at trial.
The memorandum says the polygraph examiner would ask if Gardner “willingly gave his firearm to another or if it was taken without his consent.”
If the results determined that Gardner willingly gave someone else his firearm, Gardner would then be asked if he “had reason to believe [the gun] would be used against members” of the rival biker club, known as the Brothers Regime, the memo says.
After the polygraph test, Gardner “understands that he may be called upon by the State to act as a witness in subsequent court proceedings regarding other individuals who are [or may be] charged with crimes related to the events that occurred at Shorty’s Bar on June 18, 2016,” the memo says.
It adds that if Gardner’s polygraph indicated that he was not as responsible as the other defendants for the deaths and other shootings, his charges could be reduced to involuntary manslaughter or obstrucing justice.
Gardner has since filed a motion asking for certain evidence in his case to be suppressed from evidence. A hearing on that motion is set for 1:30 p.m. June 28.
The shootings killed Jason Moore, 41, of Bristolville, and Robert A. Marto, 54, of Cortland. They injured Andrew G. Claypool, 50, of Girard, and Walter M. Hughes, 41, of Warren.
In the August 2012 Powerhouse Bar shooting, Charles V. Moorhead, 37, of Warren, a Forever Two Wheelz member, was sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted of three counts of felonious assault for shooting three members of the Brothers Regime.