John Virgil Punko, 43, pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to produce and traffic methamphetamine, trafficking drugs and possessing cash that was the proceeds of crime.

John Virgil Punko, 43, pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to produce and traffic methamphetamine, trafficking drugs and possessing cash that was the proceeds of crime.Prosecutor Martha Devlin told the court that Punko should be given 30 months credit for time served in pre-trial custody, which would reduce the Crown requested sentence to slightly more than 13 years.The sentencing hearing before B.C. Supreme Court Justice Peter Leask is set for all this week.
Co-accused Randy Potts, who is also a member of the East End chapter of the Hells Angels, is set to be sentenced next week.The charges against the bikers stem from a $10-million police investigation that targetted the East End Hells Angels, which ended in 2005 with the arrest of more than six Hells Angels in B.C. and a dozen alleged associates.The police investigation utlilized a police agent, Michael Plant, who was promised $1 million to infiltrate the biker club, wear a secret listening device and gather evidence.Punko was earlier convicted of threatening a prosecutor in another Hells Angels case.Last summer, a jury convicted Punko, Potts and two other Hells Angels members of weapons ofences and extortion.In that case, Punko was convicted of the unauthorized possession of a loaded semi-automatic pistol and sentenced to 15 months in jail, plus a consecutive sentence of four years for counselling a police agent to do damage to a Surrey home where Punko was trying to collect a large amount of money from a man.It was effectively a sentence of time served but Punko was recently denied bail by Leask before sentencing.Potts, who is free on bail before sentencing, is attending Punko’s sentencing.

$30,000 to a Vancouver Hells Angels member after a large shipment of marijuana went missing.

drug dealer explained Monday how he had to shell out up to $30,000 to a Vancouver Hells Angels member after a large shipment of marijuana went missing."I made three small payments, between $20,000 and $30,000," the man testified at the trial of four members of Vancouver's East End chapter of the Hells Angels: Ronaldo Lising, Randy Potts, John Punko and Jean Joseph Violette.The 28-count indictment alleges the Hells Angels chapter is a criminal organization and that the accused committed such crimes as extortion and uttering death threats "for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a criminal organization, to wit the East End chapter of the Hells Angels."B.C. Supreme Court Justice Selwyn Romilly imposed a ban on the name of the witness, who testified he tried to explain to Lising that the shipment was seized by police, but Lising believed the load had been ripped off.The witness recalled Lising demanded payment of "50 grand" for the missing load, which was shipped to the U.S. through Alberta. The man explained he phoned his lawyer, who made some calls to police and wrote a letter explaining the 140-kilogram shipment of marijuana, contained in nine hockey bags, was seized by the RCMP in Alberta and police in Montana.The witness, who has a minor criminal record for assault and possessing marijuana, recalled he got a friend to give the lawyer's letter to Richard Goldammer, an East End Hells Angels member, "to prove my innocence."
He said he later got a text message from Lising saying, "Good luck. We don't want your money."The jury trial, which began last September, continues in a high-security courtroom at the Vancouver Law Courts.