George Christie

George Gus Christie Jr. (born April 26, 1947) is an American author and former outlaw biker who served as president of the Ventura, California charter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club between 1978 and 2011. He is the longest-serving chapter president in the club's history. Christie was also a national spokesman for the Hells Angels. The journalist Alice Carbone Tench described him as "the most notorious Hells Angel in America" (after Sonny Barger).

Early life George Gus Christie Jr. was born in Ventura, California in 1947, the only child of Greek immigrant parents, and raised in an insular Greek American community in the city. Christie also lived in Camarillo and Anaheim as a child. His maternal grandparents anglicized their surname from Vlassopoulos to Blacy, and his paternal grandparents from Chrispikos to Christie. He described himself as "very timid" and "really sensitive" as a child, and his parents as "very protective, very loving, gentle" people. Christie recalled: "I don’t know how old I was. Seven to 10 years old at the most — this guy made such an impression on me".

Another pivotal moment in Christie's early life which caused him to develop even more of an outsider mentality was when he was accused of cheating on an intelligence quotient test in high school. He struggled in school due to dyslexia, but scored highly on the IQ test, leading him to be accused of cheating by the school principal, who refused to believe that Christie had legitimately fared so well. Christie said of the incident: "I thought to myself, ‘if this is polite society, no thank you'." Christie served in the Marine Corps reserves for the rest of the 1960s. In 1966, he bought his first motorcycle for $200, a 1957 Harley-Davidson Panhead. They had two children together, George Christie III and Moriya Christie. Christie told the Canadian journalists Julian Sher and William Marsden in a 2006 interview: "I really wanted to make a statement of some sort. It really wasn't the thought of criminality; it was more an interest to rebel. It was a commitment". He identified with the Hells Angels' "live and let live" philosophy and claims that, while the Angels took part in brawls with sailors from the Naval Air Base San Pedro and members of rival biker clubs, the level of violence was contained during that period. Christie remarked in an interview with Maggie Yates of the Santa Barbara Independent in 2018: "No one ever went home after a fight and got a gun. The losers would buy breakfast". Shortly afterwards, the Mongols began wearing a patch on their biker "colors" reading "California", denoting the state as their territory. As the preeminent motorcycle gang in California, the Hells Angels claimed exclusive rights to the patch and took offense to the Mongols' wearing of it. When the Mongols defied the Hells Angels' warnings to cease wearing the "California" patch, the Angels voted unanimously at a club meeting on 7 July 1977, in favor of declaring war on their rivals. The biker war led to an escalation in violence and resulted in the deaths of four Mongols members and an innocent fifteen-year-old boy, in a series of shootings and bombings in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas between July and September 1977.

A second Hells Angels chapter was established in Los Angeles County on 1 January 1978, when members of Satan's Slaves "patched over" to form the Angels' Chatsworth-based San Fernando Valley charter, following a vote of approval from Hells Angels leaders in Oakland. Christie subsequently founded the Hells Angels chapter in Ventura County with himself as the chapter president. The Ventura chapter was founded on 6 May 1978. Claire Spiegel of the Los Angeles Times described the clubhouse of the Ventura chapter as "a nondescript little building with a red steel door warning 'No Bozos. No Wimps'." The same year, Christie was fired from the Defense Department on the account of his Hells Angels membership. The same year, he denied accusations from the California Organized Crime Control Commission, which described the Hells Angels as "the epitome of all outlaw motorcycle gangs", insisting that the Hells Angels are merely a motorcycle club, and saying: "It's a family is what it is".

In 1984, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) circulated a rumor in Ventura that the Hells Angels might disrupt the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles by supplying weapons to terrorists for an attack at Lake Casitas, which hosted water sports at the games. In a 2013 interview with the Italian writer Alice Carbone Tench, Christie recalled: "The interesting thing is that they misjudged how integrated in the community we were. We had come here in 1978 and really became part of Ventura; when the ATF came into town, they started doing a character assassination to try to discredit us. I had started getting calls from many businessmen visited by the ATF, showing pictures of myself and my club members. In order to fight those ludicrous statements, we decided to embrace the Olympics and we got involved. The irony is that their program of misinformation to the community drew us in, and made us the 'All American Boys'. We backfired". On 20 July 1984, Christie carried the torch through Oxnard during the opening rituals for the Los Angeles Olympics. He was cheered on by "hordes" of members of the Hells Angels, Crucifiers and Heathens motorcycle clubs as he arrived with the torch in a remote pea field, outside Point Mugu, in Ventura County, in the culmination of the cross-country relay. On 11 June 1985, Christie filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee (LAOOC) and Special Olympics Inc., in an effort to have the Hells Angels' donation given directly to Pottstown. Each page of the suit was stamped with a seal bearing the Hells Angels death's head logo. The complaint was dismissed.

Conspiracy trial In 1986, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched a sting operation against Christie, assigning Michael "Slim" Mulhern, a senior Mexican Mafia member and FBI informant, to make Christie an offer to have the Mexican Mafia kill Thomas Arthur Chaney, a former Ventura Hells Angel who had cooperated with the government and provided federal authorities with information on the Hells Angels' drug-dealing activities. Chaney was imprisoned at the Federal Correctional Institution, Safford, Arizona at the time. Beginning in August 1986, Mulhern covertly recorded a number of conversations he had with Christie and another Hells Angel, Daniel Joe Fabricant.

The FBI faked Chaney's murder in September 1986 and a note was subsequently sent to the Ventura Hells Angels clubhouse reading: "The body work has been taken care of". Nam Angels depicts a group of Hells Angels on a mercenary mission in the Vietnam War.

In 1990, Christie was interviewed by Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes about the Hells Angels' criminal allegations. His sentence was eight months of probation. Barger placed Christie in a state of disgrace Christie states that he is not in fear of his life, but he is concerned about his break with the Hells Angels. Christie was accused of ordering the bombings of Scratch the Surface and Twisted Ink tattoo shops, which were competing with the Ink House. In 2018, Christie starred in a one-man play, Outlaw, that was based on Exile on Front Street. At present, Christie lives with his wife in Ojai.

Works Exile on Front Street: My Life as a Hells Angel (Thomas Dunne Books, 2016) Marked: A Story of Lies, Loyalty, Betrayal, and Brotherhood (DTLA Publishing, 2017) Outlaw: Riding Through the Storm (BookBaby, 2021)