While talking to Maclean's, Atwell also looked back on how he started out with motorcycle clubs. Before his original club, the Para-Dice Riders, was absorbed into the Hells Angels, the group was made up of average, everyday guys with a love for big bikes. Sure, there were some members who dabbled in drug dealing and other crimes, but there was nothing on an organized level — yet. But when Atwell, at that time a full-fledged Hells Angel, lost his security job after he was found to be part of an outlaw motorcycle gang, he had no choice but to do as the Romans were doing and start selling drugs.
"I'd make $1,700 per kilo of cocaine, delivering it a few blocks [away], stashed in a KFC bag," he said. "I'd rent a car or take public transit to make the dead drops. That was my life. I lost a lot of old friends. Everyone was surprised when I became a Hells Angel, but I saw the individual, not the patch. When I saw what the patch did to those individual people, it turned me off."
Likewise, the Ventura chapter's George Christie also ran afoul of the law multiple times after becoming a full-time Hells Angel. Per KQED, he had separate stints in prison for murder (though he was found not guilty after a year behind bars), dealing prescription drugs, and conspiracy to firebomb a couple of local tattoo parlors.
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