The "sergeant-at-arms" for the Salt Lake chapter of the Sundowners Motorcycle Club will spend up to life in prison for beating and kidnapping a man in the restroom of a downtown Salt Lake bar.
Robert "Nasty Bob" Dale said nothing in his own defense Monday before Judge Homer Wilkinson ordered him to serve a 10-years-to-life prison term. Dale pleaded guilty March 31 to aggravated kidnapping, a first-degree felony. In exchange for Dale's plea, prosecutors dropped one count of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony.Dale was one of 39 Sundowners arrested following a yearlong undercover investigation by the FBI. Those arrests resulted in 52 charges in state court. Thirty-nine of those cases have resulted in jail or prison time.
"The Salt Lake City chapter, for all intents and purposes, has ceased to exist," said prosecutor Clark Harms. "We hope this sends a message."
Since the FBI's undercover investigation, which has resulted in several federal drug convictions, other motorcycle clubs have shied away from Salt Lake City, Harms said.
"We believe that the prosecution and dismantling of the Salt Lake City chapter has stopped the Hell's Angels from looking at the Salt Lake City chapter as a base for expansion," Harms said.
Dale, 44, will spend nine years and seven months of his state sentence in federal prison.
During an April 25 federal sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Dee Benson ordered Dale to serve 115 months in federal prison for extortion and kidnapping charges for threatening a woman and ransacking her house for failing to pay the club some money she had borrowed to pay rent, according to prosecutors.
"(Dale) was the enforcer for the club," said U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch. During the incident, Dale and some other individuals took personal property and a truck from her house, she said.
Wilkinson ordered Dale's 10-years-to-life term in the state prison run concurrently with his federal sentence.
Dale's 10-years-to-life sentence on Monday stemmed from a Jan. 27, 1996, incident in which he held a man at knife point inside the restroom of the 13th Street Bar, 1330 S. State.
Dale's defense attorney, Lynn Brown asked the judge to give Dale a five-years-to-life prison sentence.
"This incident occurred several years ago," Brown said. "It was not prosecuted until after it was brought up by the FBI."
Prosecutors claimed the man Dale kidnapped did not come forward until after Dale was arrested Jan. 28, 1999, because he feared retaliation.
"He was afraid for his life," Harms said.
The judge could have sent Dale to prison for 15 years to life but said he found no aggravating circumstances that justified a stiffer sentence. Wilkinson did give Dale credit for the 15 months and two days he's already spent in jail on both his state and federal charges.
In February, Dale was sentenced in state court to serve one to 15 years in prison for robbing and beating a man at the clubhouse over a $1 bill and holding a woman against her will in March 1998. He had pleaded guilty to a robbery charge for that incident.
You can reach Derek Jensen by e-mail at djensen@desnews.com and Hans Camporreales by e-mail at hans@desnews.com