CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- As the government's case against the Pagans Motorcycle Club winds down, it seems like a good time to review. In early October 2009, 55 defendants were charged in a 44-count indictment that the Gazette continually refers to as "sweeping."

If "sweeping" means overblown, overcharged and unsupported by substantial evidence, the adjective is correct.

Since that time, one defendant died in jail and one defendant was added. Of the 55 charged:

* Eighteen had all federal charges dismissed against them. Each paid a $5 fine in Kanawha County magistrate court plus court costs for a local gambling offense.

* Five had all federal charges dismissed against them. (The Government is appealing the Court's dismissal of these charges.)

* Six received pretrial diversion. That is, all federal charges will be dismissed if they stay out of trouble for a year.

* One went to trial and was acquitted.

In other words, 30 defendants, or 55 percent of those charged, have been or potentially will be, released from all federal charges. Of the remaining 25 defendants, the great majority pled to lesser charges that had nothing to do with the Pagans Motorcycle Club.

For example, Richard Lee "Stump" Stevens, who was charged with conspiracy to murder and federal witness retaliation, pled guilty to transporting a stolen motorcycle across state lines. This is typical of the pleas entered.

The case as indicted was a complicated one, charging RICO and conspiracy to RICO, interstate travel and violent crimes in aid of racketeering, as well as individual drug and gun charges. In the end, not a single violent crime was proven. Not only was there no murder or conspiracy to murder, but there was also no assault, no conspiracy to assault, and no weapon was ever brandished. (One T-shirt was confiscated.)

What was the basis for the extreme, ultimately unfounded charges against these defendants?

The Government used two confidential informants in Charleston. The first turned out to be a bipolar individual who refused his prescribed medications in favor of self-medication with an impressive array of illegal drugs. When faced with testifying against his motorcycle club brothers, basically his only friends, this sad case of a confidential informant committed suicide, shooting himself in the head.

The second informant, Ronnie Howerton, was paid more than $200,000 ($3,500 a month plus bonuses) from 2004 through 2009 simply to gather information about the Pagans. Apparently the government neglected to do a background check on Howerton, who had been convicted of second-degree murder when he was 17 for shooting a rival for the affections of his girlfriend. He shot his victim in the head at close range with a 20-gauge shotgun. At his murder trial, Howerton testified that he had lied under oath before. In Howerton's defense, a psychiatrist testified that he had schizoid tendencies and difficulty discerning reality. This early diagnosis was borne out in the discovery produced by this informant, showing that the CI himself had stolen motorcycles (for his own benefit), committed robbery and generated crimes for which others were charged.

The FBI agent handling Howerton merely copied this CI's reports word-for-word into official FBI reports, which formed the basis for much of the Government's case.

The final total is not in, but this travesty of justice was extremely costly.

Forty-three of the defendants were financially eligible for court-appointed counsel. Court-appointed counsel is paid with your taxes. Resisting these unfounded charges and reaching these positive legal results for defendants required more than 40 hours of motion hearings and hundreds of pages of briefing. The docket currently reflects more than 2,000 documents filed in the case.

A rough estimate of total court-appointed attorneys' fees and costs exceeds $2 million. The Government spent more than $225,000 for confidential informants.

Costs for the FBI to handle these individuals are unknown. Five U.S. attorneys worked to prosecute the case at various times. Hundreds of hours of court personnel's time were required from clerks through probation officers to Judge Johnston himself, who issued a number of substantial published opinions. Five million dollars is a conservative estimate.

Defendants' lives were interrupted, if not ruined. Unlike Howerton, who stole motorcycles for the government, most club members had legitimate blue-collar jobs. They were truck drivers, boilermakers, handymen. Considering only those against whom all federal charges were dismissed, many spent six to nine months in jail. Jobs were lost simply because men were indicted; homes were foreclosed upon while men could not work.

The First Amendment took a beating also. Like all citizens, bikers have a First Amendment right of association. Simply being a member of a motorcycle club was sufficient reason to be put under surveillance for years and have hundreds of hours of your conversation taped (of which less than an hour was even transcribed for use as evidence). Members were charged as "employees" of club officers simply because they belonged to the same social club. The charge that underpinned the entire indictment, that the club was a "motorcycle gang" of criminals, remains only an unsubstantiated allegation for which the government never produced a shred of evidence.

Let us hope that our new U.S. Attorney and his staff will carefully study their cases to avoid such prosecutorial overreach and waste of government resources. Our federal government is very powerful, and when it is wrong, its power can be quite destructive.

Let us hope that our local newspaper will better scrutinize the cases the government brings and look behind the "sweeping" indictment of a "motorcycle gang" to help the public understand the real story. Some caution, a modicum of doubt, a touch of cynicism might have provided balance to the Gazette's bolstering of the government's Pagan-criminal-gang story.

Purdy, of Chloe, is the defense attorney for Richard T. "Lucky" Weaver, defendant #5.