How I Inherited a Former Hells Angel

This website exists for one reason: to convince somebody with a little more skill and a lot more influence to adopt the story and get this guy out of jail.

But why? What’s a nice girl like me doing with a mission like this? If Danny Fabricant stays incarcerated forever, is it any skin off my ass? None whatsoever, but I do my best to shine a light on what put him in prison, and what’s keeping him there, and why maybe, just maybe, that’s not the brightest idea the government ever had.

Partly, I care about the principles involved. Partly, it’s personal, but not because I ever even met Danny Fabricant. I never met Marc Madow, either, the person I’m really doing it for. When Marc was alive, he cared about an astonishing number of causes, and helped a lot of people, and made some beautiful things. He was really, really smart, except for a couple of topics where he went off the rails, but who doesn’t at times? The scope and ambition of his aspirations were remarkable. We collaborated on several creative projects. He was my Ideal Reader, and any writer knows how much that means.

Many years ago, Marc desperately needed help and Danny, then a Hells Angel, was the only friend who came to his aid. Time went on, and because of one excessively ambitious ATF agent and one murderous informant, Danny was overcharged and overconvicted and is serving a life sentence. When Marc outlined the major points of interest, I was like, “Holy shit!” Some of the things he said were,

“If these creatures hadn’t been given the freedom to rock and roll outside the law, Eric Holder wouldn’t have Congress coming after him over the Fast and Furious stuff, since that wouldn’t have happened and they wouldn’t need to cover anything up.”

“Should Danny Fabricant die in prison? It’s hard for me to ask that about a friend who was convicted by the testimony of a lying snitch who was given probation for the brutal murder of a woman he felt “disrespected” by, half a million tax-free bucks, and a new identity, to put someone away for life for selling another Hells Angel 51.9 grams [less than two ounces] of meth.”

“I wonder whose daughter lives next to Kramer these days?”

That last question is especially potent. Could be my daughter or yours.

Marc asked me to do a special project – to write up Danny’s story and its implications, and try to interest someone who could actually help. We were working on it when Marc was diagnosed with cancer. I’m sure he had other dying wishes, but this one was quite specific: he wanted to live to see Danny and Rachel, reunited, tearing up the road on a Harley. Didn’t happen.

I’m working with what I have, which is the certainty that the criminal justice system is badly broken. And a lot of questions. No doubt whatsoever, a professional investigative journalist with the resources of a big news organization could do something with this raw material in a way that could actually make a difference. Which is, in fact, the non-hidden agenda here: to outline a story in search of its Veronica Guerin, its Matt Taibbi, or its Gary Webb.

Pat Hartman