For more than 40 years, Ricky Ciarniello was the public face and voice of B.C.’s notorious Hells Angels motorcycle gang.
He testified in court for his beloved club. He held news conferences to contradict police who warned the group was a criminal organization. And he was greeted like a celebrity at major biker events, like the July 2023 40th anniversary party in Langley.
Ciarniello died recently after a lengthy illness, prompting tributes across underworld social-media accounts. He had just turned 80 on March 11.
Brad Stephen, a retired Vancouver police biker specialist, said Ciarniello was always trying to defend the Hells Angels publicly all while wearing the small “1%” patch signifying the HA identified as an “outlaw” gang.
“The police found it odd that here was a member of an outlaw biker club trying to convince the public that they were a bunch of fun-loving good old boys while wearing a ‘1%’ patch on his vest,” Stephen said Monday. “I was thinking to myself — ‘Does he really believe that?’ Unfortunately, I think a lot of people drank the Kool-Aid and believed his statements defending the club.”
Before the Hells Angels was launched in B.C. on July 23, 1983, Ciarniello was a high-ranking member of its predecessor — the Satan’s Angels.
Ciarniello, then Satan’s Angels treasurer, told The Vancouver Sun in October 1977 that the gang doesn’t go looking for trouble but won’t turn the other cheek if members feel they’ve been insulted.
“I don’t bully anyone but if a guy’s a jerk he’s going to get it anyway. Even if he is the mayor’s son,” said Ciarniello, then a motorcycle mechanic.
The Satan’s Angels challenged B.C.’s law requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets. They lost in November 1981. Ciarniello again spoke out to the media, saying helmet use doesn’t prevent accidents.
“It’s like putting a Band-Aid over a cancer,” he said.
Two year later, he was repeating his oft-quoted mantra that his new gang, the Hells Angels, was “just a motorcycle club that has a vicious name.”
He challenged police conduct in courts across Canada, arguing that law enforcement was targeting the Hells Angels with unfair surveillance, roadblocks and other tactics.
He won in an Alberta court in 2000, when a judge ruled police roadblocks set up while the Hells Angels were visiting to open two new chapters in June 1997 had violated their Charter rights.
“I believe it’s quite a victory. All Canadians have Charter rights,” Ciarniello said at the time.
He was also a key witness in the long-running civil forfeiture lawsuit that the Hells Angels lost in 2023, resulting in the B.C. government seizing clubhouses in Nanaimo, Kelowna and east Vancouver.
Ciarniello’s testimony gave insight into why he stuck with his “club” through thick and thin, through dozens of member convictions, through the murders of several of his brethren.
It was the “brotherhood” that attracted him, he said.
“He testified that when he was a single parent he suffered a bad motorcycle accident in 1989 because of which he could not work. He said that during his recovery his chapter ‘brothers’ paid for all of his rent and groceries and never sought repayment,” a June 2020 ruling noted.
Stephen remembers Ciarniello sitting in B.C. Supreme Court alone throughout the civil forfeiture trial.
“It seemed like he was the only one that cared,” he said.
For years, Ciarniello and fellow Angel William Foston were co-owners of their Vancouver chapter’s clubhouse, at 1041 Brunette Ave. in Coquitlam.
But last October, they sold the property to a numbered company. B.C. government documents show that 1503532 BC was incorporated in September 2024 and has three directors — all fellow members of the same Hells Angels Vancouver chapter.
Stephen said Ciarniello was “well-respected in the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club at large.”
“Every year, he would represent Canada at Hells Angels’ world meetings.”
He expects there will be a big turnout at Ciarniello’s funeral, details of which haven’t yet been announced.
“There has always been an element of counterculture that chooses to believe the Hells Angels are misunderstood and unnecessarily targeted by the police in spite of the fact that many of their members have been convicted of serious offences and currently participate in organized criminal operations all over the globe,” Stephen said.
“Ricky C certainly gave that rebellious element of society fuel for their misguided belief.”