The longtime head of an east Bronx motorcycle gang faces up to 25 years in jail after being convicted of attempted murder and other charges stemming from a shooting outside a now defunct Throggs Neck bar.
Sources said when cops first went to arrest Elvio “Spike” Feola, he was reluctant to surrender. Instead, the cops wound up having to jump over a fence for safety when three of Feola’s pit bulls came rampaging at them.
“This guy’s a bad dude,” said a police source, who noted that Feola slept through parts of his trial.
Feola, 63, the longtime president of the Bronx chapter of the Satans [sic] Soldiers Motorcycle Club, an affiliate of the Hells Angels, with branches in New Jersey and Australia, was convicted in Bronx state Supreme Court on Thursday, Oct. 10 for shooting David Butler, who was 25-years-old at the time.
The incident occurred on August 6, 2011 outside the Fiddler’s Elbow bar on E. Tremont Avenue at Randall Avenue.
He shot Butler when an argument escalated after Butler urinated too close to a motorcycle that belonged to one of Feola’s acquaintances, authorities said.
Butler was shot once in the right side of his chest at close range with a .32-caliber revolver.
The gun was recovered and Feola’s DNA was found on the weapon. He was arrested five days after the shooting.
Butler was taken to Jacobi Hospital where he was treated for two broken ribs, a lacerated liver and a collapsed lung.
The bullet fired by Feola lodged in Butler’s spine between two vertebrae and remains there because of the high risk of complications and paralysis associated with the surgery to remove it.
Feola, of Hollywood Avenue, was remanded to jail after the jury verdict. He had been free on $500,000 bail.
Acting State Supreme Court Justice Peter Benitez set sentencing for Friday, November 15, with Feola facing maxium concurrent sentences of up to 25 years imprisonment on one count of Attempted Murder in the Second Degree and one count of Assault in the First Degree, and 15 years imprisonment on one count of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree.
Detectives Alex Ponce and Maria Mundo of the 45th Precinct detective squad investigated the case, initially recovering the weapon inside the bar a few days after the shooting.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Hillary Chernin and Assistant District Attorney Erin Kelsh of the Trial Division.
It’s not the first time a leader of the motorcycle gang has been in trouble with the law.
It’s former leader, Angelo Cruz, pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2004 to operating a clandestine methamphetatmine lab in a trailer on Beach Avenue near Westchester Avenue across from an elementary school in Soundview.
Raiders also found a host of weapons in a second trailer and the gang’s adjacent clubhouse. Four other gang members also pleaded guilty to charges arising from the drug lab operation.
