PORTLAND, Ore. — Two members of the Gypsy Joker Outlaw Motorcycle Club were sentenced to life in federal prison on Wednesday for the 2015 kidnapping, torture and murder of a former fellow member.
Mark Leroy Dencklau, 51, of Woodburn and Chad Leroy Erickson, 51, of Rainier were convicted in December of a laundry list of federal crimes related to the killing.
Dencklau was president of the Gypsy Joker club's Portland chapter from 2003 until his arrest, federal prosecutors said, also overseeing a handful of "support clubs" that aided the flagship gang and served as a source of recruitment for new members.
Federal prosecutors said that the Gypsy Jokers grew to prevalence in the 1980s, establishing six clubhouses in the Pacific Northwest and a handful of international chapters in Germany, Australia, and Norway. Court documents and trial testimony have implicated the gang in all the hallmarks of organized crime, prosecutors said; acts of "violent racketeering" including murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, narcotics trafficking and witness tampering
On July 1, 2015, the body of an estranged member of the Gypsy Jokers' Portland chapter was found in a field in Clark County. Robert Huggins' body had been badly beaten and showed signs of torture.
"Huggins was previously stripped of his club membership for allegedly stealing from the club and, after breaking into Dencklau’s Woodburn residence, tying up Dencklau’s girlfriend and stealing multiple firearms," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon said in a statement.
After Huggins' robbery, federal prosecutors say that Dencklau directed members of his gang to track the man down. On June 30 of 2015, Dencklau and a group of others kidnapped Huggins from a Portland home and brought him to a property in rural Southwest Washington. He was beaten and tortured over the course of several hours before he died.
Between June and November of 2018, Dencklau and six others, including Erickson, were charged either in direct connection with Huggins' death or with other racketeering charges.
Erickson and 64-year-old Kenneth Earl Hause of Aumsville, the Gypsy Jokers national president, were acquitted of racketeering conspiracy in December 2021 by a federal jury. Dencklau and Erickson were nonetheless found guilty on charges related to Huggins' murder.
Another Gypsy Joker pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 140 months in prison, while three more pleaded guilty and are still awaiting sentencing.
“Mark Dencklau and Chad Erickson will rightfully serve the rest of their lives in federal prison," said Scott Erik Asphaug, U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon. "These men prided themselves in using violence to intimidate others and increase their power and influence among club members and rivals. Organized violent crime has no place in Oregon and will not be tolerated."
