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The law license of the firebrand Houston attorney who won a mistrial in the only Twin Peaks shootout case to go to trial has been suspended by the State Bar of Texas. Casie Gotro will be unable to practice law for three years and must pay $59,000 in restitution to clients she failed to serve, the State Bar announced Monday. The decision comes a year after Gotro and Dallas attorney Clint Broden won the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association Percy Foreman Lawyers of the Year award for their representation of bikers in the deadly 2015 showdown at the former Twin...

An attorney for six bikers arrested after the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout in Waco is asking a judge to appoint a “special master” to oversee the return of items seized from almost 200 bikers who went to jail. Houston attorney Paul Looney filed a civil petition Wednesday morning in Waco’s 414th State District Court asking Judge Vicki Menard to appoint someone to help “make order out of all this chaos,” as Looney put it. Looney, representing Ray Nelson, Phillip Ray White, Cody Ledbetter, Marcus Ryan Pilkington, William English and Morgan English, said he is trying to help them and others...

Officers arrested 177 people at the Twin Peaks shooting in 2015. Four years later, only one person has stood trial. All of the other cases have been dismissed. Four years ago terrified diners were forced to take cover after shots rang out at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. What is now known as the deadliest biker shootout in U.S. history left nine people dead and 20 wounded. Waco will not soon forget photos from the scene, showing bikers, some with guns blazing, crowding the restaurant. “A great majority of them had guns, hatchets, knives and other deadly weapons with...

Biker Jeff Battey thought that after the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office dismissed charges against him and the remaining Twin Peaks defendants, it was not too much to ask to have all records of his 2015 arrest destroyed so he could move on with his life. It appears that won’t happen. Now Battey, a former Marine who still has a bullet in his arm from the May 2015 Twin Peaks shootout, is threatening to sue the DA’s office for malicious prosecution, his attorney said. Waco attorney Seth Sutton, said a district attorney’s office representative recently told him that the office...

Waco Biker Dismissals an Attempt to Avoid Millions in Lawsuits. In the interests of justice, on April 2, 2019 all remaining charges related to the May 17, 2015 Twin Peaks shootings in Waco, Texas have been dismissed by the newly elected McLennan County District Attorney Barry Johnson. These dismissals are a significant victory in the history of motorcycle club culture and the fight against motorcycle profiling and discrimination. Although this concludes the criminal chapter of Twin Peaks, the legal battles are far from over. There are currently over 100 civil rights claims pending and the official press release announcing the...

With social media, overtly liberal politicians and some police chiefs, and people watching too many movies or TV shows like “Sons of Anarchy,” I strongly believe our efforts are misguided and have served to backfire – shutting down trust and support from the very most patriotic and law enforcement-supportive groups out there. In this day and age where everyone group seems to align itself with bashing and hating on cops, it appears that several police agencies, and even the State of Texas, in an orchestrated effort, have taken aim at motorcycle clubs – casual fraternal groups – lumping them in...

Defense Attorneys in Dallas said some of their clients had their guns, motorcycles, vehicles and other property returned to them once their case was refused, Harris said for some reason he's still left without answers. One of the Twin Peaks bikers arrested said even though it's been three years since the deadly shooting, police still have not given him back his personal belongings that were seized. Patrick Harris case was thrown out by District Attorney Abel Reyna, but he said he's having a hard time putting this all behind him without having what he said is legally his. Defense Attorneys...

Almost four years after nine bikers were killed and 20 were injured during a shootout at the former Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, McLennan County District Attorney Barry Johnson said Tuesday he will dismiss all criminal cases against the remaining 24 defendants charged in the midday brawl. Johnson inherited the Twin Peaks cases when he took office in January, and said he has spent 75 percent of his time since then with a team of prosecutors and investigators trying to determine how to resolve the remaining cases. Johnson's decision Tuesday means that no one will be held accountable for the...

McLennan County District Attorney Barry Johnson, who’s 75 days into his first term, says he will make a decision in early April on what to do with the remaining Twin Peaks cases. "Without a doubt, the Twin Peaks cases that I've inherited, and there are 24 of them, have taken most of our time and emotional energy by going through those cases,” he said. "Certainly out of the 24, I think we are looking at some dismissals." Johnson retained most of the staff of former DA Abel Reyna and brags about their abilities and skills.

While you sit and read about intellectual property in a boutique law firm where Abelino is now, you feel all warm and cuddly, well, that’s what the Trib thinks, or, hell, “Lala” land is in the water downtown. The “favors” are in their third or fourth generation now and everyone owes everyone something from back during the Davidian thing, or TWIN PEAKS, or something that happened in 1958, who the hell knows. The truth is that Abel did what he did and soon the County will file a motion that says Abel acted on his own outside the scope of...

Second episode of Waco Uncovered. The Bandidos Side of the Tragedy. We had the Cossacks side on episode one and now we dive into the lead up to Waco. The only trial which has been held connected to Twin Peaks and blatant Prosecutor Misconduct. We will explore the Cossack Side, Bandidos Side as well as the aftermath.

Nearly four years ago, over 170 people were arrested after a violent altercation outside a meeting of motorcycle club members at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, was swarmed by police, who had already surrounded the meeting before anything untoward occurred. Nine people were killed and 18 wounded in the melee. This week, the last of the initial set of charges was dropped after a special prosecutorial team didn't like what it saw. From the start, lawyers and others pointed out that it was very unlikely indeed that all the arrested had committed any crimes at all, and that...

One of four Houston attorneys assigned to handle four Twin Peaks biker cases as special prosecutors dismissed the remaining three cases Monday and called the way the McLennan County District Attorney's Office handled the 2015 deadly shootout a "harebrained scheme" that was "patently offensive" to him. Special prosecutors Brian Roberts, Brian Benken, Feroz Merchant and Mandy Miller filed motions Monday to dismiss the first-degree felony engaging in organized criminal activity charges against bikers William Chance Aikin, Billy McCree and Ray Nelson. The motions to dismiss said, "Upon reviewing all the facts, circumstances and evidence, it is the state's position that...

A Waco judge received a public warning Wednesday after a state commission determined he showed bias favoring law enforcement by appointing a Waco police detective as foreman of a McLennan County grand jury in July 2015. Judge Ralph Strother of 19th State District Court was issued a public warning by the 13-member State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which investigated the judge after a complaint was lodged by Austin attorney Millie Thompson, who was representing three bikers arrested in the deadly May 2015 Twin Peaks shootout. Strother, McLennan County’s senior state district judge, declined comment on the warning Friday. “I complained...

In the 47 days since Barry Johnson became McLennan County district attorney, he and his staff have tried to reverse the ravages that the Twin Peaks shootout cases and the stagnant final nine months of Abel Reyna's administration took on the county's criminal justice system. After Johnson beat Reyna in the March primary, a frequent mantra around the courthouse was, "Let's wait to see what Barry wants to do about that." That wait-and-see philosophy and the unprecedented overall slowdown created by 151 felony Twin Peaks cases being dumped into the system all at once ballooned the dockets in Waco's two...

Hoping to build on the successes of six anti-gang centers across the state, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is proposing to add two new crime-fighting centers, including one in Waco. Abbott announced plans for new Texas anti-gang centers in Waco and Tyler in September and reiterated his resolve to fund the creation of the two new centers and to give additional funding for the six existing centers, during his state of the state address. "The State of Texas is sending a message to criminals and gang members that any attempts to compromise the safety of our communities will not be tolerated,"...

After the annual holiday slowdown and monthslong delays while waiting for a changing of the guard in the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office, judges are poised to handle a number of high-profile criminal cases that have long been pending. February is going to be a busy month in Judge Ralph Strother’s 19th State District Court, with a capital murder trial, a sexual assault trial of a former Baylor University football player and hearings involving 2015 Twin Peaks shootout defendants scheduled. After Barry Johnson defeated two-term incumbent Abel Reyna in the March Republican primary to become the new district attorney, the...

Abel Reyna, fresh off his post as McLennan County district attorney, has accepted a job in Waco with a Houston-based law firm that specializes in intellectual property. Reyna's future has been the subject of wide speculation since Barry Johnson defeated the two-term district attorney in the March Republican primary. Johnson took over the DA's office from Reyna earlier this month. In a news release announcing Reyna's association, the Patterson + Sheridan firm, which calls itself an "IP law boutique," said Reyna joining the firm as of counsel will continue the firm’s growth in intellectual property litigation, business litigation, criminal defense...

As the dust settles from the 2018 midterm elections, a potential shake-up of unprecedented proportions is brewing quietly around the historically stable McLennan County judiciary. Traditionally, once McLennan County judges get into office, many remain for decades and rarely are challenged for re-election. But a number of domino-effect changes to that equation in coming years could project the current slate of local judges onto a turnover carousel and result in a dramatically different roster. Aside from possible changes at the McLennan County Courthouse, U.S. District Judge Alan Albright started the process of replacing a longstanding judge when he was sworn...

Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyer F. Clinton Broden of the Dallas based criminal defense firm Broden, Mickelsen, Helms & Snipes LLP obtained a copy of the search warrants issued on July 12, 2015 to search the mobile phones of the Waco bikers, including the mobile phone of his client (Matthew Clendennen), which were seized during their arrests on May 17, 2015. The Waco police department’s affidavits requesting these search warrants, like the criminal complaints used to arrest the 177 bikers in this case, were simply “fill in the name” documents without any individual probable cause. Broden noted that the search warrant...