It’s Payback Time For Local Hells Angel State Law Provides For Reimbursement Of Defendants Who Successfully Claim Self-Defense

State taxpayers will pay the defense costs and lost wages of a Spokane Hells Angel acquitted last week of murder and assault.

Reimbursement could approach $100,000.

The payback comes under a provision of a state law providing reimbursement to criminal defendants who prevail in self-defense cases.

The exact amount to be awarded to Hells Angel Timothy Myers, defense attorney Bevan Maxey and a private investigator will be set by a judge.

Legal costs for defending Myers, including two weeks of trial work, could approach $60,000, Maxey said Monday. He said it will take him several days to tabulate and document the amount of reimbursement he will seek.

The Hells Angels organization, based in Oakland, Calif., flew a private investigator from Alaska to Spokane to help prepare a defense.

Investigator Vern Rollins couldn’t be reached Monday and an estimate of his costs wasn’t immediately available.

Myers also is entitled to recover lost pay. He was working as an apprentice electrician for a private contractor at Fairchild Air Force Base when he was arrested Dec. 9.

Superior Court Judge Kenneth Kato, who presided over the two-week trial, will determine the amounts to be awarded. A hearing is expected in a few weeks.

Reimbursement for “reasonable costs” in self-defense cases comes from a fund administered by the state attorney general’s office.

Spokane County will not have to pay any of the reimbursement, said Prosecutor Jim Sweetser, who has no misgivings about taking the murder case to trial.

“We felt there were sufficient facts for a jury to make the decision,” Sweetser said.

“The only other alternative was to do nothing, and we would’ve been subjected to severe criticism if we’d done that.”

Myers, 42, secretary of the Spokane chapter of the Hells Angels, was acquitted Friday of second-degree murder and first-degree assault.

The jury decided the prosecution failed to prove Myers acted with murderous intent when he shot two associates of the rival Ghost Riders motorcycle gang.

Immediately afterward, the judge sent the panel back to the jury room to deliberate a second, civil phase.

There, the jury decided by a “preponderance of the evidence” that Myers acted in self-defense. That standard is used in civil cases and is lower than the “beyond reasonable doubt” required for criminal convictions.

Myers told the jury he was severely beaten and feared for his life when he fired his gun, killing Sean Kilgallen and wounding Gary Fisette Jr.

, DataTimes