A Houston FBI agent on Thursday testified that two Bandidos were involved in the attempted murder of a rival motorcycle gang member who was shot seven times shortly after leaving a Pasadena bar last year.
The agent, Joshua Lyons, said John Sblendorio was in the driver’s seat of the Ford F-150 that opened fire on the man, who was not identified in an unsealed indictment. Lyons said a fellow Bandido, Stephen Alms, was the one who pulled the trigger, though neither state nor federal court records show a murder charge for Alms.
Alms pleaded guilty last week to racketeering conspiracy and illegally possessing a firearm. The charges stemmed from an October 2023 search of Alms’ Texas City home, where federal authorities found a tan, Taurus G2C handgun, according to a complaint. Authorities also found a yellow, spiralbound notebook with Alms’ name on the front. Inside were handwritten notes that said “joined a gang,” “shot someone,” and “robbed a lot of people.” U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein, Jr., will evaluate whether to accept Alms’ plea.
The man who survived the June 3, 2023, shooting, a member of the B*EAST, or Brothers East motorcycle club, described the vehicle that pulled up alongside him as a Ford F-150 with a white cooler in its bed, Lyons said. A vehicle matching that description was found by law enforcement, who traced it to Alms, Lyons said, adding the vehicle had fake license plates.
Much of the evidence presented Thursday against Sblendorio and his co-defendant, Darvi Hinojosa, came from cell phone records, including location data. Lyons testified that the records show Alms, Sblendorio, and Hinojosa had communicated with each other on the night of the shooting. The records also show that Alms and Sblendorio’s devices were off when the shooting took place, which Lyons said he took as an indication that the bikers did not want their location to be recorded.
Lyons said at one point in the night, Sblendorio texted Hinojosa and told him to tell another Bandido to drive his Jeep home. That was because Sblendorio was driving Alms’ F-150, Lyons said. The FBI agent also said Hinojosa had a picture on his cell phone of the B*EAST biker lying in a hospital bed, though he did not elaborate on how Hinojosa had obtained it.
Authorities were able to get their hands on Hinojosa’s phone after he was arrested in April for selling cocaine to an undercover FBI agent in October 2023. Hinojosa is set to be arraigned on a state charge of delivery of a controlled substance later this month, court records show.
Sblendorio and Hinojosa were both denied bail Thursday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Yvonne Ho, who said the nature of the alleged crime warranted continued detention.
The two Bandidos each pleaded not guilty to one count of attempted murder in aid of racketeering activity and one count of using, carrying, brandishing, and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence in connection to the June 3, 2023 shooting, which took place down the road from Winters Bar in Pasadena.
Created by Houston dockworker Donald Chambers in 1966, the Bandidos are an international motorcycle club that state and federal authorities say has been connected to numerous robberies, assaults and other crimes. Bandidos pride themselves on acts of violence, which are seen as a way to earn status and credibility within the motorcycle group, Lyons testified. Groups like the Bandidos and the Hells Angels are known as “One Percenters,” a term that comes from a former president of the American Motorcyclist Association who said that 99% of motorcyclists were law-abiding and the remaining 1% were outlaws, Lyons said.
There are local Bandidos chapters all over the country, according to Texas Monthly, and each one has, at the very least, a president, vice president, sergeant at arms, and secretary and/or treasurer. Hinojosa was the sergeant at arms for the “Welcome to Hell” chapter in Houston, according to Lyons. In that role, Hinojosa enforced Bandido rules and regulations and meted out discipline, the FBI agent testified.
In addition to the June 2023 near-fatal shooting of the B*EAST biker, authorities believe Hinojosa was involved in the November 2021 slaying of Michael Zimbrich, another B*EAST member. The 26-year-old was met with a hail of bullets after an SUV pulled alongside him on an Interstate 10 feeder road. Fellow B*EAST bikers Demarius Moore and Kevin Cicero were also shot but survived their injuries, Lyons said.
Houston police arrested and charged David Vargas with murder shortly after the shooting. But the case against him was dismissed in May due to a missing witness, court records show.
Lyons testified that the cell phone location data the FBI obtained showed Hinojosa was nearby when the bullets rang out and was in contact with Vargas before and after the shooting. Lyons at first said the evidence pointed to Hinojosa being inside an SUV that pulled alongside Zimbrich, Moore, and Cicero, but walked that claim back under cross-examination by defense attorney Joyce Raynor.
Raynor and Sblendorio’s court-appointed attorney, Anthony Troiani, argued that the evidence against their clients was, at best, circumstantial and that cell phone location data is not an exact science.
U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison is set to preside over the case, which is scheduled for trial in December. Byron Black of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas had pushed for the case to be assigned to Werlein, saying in a motion that it shares “similar legal and factual issues” to Alms’.
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