Oregon man’s affiliation with Mongols Motorcycle Club costs him an internship with the Oregon Youth Authority

Justin DeLoretto’s last major brush with the law came nine years ago in Lane County, when he was jailed on charges that he and two cohorts from his motorcycle club tried to run a Eugene police officer and a federal agent off Interstate 5. Although he’s now nearing completion of a master’s degree in social work at George Fox University, his association with the Mongols Motorcycle Club — described by federal officials as a violent, outlaw gang — apparently still causes some problems for him.

 

DeLoretto, 35, this month filed suit against the Oregon Youth Authority, after officials with the state juvenile corrections agency allegedly fired him from an unpaid internship in Woodburn last summer. That decision, according to the lawsuit, came shortly after OYA officials learned that he remains a member of the Mongols chapter that he founded in Oregon months before his arrest in Eugene.


An amended version of the suit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Eugene. It asserts the youth agency wrongfully terminated DeLoretto — a longtime resident of Marion County — in violation of his constitutional rights, including First Amendment rights to free speech, expression and association.
“OYA should not have had a problem with his membership in the Mongols Motorcycle Club,”

DeLoretto’s attorney, Michael D. Myers of Seattle, said this week. He added that his opinion is that “in this context” an internship is “the same thing” as regular employment. The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of money to compensate DeLoretto for damages he alleges he suffered, as well as unspecified punitive damages against the state agency.

The suit says DeLoretto applied to be an intern with the youth authority last spring. His master’s program requires he complete an internship with a social service agency, and a spot with OYA seemed to fit with his career goal of working with gang-affected youth in the criminal justice system, according to the lawsuit.

DeLoretto began training and orientation on Aug. 8, but one day later was told by Clint McClellan, OYA’s assistant facilities director, that the agency had terminated the internship because DeLoretto is a Mongols member, the suit says.

McClellan told DeLoretto that he and OYA Director Fariborz Pakseresht had received complaints from five law enforcement officials about DeLoretto being present at youth authority facilities while still associating with the motorcycle club, the suit says.

The complaining officers’ names were not disclosed, according to the lawsuit. It’s not known if any of them work or worked in Lane County. OYA spokesman Benjamin Chambers declined to discuss DeLoretto’s brief stint with the agency, saying youth authority officials typically do not comment on pending litigation. The agency has not filed a formal response to the lawsuit.

Trouble in Lane County
DeLoretto was arrested in Eugene in April 2008 after he and two other members of the Mongols’ Oregon chapter used vehicles to surround an unmarked Ford Explorer occupied by Eugene police Detective Dave Burroughs and federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent James Packard.
Evidence in DeLoretto’s trial showed he followed the investigators 90 miles along roads including I-5 after they went to his Turner home. The officers were investigating an assault that allegedly involved Mongols members.

DeLoretto maintained that he did not know the men he had followed were police. A jury convicted him of misdemeanor charges of menacing, reckless endangering and reckless driving but acquitted him of eight felonies, some of which accused him of conspiring with fellow club members to try and run the officers off the road.

DeLoretto was released from the Lane County Jail about one week after the trial. He appears to have remained crime-free in Oregon since then, according to a state court database that lists the 2008 case as being the last time he faced charges in Oregon.

DeLoretto’s prior criminal record includes third- and fourth-degree assault convictions in 1999, when he was 18. He was sentenced to jail in those cases, according to court records. Myers said his client began taking classes at Chemeketa Community College in 2008 and later earned his bachelor’s degree in behavioral studies from George Fox in Newberg, where he enrolled in a master’s program in 2015. A university spokesman confirmed DeLoretto had made the school’s honor roll before obtaining a bachelor’s degree there, and is now pursuing a master’s degree.

In response to a question about DeLoretto’s stated interest in helping juveniles who have been involved with gangs, Myers said his client “wants to give back and thinks he can make the most impact working with gang-affected youths.”


DeLoretto is now working as an intern with the state Department of Human Service’s Marion County branch, where he works in a child-welfare office that serves teenagers, Myers said.

Myers declined to discuss DeLoretto’s current involvement with the Mongols or the fact that some law enforcement officials — including the U.S. Department of Justice — consider the club to be an outlaw motorcycle gang. DeLoretto served as president of his Mongols’ chapter at the time of his 2008 arrest.
“We don’t represent the Mongols Motorcycle Club and don’t have any comment about it,” Myers said.


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