Prosecutors suddenly dropped criminal charges against four members of the Hells Angels Iron Range chapter last week, marking the end of a controversial investigation led by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) that stretched most of the last two years. 

In the dismissals filed with the court, the St. Louis County Attorney’s Office said the alleged victims “are either unwilling or unable to testify at trial.”

Jerand French, Paul Debelak, Eric Newman, and Jake Novaczyk were charged with a variety of felonies, including kidnapping, assault, and rape related to an incident in Evelelth in November 2023. 

All four pleaded not guilty and previously sought to get their charges thrown out after allegations surfaced last year that BCA agents and local police monitored private text messages and jail phone calls between inmates and their attorneys.

As 5 INVESTIGATES reported last October, a prosecutor with St. Louis County first alerted defense attorneys that law enforcement had access to privileged communications with their clients. 

In April, Judge Robert Friday denied a defense motion to dismiss based on the eavesdropping allegations, and the cases were prepared to move forward before prosecutors dropped all of the charges.

“As one would expect, he’s happy it’s over,” said Shauna Kieffer, defense attorney for Paul Debelak. 

The St. Louis County Attorney’s Office declined to comment. 

In a written statement, a spokesperson for the BCA said, “We are disappointed in the dismissal of these charges but will continue to work with the St. Louis County Attorney to seek justice for the victims in this case.”

Debelak and French, the local president of the Hells Angels, have maintained their innocence from the beginning, according to their attorneys.

“They put all of these resources, all of this money, all of this manpower into going after a group not because they had evidence of a crime,” French’s attorney Brian Karalus said. “They went after this group to find a crime.”

Both Kieffer and Karalus strongly rejected any suggestion that the alleged victims in the case might have been threatened or intimidated by the Hells Angels. 

“The public can be misled to believe that the Hells Angels pressured these people or scared them into not cooperating or testifying,” said Karalus, adding, “And that’s B.S. That’s absolute B.S.”

Now the outcome of this case is prompting questions about how it started. 

“I think a case should arise organically. I think it should come to law enforcement because you know a crime is happening,” Kieffer said. “Not because you’ve prepared a PowerPoint that you’re going to investigate an organization and find one.”