Two members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang and a third man were charged on Wednesday with carrying out the brazen execution of a member of a rival biker gang outside his Bronx home in May, a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation said.
Investigators believe the motive for the daylight killing was retribution, the official said. The rival gang, the Pagans, shot up a Bronx building the Angels bought as their new clubhouse last year after selling their longtime Manhattan headquarters, the official said.
The Jan. 2 attack on the Angels’ new headquarters — a former American Legion Post in the Throgs Neck section — rattled the neighborhood. The gunfire was the first sign for many local residents that the infamous biker gang long linked to crime and violence was moving in, the district manager of the local community board said on Wednesday.
“We were hoping they would be good neighbors,” the district manager, Matthew Cruz, said. The shooting, he added, indicated that the club would not be “a welcome addition” to the area.
Five months later, on May 2, Frank Rosado, 51, was fatally shot outside his home in the Allerton section of the Bronx, the police said.
Mr. Rosado was reputed to be the leader of the Bronx chapter of the Pagans motorcycle club, the same group detectives believed had fired at the Angels’ Throgs Neck property, the official said.
On Tuesday, the police arrested Frank Tatulli, 58, and Anthony Destefano, 27, both of the Bronx, and Sayanon Thongthawath, 29, of Queens, in connection with the killing, officials said.
All three were charged on Wednesday with second-degree murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon, the police said. The law enforcement official said only two of the men are accused of actually firing guns at Mr. Rosado.
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