FRESNO -  Michael Pack, 35, of Modesto, pleaded guilty today to possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced. According to court documents, Pack, a prospect of the Hells Angels Modesto Motorcycle Club, was part of a drug trafficking conspiracy led by Hells Angels President Randy Picchi.

The drug conspiracy involved Picchi’s wife, Tina Picchi, Michael Mize, and Michael Pack. Randy Picchi directed Tina Picchi to regularly deliver drugs to Mize and other individuals in Ceres. Randy Picchi also enlisted Pack to help obtain methamphetamine on at least one occasion. Pack was stopped by law enforcement and found to have 499 grams of methamphetamine in his possession.

This case is the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the IRS-Criminal Investigation, the Modesto Police Department, the Turlock Police Department, the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and the California Highway Patrol. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ross Pearson and Laurel Montoya are prosecuting the case.

Pack is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd on May 23, 2022. Pack faces a maximum statutory penalty of 40 years in prison, a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison, and a $5 million fine. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.

This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at www.justice.gov/OCDETF.

This case is being prosecuted as part of the joint federal, state, and local Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) Program, the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts. PSN is an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.