A motorcycle gang member accused of participating in the brutal kidnapping, rape and torture of a Tucson woman and of trying to hire a hit man was sentenced to seven years of intensive probation Friday.
Charles Roland "Big Riggs" Higgins, 48, was also sentenced to two years in jail as a condition of probation, but given credit for 397 days he's already served.
According to Pima County Sheriff's Department reports, the torture case came to light after Higgins and three other men were found badly wounded and left for dead in Box Canyon, near Green Valley, in April 2003.
Higgins declined to tell deputies how he ended up hurt or in the mountains, but another one of the men told deputies that they were kidnapped and beaten by fellow members of the Devil's Disciples outlaw motorcycle gang because they'd gone too far in punishing a woman they felt had disrespected the group.
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The woman hadn't paid a drug debt and she'd left a gang member's house messy.
For her transgressions, the woman was kidnapped, stripped naked, beaten, raped, sodomized and tortured for hours with a stun gun, jumper cables and batteries.
An investigation was launched and nine members of the gang were indicted. Some were indicted in connection with the kidnapping and rape, and others were indicted on drug charges.
Higgins was indicted in connection with the kidnapping, but he was also accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill someone he thought was a police informant.
He ended up pleading guilty to kidnapping, facilitation to assist a criminal street gang and solicitation to threaten or intimidate.
On Friday, Pima County Superior Court Judge Hector Campoy could've given Higgins probation, intensive probation or up to five years in prison.
Higgins' attorney, Richard Parrish, argued that Higgins should be placed on regular probation.
His client is no longer affiliated with the outlaw biker gang and he didn't participate in the woman's attack, Parrish said. In fact, he helped save the kidnapping victim's life by calling a halt to her assault, Parrish said.
Higgins told the judge he was guilty of bad judgment.
"I was in a bad place at a bad time," Higgins said.
Campoy said the case cried out for incarceration, noting the victim believes the only reason Higgins stopped the assault was because he didn't want the gang's clubhouse sullied by such violence.
The judge also noted Higgins never expressed remorse for the various methods he hoped the "hit man" would use on the informant. According to police reports, he suggested the informant be set on fire and dropped into a mine shaft, that he be put in a wood chopper or that he be sprayed with hydrofluoric acid. He also suggested drilling holes in the informant's legs, attaching cables and then dropping him in water.
Previously sentenced in the case:
● Michael Dana "Two Dawgs" Towner, 38 — Towner pleaded guilty to assisting a criminal street gang and kidnapping and was sentenced to 9.25 years in prison for his part in the woman's attack.
● John Henry "Johnny Old School" Fournier, 36 — Fournier is serving three years in prison after pleading guilty to assisting a criminal syndicate and kidnapping in the woman's attack.
● Patrick Eric McGargal, 57, — McGargal, who has a history of mental-health problems, pleaded no contest to facilitation to assist a criminal street gang and solicitation to threaten or intimidate in the hit man case. He was sentenced to the time he spent in jail before his sentencing date — 407 days.
Others associated with the case are scheduled to go to trial in March.
