Timothy "Beefy" Bartruff of the Invaders Motorcycle Club linked to at least some of those indicted as part of a northern Indiana methamphetamine ring

Federal authorities have linked at least some of those indicted as part of a northern Indiana methamphetamine ring to a white supremacist motorcycle club.
The first details of those ties were revealed during a federal court hearing Thursday on whether some of those arrested following numerous raids would be eligible for bond.
Federal agents testified that several defendants identified as "major producers" of meth also were members of the Invaders Motorcycle Club, a group founded in 1965 in Gary. Agents found chemicals and equipment to make methamphetamine, swastikas and symbols of the Invaders, surveillance cameras, and about 35 guns when they raided the home of Kathleen "Kat" Conley near Kouts in southern Porter County, said Michael Burke, an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Nozick would not comment on ties to the group and the drug ring, which had been the target of a 17-month investigation by the Porter County Sheriff's Department and the DEA. Federal agents staged raids Tuesday in Cedar Lake, Kouts and elsewhere in rural northwestern Indiana, as well as in Missouri and Colorado. Prosecutors announced the indictments of 37 people in connection with the ring on Wednesday. Burke testified Thursday that Conley, 50, had been running a meth lab in Kouts "for years," and that she also allowed another person charged in the ring -- Timothy "Beefy" Bartruff -- to live at the home. Bartruff, 50, was the national president of the Invaders before he was sentenced to a 10-year prison term in 1987 for dealing in methamphetamine in Porter County, according to federal records. Federal court records did not have any attorney listed for Bartruff on Friday Conley's attorney, Brian Woodward, said many of the weapons at the house were mounted on the walls "like collector plates," and suggested the boxes of pseudophedrine-based decongestants found there were used by Conley for relief from hay fever, not as ingredients for methamphetamine.
Magistrate Judge Andrew Rodovich, however, ruled Conley posed a danger to the community and should not be released on bond. Burke said Conley also let the investigation's main target, Richard "Tricky" Kasper, 30, of Kouts, manufacture meth at her home. Burke testified that a lounge chair in Conley's living room was near two semiautomatic handguns and a bank of monitors hooked up to external surveillance cameras. Kasper also was arrested, but his detention hearing was postponed until Tuesday.