PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - The alleged president of Hells Angels in Rhode Island, who is facing several assault charges, is asking the state’s supreme court to force the judge hearing his case to step down.
Judge Kristin Rodgers has twice denied requests from Joseph Lancia, who prosecutors say is the head of the motorcycle gang, to recuse herself because she is married to a former state police officer.
“We are reviewing the petition and will respond in court as appropriate,” a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office told The Providence Journal on Monday.
Rodgers is married to Scott Raynes, who retired from the state police in 2018 and is now Little Compton’s police chief.
Lancia was arrested in June 2019 and is facing charges in connection with a shooting near the group’s clubhouse.
An attorney for Lancia, Joseph Voccola, is arguing that by introducing facts about her husband’s service in the state police force, Rodgers has become a participant, “rather than an impartial trier of fact,” and must not hear the case, the newspaper reports.
Voccola previously argued that Rodger should recuse herself because her husband was once present when state police officers searched the Hells Angels clubhouse years prior to the shooting in which Lancia is accused.
“Chief Raynes’ past employment with the State Police, ending over one year before the events leading to the criminal charges in this indictment, has no connection, real or reasonably perceptible, to the conduct of this trial or the pretrial proceedings that would create the appearance of impropriety,” Rodgers wrote in a ruling in July.
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