PROVIDENCE — A “full patch” member of the Rhode Island Hells Angels motorcycle gang who was charged with gun and drug offenses after a search of his North Providence home was been ordered held without bail on Friday afternoon.

Douglas Leedham, 54, is charged in Rhode Island federal court with possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, possession with intent to distribute cocaine, possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking, and three counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Lincoln Almond ordered him held without bail because of the seriousness of the charges, some of which carry mandatory minimum sentences of five years.

Federal authorities searched Leedham’s residence at 1117 Douglas Ave., unit 12, on Thursday.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - A Smithfield firefighter has been sentenced after being swept up in a major crackdown on motorcycle gangs in Rhode Island. 

Thomas Mulcahey, 54, pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor drug charges last month.

He was arrested in May as part of a R.I. State Poilce sting dubbed, "Operation Patched Out." State police, along with federal and local authorities, arrested 50 people in what Col. Ann Assumpico said was the single largest takedown in state history.

According to a spokesperson for the R.I. Attorney General's Office, Mulcahey won't serve any time in prison. As part of a plea deal, he was given one year of probation and a one-year suspended sentence.

According to Smithfield Fire Chief, Robert Seltzer, Mulcahey was placed on administrative leave after his arrest. 

HOPKINTON, R.I. — What happens when police officers from three departments pull over about 100 members of a motorcycle club on an interstate highway? Well, sometimes nothing.

Such was the case Saturday afternoon when Rhode Island State Police, assisted by officers from Hopkinton and Connecticut, pulled over about 100 members of the Pagans motorcycle club on Route 95 shortly after they had crossed into Rhode Island.

Laura Meade Kirk, spokeswoman for the Rhode Island State Police, said the motorcyclists were pulled over about 1:30 p.m. Saturday as part of an “investigatory stop.”

But the stop turned up not a single violation nor culminated in a single arrest, she said, and the bikers continued on their way to a club rally in Fall River.

The popularity of motorcycle clubs exploded in the 1940s when thousands of World War II veterans, who had shared the adrenaline of combat and a brotherhood unmatched, found themselves on the tranquil thresholds of middle-class America — and bored.

Looking to share again in dangerous thrills, some turned to motorcycles. In 1947 thousands of bikers streamed into Hollister, California, for races and a rally where drinking and club rivalries brought havoc to the small town.

The resulting outcry prompted the American Motorcyclist Association to declare that 99 percent of motorcycle clubs were law-abiding and harmless.

Seventy years later, the nefarious few — like the two clubs Rhode Island law enforcement literally blew the doors off Wednesday — still proudly call themselves “1 percenters.”

And for the last few years some violent biker gangs have been feuding over Rhode Island turf, says State Police Lt. Col. Joseph Philbin.