Arrest made in shooting outside NYC Hells Angels clubhouse

NEW YORK – A man affiliated with the Hells Angels was charged Wednesday in a shooting sparked by a dispute over a parking spot outside the motorcycle club’s headquarters in Manhattan, authorities said.

Anthony Iovenitti, 52, of Kingston, New York, appeared in court to face charges of first-degree assault in his second arrest this year related to violence on the same East Village block.

The shooting occurred on Dec. 11, when police say 25-year-old David Martinez, of Spring Valley, was riding with some friends in a Mercedes-Benz on the block that’s been home to the Hells Angels clubhouse since the late 1960s. Martinez got out the car to move an orange traffic cone used to save parking spot for choppers outside the clubhouse, leading to a street fight between the car’s occupants and bikers, police said.

In a criminal complaint, police said they had recovered video from a security camera showing someone drawing a gun and shooting Martinez in the stomach before fleeing.

Defence attorney Ron Kuby said police had no eyewitness or other evidence conclusively identifying his client as the shooter. Martinez and his friends were beating the shooter before he fired, the lawyer added.

“My client didn’t do it and whoever did was acting in self-defence, clear and simple,” Kuby said.

Authorities haven’t recovered the gun.

Iovenitti is also charged in a pending misdemeanour assault case from October after allegedly knocking down a man in another dispute near the Hells Angels clubhouse. Kuby said the man was drunk and instigated the encounter.

Kuby said he expected his client to make bail with a $25,000 bond. Prosecutors had asked a judge to set the bond at $75,000.