Ex-member: That was then

DAVID "RC" Winkler, a former ranking member of the Pagan's Motorcycle Club, leaned forward and stared up at a black-and-white photograph that someone snapped of him in 1985.

Bare-chested. Tattooed. Bearded. An outlaw.

"That guy wouldn't have talked to you," Winkler told a reporter in the back room of his Delaware County tattoo parlor. "But none of us are who we were 10 years ago. Not this club. Not no cop. Not anybody."

He paused.

"Does that mean I'm any less dangerous?" Winkler asked. "Try me and find out."

The .45-caliber Glock tucked into the waistband of his jean shorts advises otherwise.

Winkler, now 48 and the owner of Tattoos by RC, in Ridley Township, is something of a rare specimen, an outlaw biker who joined the Pagan's at 19 years old, rode the countryside looking for trouble, chased strippers, tattooed South Philly mobsters, rose through the club's ranks - and got out relatively unscathed.

Other ex-members are jobless, drug addicts, prison inmates, alcoholics or dead. They're victims of a high-octane culture that tends to treat excess as a virtue and prudence as a weakness.

"You don't see too many people that leave the lifestyle and go on to do greater things," Winkler said. "Results not typical."

Now a successful businessman, father of a 13-year-old son and a "psychic medium" who assists in local paranormal investigations, Winkler says that his best days are ahead. While the Pagan's are struggling to recover from a barrage of indictments, Winkler is tattooing the same cops that used to pull him over on his Harley.

"It was a different time, for me, to be a Pagan, before the law made it hard to have fun," he said. "Nowadays, they want to make a RICO [racketeering] conspiracy out of everything. They're trying to put an end to something, or create an extreme deterrent to current members. It's a war of attrition."

David Keith "Bart" Barbeito, the Pagan's former national president, pleaded guilty last year to federal racketeering charges that included receiving money from an annual motorcycle raffle. "Raffle tickets?" Winkler said. "It was like taking a BB gun and killing a grizzly bear with one shot."

A law-enforcement source who has investigated the Pagan's describes Winkler as a smooth talker who projects himself as a model citizen - he applied to be on the Newtown Township Police Youth Aid Panel a few years ago - but maintains strong ties to the motorcycle club.

"I have talked to Dave, but I wouldn't turn my back on Dave," said Newtown Police Chief Dennis Anderson.

Winkler insists that he's out of the club, but he'll never renounce his Pagan brothers.

"We stood in the face of death and walked away alive together," he said. "When you have moments like that, it creates a bond. Christ, you only get a few of them in life.

"So for me to ever betray that - can't do it. But I can't betray my dedication to my son, either. Or to my mother. Or to my own self."

These days, Winkler, who rides a 1965 Harley panhead, would rather talk about his son's accomplishments than his wild days on two wheels. He has realized that even a longtime Pagan like himself eventually needs to ride without colors.

An outlaw isn't much of an outlaw behind bars. Or much of a father.

"My days of being able to just throw on a jacket and ride down the road and think that it ain't gonna cost me in the long run are over," Winkler said. "Now they have infiltrators and informants that are taking people down and there's just a whole bevy of trouble waiting for you.

"It's time to do other things," he said, "and stay out of jail."