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A Kelowna Hells Angels prospect was arrested last weekend for allegedly assaulting a woman.
Jason Townsend, 43, was charged on Saturday with assault and assault by choking, for an incident that occurred in the early morning hours of Friday, Aug. 7 at a house on the 500 block of Yates Road.
"Frontline officers immediately attended the scene and found the male suspect had fled the residence prior to police attendance," Const. Solana Pare of the Kelowna RCMP said in a release. "Officers spoke with the female victim who had been assaulted and suffering non-life threatening injuries."
The RCMP determined the alleged victim knew the suspect, and later that day, Townsend turned himself into police.
The Vancouver Sun's Kim Bolan reports Townsend became a Kelowna Hells Angels' prospect last fall following the disbanding of his former club, Prince George's Renegades motorcycle club. Becoming a prospect is the final stage before members can become full-patch members of the motorcycle club.
Townsend's Facebook profile photo shows him wearing a jacket with red and white patches that say “PROSPECT” and “KELOWNA.”
Townsend was released on $1,000 bail following his arrest on Saturday, and he's scheduled to next appear in court on Sept. 15.
Back in 2014, Townsend was sentenced to three years in jail for a 2013 assault on two men and a woman outside a Prince George nightclub, but in 2015, the BC Court of Appeals took a year off his sentence.
A different man who police called a "known associate" of the Kelowna Hells Angels is scheduled to begin trial in September for an alleged aggravated assault that put a 41-year-old man in the hospital in May 2019. Colin Bayley had just completed a 12-month probation period for a prior assault when he was arrested in May 2019.
Kelowna RCMP executed a search warrant at the Kelowna Hells Angels clubhouse on Ellis Street as part of their investigation into Bayley.
In a recent BC Supreme Court decision, a judge ruled against the BC Civil Forfeiture Office's attempts to seize Hells Angels clubhouses in Kelowna, Vancouver and Nanaimo. Throughout the lengthy trial, the B.C government identified 14 members of the Kelowna Hells Angels since the chapter was started in 2007. At the time of the 2018-19 trial, the province also identified one prospect and two official “hangarounds.”
– with files from the Prince George Citizen
