Jay Anthony "Jaybird" Dobyns was born on July 24,1961 and is a retired Special Agent and veteran undercover operative with the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, author, public speaker, high school football coach, and University of Arizona adjunct professor.
109 Facts About Jay Dobyns
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In 2009, Jay Dobyns became a New York Times Best-Selling author with his memoir, No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels.
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Jay Dobyns was a standout athlete in several sports at Sahuaro High School before receiving a football scholarship to attend the University of Arkansas in 1980.
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In 1982, Jay Dobyns transferred to the University of Arizona, where he became an All-Pacific-10 conference wide receiver and college football All-American candidate.
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Jay Dobyns is still ranked as one of the best receivers in the history of the Arizona Wildcats.
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Jay Dobyns is a member of the Sahuaro High School and Pima County Sports Hall of Fame.
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Jay Dobyns graduated in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in public administration.
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Jay Dobyns was invited to the NFL Scouting Combine before he was drafted in the 1985 USFL territorial draft by the Arizona Outlaws of the United States Football League, where he played for one season.
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Jay Dobyns later had unsuccessful tryouts with the Chicago Bears and the Ottawa Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League.
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Jay Dobyns stated he did not wish to work in an office as he wanted "action", but ruled out a military career under the grounds that he did not wish to wear a uniform.
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Jay Dobyns became a Special Agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in 1987.
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When Jay Dobyns intentionally pulled the car keys from the ignition and dropped them to the floor, Provestgaard fired a single.
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Critically wounded, Jay Dobyns was rushed to Kino Community Hospital in Tucson, where Dr Richard Carmona, who later became the 17th United States Surgeon General, performed emergency trauma surgery that saved Jay Dobyns' life.
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In Chicago, Jay Dobyns married a second time, this time to the graphic artist Gwen, whom he had met in Tucson.
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Jay Dobyns shot the driver of the car in the shoulder, but was run over.
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Jay Dobyns hit the glass of the front window of the car head first and both of his kneecaps were blown out of their sockets.
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Jay Dobyns was sent to Los Angeles to mentor Canino and helped recover from his depression.
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Jay Dobyns described the prevention of the bombings as the most "important" case of his career.
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Jay Dobyns described his fifteen-minute brawl with Luckett as the most intense fight he had ever been in as he fought ferociously against Luckett's attempts to rip off his patch.
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Jay Dobyns made a football tackle that knocked Luckett to the ground while he proceeded to punch Luckett in the face.
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Over a two decade period, Jay Dobyns conducted over 500 undercover operations, developing expertise in violent crime investigations, weapons and narcotics trafficking, gang infiltrations, home invasion burglary and murder-for-hire cases.
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Jay Dobyns served as an instructor at ATF's National Academy and member of the Bureau's Enhanced Undercover Program.
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Jay Dobyns was repeatedly detailed to high-profile criminal and terrorism events including the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, Texas, the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, and the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City.
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In September 2001, Jay Dobyns was sent undercover to Bullhead City, Arizona as part of Operation Riverside.
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Jay Dobyns' cover story was that he was an enforcer and debt collector for the Las Vegas casinos whose job was to beat gamblers in debt to the casinos with a baseball bat while working as a gunrunner into Mexico as a side business.
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Jay Dobyns recorded while wearing a wire five times someone paying him to commit a murder, which led to the ATF making a number of arrests for conspiracy to commit murder.
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Jay Dobyns found himself visited several times by the Hells Angels who told him that they wanted to be his partner as they decided he was useful to them.
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On night of April 26,2002, Jay Dobyns entered the Flamingo Hilton hotel where the Hells Angels were staying along with another ATF agent, Darrin Kozlowski, who posed as a gunrunner from California.
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Jay Dobyns later learned it was because the Hells Angels suspected that he and Kozolwski were spies for the Mongols.
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At the bar of the Flamingo Hilton, Jay Dobyns first met Donald "Smitty" Smith, a powerful member of the Angels' elite Nomad chapter for Arizona.
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Maguire knew that Jay Dobyns was an undercover policeman, but the meeting at the bar was the first time she met him.
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Jay Dobyns told Sher and Marsden about Kozolwski and Dobyns: "Those guys looked so scary, they looked so intimidating".
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Jay Dobyns was at his house at the time the Harrah's brawl began at about 2 am, which led him to note: "I'm not burned in this".
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Jay Dobyns commented that prior to the Laughlin Run riot, the general view in the ATF headquarters in Washington was that the Hells Angels were "burned out Vietnam vets who liked to ride and use some dope", and after the riot, the general thinking in Washington were that the Hells Angels were a menace.
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Slatalla wanted Jay Dobyns to be the vice president of the Solo Angeles pseudo-chapter as he already had a working relationship with the Hells Angels in Bullhead.
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Sher and Marsden wrote that Jay Dobyns looked like an outlaw biker as he is a tall, lean man whose head is shaven bald and who wears golden earrings while his muscular body is covered with tattoos.
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On one of his shoulders, Jay Dobyns had a tattoo of St Michael, the patron saint of police officers, which led him to develop a story to explain that the tattoo of St Michael was not of St Michael.
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Jay Dobyns kept his real first name as he wanted a name he could respond to without a doubt while Davis was his grandmother's maiden name.
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Jay Dobyns described his grandmother as a tough, hard-working woman and he used Davis as his alias as a way to honor her.
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Jay Dobyns posed as a gunrunner and member of the Solo Angeles interested in joining the Angels.
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Jay Dobyns said of the first meeting: "I think they liked the fact that we respected the protocol".
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The meeting with Johnson, which began at 9 pm at the Mesa chapter's clubhouse, went well, and by 11 pm, Jay Dobyns had invited to drink at the Spirts Lounge, a favorite bar of the Hells Angels.
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Jay Dobyns knew that Johnson would check with "The Teacher" about the status of the Arizona Solo Angeles; what he did not count on was that Johnson had rivals within the Hells Angels who would dig deeper into their cover stories as a way to discredit him.
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The next day, Smith told Jay Dobyns that Debestern was a "renowned narcotics cook" and stated that he was the best maker of methamphetamine in the entire Southwest.
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On September 9,2002, Canino and Jay Dobyns met with Craig Kelly, the president of the Angels Tucson chapter, along with another Angel of the Tucson chapter, Douglas Dam, at Kelly's house.
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Canino, who played the part of Jay Dobyns' sidekick, was reassigned to the Miami ATF office later in September 2002, removing him from the operation.
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The Bullhead police, who were unaware that Jay Dobyns was an undercover policeman, were more interested in frisking the new Solo Angeles chapter president than Dam, the sergeant-at-arms of the Angels Tucson chapter.
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Jay Dobyns became sufficiently well-accepted that he was allowed to bring his guns into the Hells Angels clubhouses which non-members are not normally allowed to do.
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Jay Dobyns was allowed to bring in guns under the grounds that he was "cool".
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In February 2003, Jay Dobyns was allowed to take part in the Angels' Prison Run where the Angels rode their motorcycles from Arizona down 80 miles of desert highway to the federal prison in Florence, Colorado which they would then ride around.
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Jay Dobyns complained that he often rode his motorcycle around with his handguns visible, which though legal in Arizona, should have been grounds for suspicion, but was never pulled over the police who regarded it as normal for outlaw bikers to ride around with guns in plain sight.
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In February 2003, Jay Dobyns received a phone call from Slatalla telling him to leave his home at once and report to the ATF office.
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Mora had done a background check on the Arizona Solo Angeles chapter and discovered that most of the real Solo Angeles in California had never heard of the Arizona chapter and that Jay Dobyns had never been to Tijuana, the headquarters of the Solo Angeles.
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Jay Dobyns believed that Operation Black Biscuit was over, but decided to make a desperate ploy to salvage the operation by meeting Johnson.
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On February 28,2003, Jay Dobyns met with Johnson to deny Mora's allegations, which he rebutted by showing Johnson a photograph of him at a Solo Angeles run in California along with another photo of him standing behind a Solo Angeles leader during a television interview.
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Jay Dobyns was so widely accepted by the Hells Angels that at a party at the clubhouse of the Cave Creek chapter, he met Sonny Barger, the leader of the Hells Angels.
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Jay Dobyns's reputation precedes him, so when people talk to him they know who they're talking to.
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Jay Dobyns noted the younger Hells Angels were divided about Barger with some seeing him as a legendary figure while others held him in contempt as a "pussy" and as a selfish man only concerned with "promoting himself, promoting his books, his movies, his products" as Jay Dobyns put it.
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Jay Dobyns was the one who understood it, but the whole club said, 'you're wrong.
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Jay Dobyns rarely wore a wire and instead used bugs planted his cellphone and pager to record his conversations with the Angels.
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Dobyns was investigated three times by private detectives hired by the Hells Angels who were always on the lookout for any undercover policemen, but each time the private detectives stated that Dobyns was really was "Jay Davis", gunrunner and drug dealer.
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In Tucson, Jay Dobyns was leaving a guitar shop with his 12-year-old daughter, Dale, when he bumped into Robert McKay, the president of the Hells Angels Tucson chapter on the street.
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Jay Dobyns whispered to Dale: "Go along with what I say".
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At the meeting, Jay Dobyns made various threats to Rutland who fearfully wrote him a check for $17,000.
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Jay Dobyns gave MacKay $200 for merely being present at the meeting, and in the following days found himself besieged by various Hells Angels who wanted to join him in his debt collection work.
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Jay Dobyns befriended various members of the Skull Valley Angels chapter as part of his undercover work.
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The security guards at the four star Hard Rock Cafe Hotel and Casino refused to allow the Hells Angels to enter wearing their gang colors, which led Jay Dobyns to make a call with the Las Vegas police to ask them to pressure the hotel staff to allow them to enter wearing their gang colors.
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Jay Dobyns asked the Las Vegas police to provide an officer to play the part of a Mafia boss for a meeting with Reinstra during the same visit.
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Jay Dobyns described undercover work as intensely stressful as he had to pretend to be someone that he was not for two years and was always in fear that he might be discovered.
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Jay Dobyns stayed in contact with Bayless whose task was "make sure my head was right" as Jay Dobyns phrased it.
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Jay Dobyns always refused offers to use methamphetamine, which most of the Hells Angels used regularly, and pointed to his tattoo of St Michael slaying the dragon, which he explained represented the triumph of his willpower over evil.
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Jay Dobyns claimed to be a former heroin addict who had been homeless and that he did not wish to engage in substance abuse again.
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Jay Dobyns observed that when the wife of one Hells Angel was late in bringing him the food he had ordered from a restaurant, he proceeded to beat her bloody without mercy while the other Angels cheered him on.
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Jay Dobyns observed that the worst aspect of being an undercover policeman was watching the Hells Angels beat their children bloody and not being able to do anything to stop it without blowing his cover.
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Much to his own chagrin, the children in the poor neighborhood where Jay Dobyns operated out of idolized him as a successful criminal.
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Jay Dobyns told the children not to aspire to be an outlaw biker and to "get an education", advice he sadly noted was ignored as all of the neighborhood children wanted to be outlaw bikers or "biker girls" when they grew up.
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Under the cover story of doing debt collection work in California, Jay Dobyns would visit his wife and children.
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Additionally, Jay Dobyns had much tension in his relationship with his superior Slatalla.
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Several times, Jay Dobyns was invited to join the Hells Angels.
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On May 31,2003, Jay Dobyns became a "prospect" with the Skull Valley chapter.
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Slatalla was strongly opposed to Jay Dobyns joining the Hells Angels, which he believed would compromise the operation, while Jay Dobyns was very much for taking up the offer, which led to a heated dispute.
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Slatalla felt Jay Dobyns had obtained enough evidence to bring Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act charges against the Hells Angels, which would make Jay Dobyns joining the Hells Angels unnecessary and delay bringing charges by another year or so.
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Jay Dobyns described the life of a "prospect" as a demeaning one where he was forced to be at the beck and call of the Hells Angels and perform menial jobs for them at all hours.
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On June 12,2003, Jay Dobyns was called in to start preparing for violence as the Hells Angels had heard a rumor that the Bandidos were planning to crash a biker meeting in Las Vegas that night.
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The Hells Angels armed themselves for the meeting, and during the drive to Las Vegas, Jay Dobyns phoned Slatalla to ask him to have a strong police presence at the meeting place as he legally could not commit a murder as a policeman and did not wish to blow his cover story.
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Jay Dobyns was placed as part of an armed security detail at the meeting and was told to "smoke" any Bandidos that he saw on sight.
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Jay Dobyns had been told that it was Angel policy: "You see a Mongol, its your responsibility is to kill him".
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Jay Dobyns told Toth and the other Angels of the Skull Valley chapter that he planned to kill a Mongol in Mexico.
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Jay Dobyns asked Joby Walters of the Skull Valley chapter for a gun, which he provided.
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Jay Dobyns did not go to Mexico as he claimed he did, and instead stayed in Arizona with his wife and children.
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Jay Dobyns claimed in a phone call to Toth that "Pops", the informer who was clearly showing the strain of undercover work, had tried to kill a Mongol and had been killed in turn.
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Jay Dobyns had a bloodstained Mongols "cut" mailed to the Hells Angels from somewhere in Mexico, and provided a videotape and pictures of the "killing".
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Jay Dobyns told Toth and Reinstra a highly graphic account of the supposed murder in Mexico and obtained their approval.
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Jay Dobyns' superiors in the ATF wanted to bring charges as soon as possible as they felt that they had enough evidence for RICO charges and felt the fake murder was a waste of money and time.
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Jay Dobyns wanted to keep the operation going as he believed he would obtain more information as a better trusted "full patch" Hells Angel who had killed a man.
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Slatalla wanted to close Operation Black Biscuit as he wanted to have charges pressed as soon as possible, and did not want to wait an extra year or two for Jay Dobyns to provide more evidence in the role of a "full patch" Hells Angel.
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Jay Dobyns compared Operation Black Biscuit to running a marathon and compared stopping the operation to ending the marathon short of a few miles of the finishing mark.
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Jay Dobyns admits that readjusting to being a husband and father again was difficult as: "I was a mess at that point".
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MacKay walked up to Jay Dobyns and shouted much abuse at him while Jay Dobyns taunted him over the way he had fooled him.
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Mora, the Hells Angel who accused Jay Dobyns of being an undercover policeman, was convicted of the possession of weapons forbidden to a felon.
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Jay Dobyns alleged that this was done illegally and in retaliation for his whistleblowing on ATF's failure to assist in protecting undercover agents.
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Jay Dobyns filed multiple lawsuits winning a trial court victory in 2014.
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In February 2009, Jay Dobyns became a New York Times bestselling author following the release of his book, No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels.
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In 2015 Jay Dobyns appeared in six episodes of the television series "Outlaw Chronicles", and, 2016, he was featured as the pilot episode of the program "Deep Undercover" and two additional episodes detailing undercover investigations he participated in.
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Jay Dobyns has appeared in several feature films, most notably alongside actors Gerard Butler, O'Shea Jackson, Pablo Schreiber and Eric Braeden in the film Den of Thieves.
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Jay Dobyns has appeared on national news programs such as Anderson Cooper 360, Fox News, The FOX Report with Shepard Smith, and many others, discussing the death threats he has received, the federal government's failures related to those situations, and his status as a whistleblower.
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Jay Dobyns has been featured in Newsweek Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and on National Public Radio.
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Jay Dobyns owns and operates the Jay Dobyns Group, focused on law enforcement training.
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Jay Dobyns coached youth sports for twenty-five years including three years as the Head Football Coach at Tanque Verde High School.