Outlaws MC member arrested in Collier on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder

An anonymous tip to the Collier County Sheriff's Office on Saturday led to the arrest of an Outlaws Motorcycle Club member accused of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder on a warrant out of Lake County.

The caller told authorities that Gregory Umphress, of West Palm Beach, was in the area of Davis Boulevard and Airport Pulling Road South in a gray Dodge Charger with Massachusetts plates.

Deputies ran Umphress' name through state and national crime information databases and found his outstanding warrant and a be-on-the-lookout notice.

After finding the car, deputies found Umphress lying on a couch in the waiting room of a tattoo parlor off Davis and Airport and set up a perimeter outside the shop.

Authorities went into the shop, ordered everyone to put their hands up and arrested the man. 

Umphress, 32, is the fourth suspect wanted in a fatal shooting that broke out between two biker gangs — The Outlaws and the Kingsmen — on April 29 in Leesburg, a city about 45 miles northwest of Orlando.

One Kingsman, David Donovan, died in the shooting. An Outlaw, Marc Knotts, was shot three times and survived. Knotts also faces charges of conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping.

Members of the Outlaws and Kingsmen motorcycle clubs argued at a gas station in Leesburg around 8 p.m. April 29, authorities said. A group of Outlaws demanded that a group of Kingsmen take off and give up their riding jackets and insignias, but they refused, authorities said.

According to a probable cause affidavit for Knotts, the man ordered his fellow Outlaws to "shoot that (expletive)."

One of the other Kingsmen shot at Knotts in self-defense, court records state.

According to court documents, the Outlaws had been challenging motorcycle clubs throughout the state to join their ranks. The Kingsmen was one of the targeted clubs. The Outlaws "decreed that any clubs that did not choose to submit to their authority would need to disband, close their clubhouses and cease to wear their respective insignia," the affidavit states.

According to court documents, Umphress made "initial contact" with the Kingsmen and ordered them to surrender their jackets. He escorted them to an outside corner of the gas station and stayed until Donovan was shot, court documents state.

He was booked at the Naples Jail Center and is awaiting a transfer to Lake County.