A high-ranking member of the Pagans motorcycle gang from Ross will appear before a city magistrate next week on state cocaine distribution charges that will almost certainly send him back to federal prison, where he spent 10 years for dealing cocaine in the 1990s.

On Jan. 29, the day after Richard J. Speciale, 48, was arrested by city police and state agents, a federal judge issued a bench warrant for him at the Allegheny County Jail for violating the terms of his probation.

The warrant will serve as a detainer while his state case proceeds and, because of the seriousness of his prior conviction, will probably send him back to prison for several years after his state court penalty is served.

Mr. Speciale, a member of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Pagans, will appear for a preliminary hearing in city court on Wednesday on charges of possession and possession with intent to deliver.

The case against him is part of an ongoing state grand jury investigation of drug dealing by the Pagans.

In an affidavit, narcotics agents with the attorney general's office said they supervised a controlled purchase of cocaine on Dec. 7 by an informant from Mr. Speciale at his house on Peoples Road in Ross.

On Jan. 28, Pittsburgh police and state agents detained him after a traffic stop on Evergreen Road, where he was driving with a female passenger.

Immediately after the traffic stop, agents and Ross police executed a search warrant on his house and said they found $146,000 in cash, powder cocaine, electronic surveillance equipment, packaging materials for narcotics and a drug scale.

Mr. Speciale was sentenced in 1998 to 10 years in federal prison following an investigation by Shaler police, the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Undercover agents said he sold them cocaine three times in 1997.

Since his release in 2007, he's been in trouble with the federal probation office and has run afoul of Senior U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch.

In 2007, the probation office said he violated the terms of his probation by getting arrested for assault in Moon, although the case was later withdrawn. He later asked to be released early from probation, citing a letter from his boss at B&R Construction Group lauding him for his "priceless" worth ethic. Judge Bloch refused.

The Pagans, one of four major outlaw cycle gangs in the U.S., have long had a presence in Western Pennsylvania.

But law enforcement has hurt them here repeatedly.

In the 1980s, the Pittsburgh FBI disrupted the gang with two federal prosecutions using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

In 2002, at least 12 local Pagans were among 73 indicted for their roles in an attack on the rival Hells Angels at a social club in Long Island, N.Y., that left one man dead and several injured.

Two significant cases are now wending their way through the courts. The first stems from a state grand jury presentment handed up last year in Allegheny County in which agents outlined the gang's drug distribution network supplied by Mexican dealers in Atlanta.

It also described four local chapters of the gang in Pittsburgh, McKeesport, Fayette City and Greensburg and identified the national "mother club" headquarters as a rundown house in rural Washington County.

The second case is a federal prosecution in Charleston, W.Va., charging members there with conspiracy, drug and gun offenses, murder and kidnapping.

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