high-ranking member of the Pagans motorcycle gang from Ross pleaded guilty today in federal court in West Virginia to distributing cocaine in that state.

Richard J. Speciale, 49, known as "Big Rick," entered the plea in Clarksburg.

FBI agents said he conspired to distribute cocaine from June 2007 to January 2010, when he was arrested by Pittsburgh police and agents with the state attorney general's office as part of a state grand jury investigation of drug-dealing by the Pagans, which has its national headquarters in Washington County.

Agents have said the Pagans distributed cocaine supplied by Mexicans in Atlanta.

Mr. Speciale spent 10 years in federal prison for dealing cocaine in the 1990s and was released in 2007. He was on federal probation when he was arrested and will almost certainly face extra prison time for violating the terms of his supervised release.