CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (CN) — A Long Island man sued his police commissioner for refusing to give him a concealed carry permit, claiming gang members who threatened to kill him two decades ago are being released from prison.

Sean McCarthy sued Suffolk County, its Police Commissioner Timothy Sini and three other officers on March 23 in Federal Court.

McCarthy, former manager and bouncer at the Carousel Club in Huntington Station, says that when he refused to be extorted the Pagans Outlaw Motorcycle Club in the late 1990s, he was beat up and stabbed at least seven times by gang members.

The New York Times reported in 1998 that Pagans boss Keith Richter ordered McCarthy killed, but was arrested before the plot could be carried out.

“In pleading guilty in open court, Keith Richter aka Conan admitted that he had ordered the murder of plaintiff,” McCarthy says in the complaint.

He says many of the Pagans are out of prison and have resumed their ways.

A Nov. 17, 2015 event at Duffy’s Ale House in Lindenhurst was publicized as the 50th anniversary and reopening of the Long Island Chapter of the Pagans Motorcycle Club of Long Island. Fliers listed “Conan” —i.e., Richter — as the contact for the event, according to the complaint.

McCarthy said he included all of this information in his Nov. 4, 2015 application for an unrestricted firearm license to the Suffolk County Police Department Pistol License Bureau, and attached exhibits explaining in great detail the threat to his life.

In the 29-page complaint, he says Suffolk County police called none of the law enforcement officials who know of the threats to his life. In fact, he says, a year after he submitted his application, defendant Suffolk County police Officer Linda Boughey still had not called the Suffolk County Police Department Intelligence Unit, had not performed a check of IRS records, and had not performed a DMV check.

“Applicant applied for a full carry pistol license stating e has reason to fear for his personal safety,” Boughey wrote in her report, as cited in the complaint. “It is my opinion that the Applicant failed to establish proper cause for a full carry endorsement. At this time it is my recommendation that a sportman license is granted to the Applicant for home protection.”

That report was reviewed by defendant Suffolk County police Lt. Joseph Cahill, who sent McCarthy a letter denying him an unrestricted carry license because he had failed to establish “proper cause” in his application, according to the complaint.

Nor did Police Commissioner Sini read his application on or before Nov. 11, 2016, McCarthy says. He appealed and was told about a month later by the final defendant, Suffolk County police Officer Christopher Love, who was not the licensing officer designated by statute with the power and authority to consider these applications, that the appeal was denied.

McCarthy accuses the defendants of “delaying indefinitely plaintiff’s application for licensure, by knowingly, intentionally and maliciously failing to perform a thorough, complete and accurate background check and verification of plaintiff’s stated reasons for needing an unrestricted carry license.”

He seeks declaratory relief and compensatory and punitive damages for violations of the Second Amendment, due process, equal protection, and the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

He is represented by Michael Sordi of Northport.