Disappearance of Contra Costa Hells Angel part of FBI investigation
In what has become a recurring theme in the ongoing prosecution of 11 Hells Angels members, court records reveal that the FBI investigated the still-unsolved disappearance of a Northern California man as part of a massive investigation into the outlaw biker club.
The 2016 disappearance of longtime Contra Costa resident Art Carasis, 66, is now the third such missing persons case that authorities have acknowledged they investigated before obtaining a racketeering indictment against 11 Hells Angels in 2017. The other two are Robbie Huff, 34, of Fresno, and
Joel Silva, a Sonoma County resident believed to have been shot and killed in 2014.
The three men share other commonalities: All were members of the Hells Angels and all seemingly vanished in or near the Fresno area, where prosecutors claim Silva was murdered and illegally cremated.
Recent court filings — as well as a transcript obtained last week by this news organization — reveal that federal prosecutors considered introducing evidence involving the disappearances of Carasis and Huff as they prosecute the men they believe murdered Silva. Now they’re saying they won’t be the ones to raise the issue first.
“The only way I could see it coming in is if the defense brings it up,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Barry said of the Huff and Carasis evidence at a March court hearing. He later added, “Again, the only way that the government sees it would be coming up is if they bring it up through cross-examination, through making an issue of it in some other way.”
Carasis — a longtime Contra Costa resident with known addresses in Richmond, Antioch, and Fresno — was reported missing out of Madera County, which borders on Fresno, in 2016, authorities said. Huff was reported missing out of Fresno County in 2015.
Carasis has been on federal authorities’ radar for decades. In the 1980s, he was one of several Richmond
Hells Angels investigated for allegedly conspiring to distribute methamphetamine in the Bay Area that had been manufactured by other club members in Missouri, court records show. Most recently, he was arrested along with two other Hells Angels in 2015, when police in Fresno pulled over their car and found four guns, the Fresno Bee reported.
A defense motion from last year says prosecutors initially sought to introduce evidence from both missing persons’ investigations against two defendants: Brian Wendt, the president of the Fresno Hells Angels chapter who is accused of shooting Silva in the back of the head inside the Fresno clubhouse, and Merl Hefferman, the man accused of disposing of Silva’s body.
Prosecutors say the Silva murder plot was hatched because he had fallen out of favor with other club members, in part because of his growing drug problem. The “final straw” came in June 2014, when Silva threatened to murder a well-respected member of the Salem/Boston clubhouse “over a perceived personal slight.”
It is alleged that the Sonoma chapter president, Jonathan “Jon Jon” Nelson, lured Silva to the Fresno clubhouse where Wendt, the president of the Fresno chapter, shot Silva in the back of the head. Silva’s truck was also set on fire in a suspected arson, authorities say.
Most of the key prosecution evidence in the alleged murder of Silva comes from the word of witnesses whose identities have remained a mystery to both the public and the defense. In court, Barry voiced concerns about witness intimidation, at one point alluding to a “breach by a defense employee” with respect to a confidential witness.
Defense attorneys have countered that they can’t adequately push back against the allegations if they aren’t given ample time to interview and investigate witnesses before trial. A federal judge ultimately ordered prosecutors to disclose witness information to three defense teams.
Thus far, prosecutors have made no suggestions — at least in the public record — that Huff or Carasis met the same fate as Silva. Their disappearances remain open investigations.