A Hell’s Angel who worked to improve the group’s reputation has been jailed for removing a murdered rival at a commandeered crematorium, at the end of a trial that exposed a culture of torture, rape and mutilation.
Merl Hefferman of the Fresno chapter in California was known for organizing charity events for children, but prosecutors fear he routinely turned victims to ash at a funeral home called the “pizza oven.”
He was sentenced Friday to four years in prison after a decade-long racketeering investigation that also resulted in the conviction of a Sonoma County department chairman for torturing a man who slept with his wife, tattooing his face and raping the victim’s wife.
Five Hells Angels have been jailed and five others are now awaiting punishment following an investigation that stretched from Boston to California, sparked by the 2014 murder of a former member who “dirted” a chapter head in Massachusetts.
“The Hells Angels followed an evil code of conduct and encouraged the beating, maiming and even killing of anyone who dared to thwart their criminal enterprise,” said U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey.
Merle Hefferman, 54, was the public face of the Sonoma County department, organizing charity events for children in an effort to improve its image
Hefferman became ‘fascinated’ with Fresno’s crematorium and asked for the keys to the facility so he could one day ‘make something disappear,’ court heard
Prosecutors fear missing Hells Angels members Robbie Lane Huff II (left) and Juan Guevara (right) may also have met their end at the crematorium
“The defendants now face the consequences of their violent racketeering activities.”
The Sonoma chapter lived by the motto “F*** around and find out.” Ramsey’s deputy Nina Peng said this at an earlier hearing.
Former chapter president Raymond Foakes was convicted of racketeering in May after a jury heard he tortured the man who slept with his wife for four hours in 2016.
‘Foakes was the leading man. He was Mr. Hells Angel,” Peng told the jury,
“He gained respect by beating people, including other Hells Angels, into submission.”
“Foakes hit the victim with a baseball bat, forcibly tattooed the victim’s forehead and caused Nelson to hit the victim in the face with a gun,” Ramsey said.
“He was also convicted of witness intimidation, in connection with his assault of the victim’s wife while the victim was still being beaten in the Sonoma clubhouse and threatening her to comply with his demands and not report to authorities.” , he added.
The department showed it was willing to “kill its own country” after Sonoma member Joel “Doughboy” Silva was exposed by East Coast members during “bike week” in 2014 by Christopher Ranieri, the president of a friend of the Salem chapter, to threaten.
When Ranieri protested to his California counterparts, “they agreed that Silva should be killed” and lured him to the Fresno clubhouse, where he was shot in the back of the head.
Christopher ‘Rainman’ Ranieri (left) was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, and Raymond Foakes spent four hours torturing the man who slept with his common-law wife
The clubhouse of the infamous Sonoma County chapter of the Hells Angels
David Cesena (left) received 52 months in prison for home invasion robbery, Russell Lyles (right) received 63 months for racketeering after being accused of involvement in multiple attacks and extortion schemes
Ranieri flew to Fresno for a party honoring the killing, but Hefferman, 54, was tasked with disposing of Silva’s body.
Levi Phipps, crematory manager at Yost & Webb Funeral Home in Fresno, testified that on the day of Silva’s murder, Hefferman and his stepson threatened him with a gun and loaded Silva’s body into the incinerator.
Phipps claimed that before Silva’s murder, Hefferman became “fascinated with the crematorium” and asked for the keys to the facility so that one day he could “make something disappear.”
Whistleblower Joseph Hardisty told prosecutors that Fresno Chapter Chairman Brian Wendt later admitted to pulling the trigger on Silva, saying “he used the pizza oven for five or six bodies.”
He also gave Hardisty a phone number to call and said he was “cooking pizza” if he ever wanted to use the crematorium himself.
Among those thought to have disappeared into the oven is former Hells Angel Robbie Huff, who disappeared in 2015 after allegedly helping to cover up Silva’s murder by setting his pickup truck on fire.
Another person named by federal prosecutors is colleague Arthur Carasis of Contra Costa County, who disappeared in 2016.
A third was named in court as Juan Guevara, who disappeared from Kern County in September 2015.
Jonathan “Jon Jon” Nelson, 46, and Russell “Rusty” Taylor Ott, 69, of Santa Rosa, were convicted of murder last June along with Wendt, 45, for their roles in Silva’s death and are awaiting sentencing.
David Cesena received 52 months in prison for home invasion robbery and Sonoma County member Russell Lyles received 63 months for racketeering after being accused of involvement in multiple attacks and racketeering plots.
The indictment described the Hells Angels as a “violent transnational outlaw motorcycle gang”
Ranieri and Foakes have yet to be sentenced.
Sonoma member Jeremy Greer, 43, was sentenced Friday along with Hefferman to 84 months after admitting to multiple brutal assaults, armed robberies, home invasions and witness intimidation.
“Hefferman, Greer and other members of their criminal enterprise attempted to use fear and intimidation to get away with their crimes,” Ramsey said.
“I commend the witnesses who did not succumb to this group’s intimidation tactics and came forward to police.”