Police: Maine massacre suspect found dead
The man wanted in the mass shooting at a bowling alley and bar that killed 18 people and wounded 13 was found dead Friday, bringing an end to a search that put the entire state of Maine on edge for the last two days.
This image of a Hells Angels MC vest from California was included in court filings in the federal racketeering case. (DOJ)
rica’s most notorious outlaw motorcycle club has rules, according to federal prosecutors — and breaking them can get even veteran members in serious trouble with leadership.
In one case, a former Sonoma chapter president took revenge on the man who slept with his wife by beating him with a bat, tattooing his forehead and sexually assaulting the victim’s wife while he was being held captive for more than four hours in November 2016, according to court documents. He suffered facial fractures and permanent damage to his eyesight.
In another, a 54-year-old Fresno member with no prior criminal record commandeered a local funeral home to secretly cremate the remains of a member who had been assassinated for picking a fight with a Salem club member.
“The Hells Angels murdered one of their own,” U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey said in a statement about blacklisted member Joel Silva.
Five of the defendants have already been sentenced in connection with the case, according to the Justice Department. The other five are awaiting their fate, including the three members convicted of murdering the incinerated man: Fresno Hells Angels president Brian Wendt, Hells Angels Sonoma County Chapter (HASC) president Jonathan “Jon Jon” Nelson and former HASC president Russell Ott. They face mandatory sentences of life in prison.
Wendt, Nelson and Ott were convicted last year for Silva’s murder. Christopher “Rainman” Ranieri, the president of the club’s Salem chapter, was convicted in May for his role masterminding the plot.
In court documents, prosecutors said they lured Silva to the Fresno clubhouse on July 15, 2014.
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After the execution, according to prosecutors, Ranieri flew to Fresno for a party celebrating the murder.
“For eight years, the victim’s family grieved without a body to mourn or certainty about what had happened to their loved one,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Tripp said in a statement.
Foakes beat him with a bat, tattooed him across the forehead and sexually assaulted the victim’s wife while he was being held captive. Foakes has not yet been sentenced.
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