A FORMER Hells Angels boss has been jailed after being accused of illegally cremating four rival bikers at a California funeral home.
US prosecutors claim Merl Hefferman, 54, disposed of his enemies at the Yost and Webb funeral home in Fresno, known to the gang as “the pizza oven”.
InstagramMerl Hefferman was sentenced to four years in federal prison in the US[/caption]
Fox26The former Hells Angels leader was accused of illegally cremating his enemies in a funeral home[/caption]
Google mapsThe Yost and Webb funeral home in Fresno, California, was known to the gang as ‘the pizza oven’[/caption]
The Hells Angels also encouraged other members to use it, according to court records.
The allegations came in on Thursday as Hefferman was sentenced to four years in federal prison.
In December, the former leader of the Fresno Hells Angels pled guilty to obstruction of justice by disposing of the body of Joel Silva, but vehemently denied involvement in any others, The Mercury News reports.
Silva, a member of the Sonoma county Hells Angels, had been killed by another member on July 15, 2014.
Prosecutors say he was lured to the biker gang’s Fresno club headquarters and shot by Brian Wayne Wendt after a conflict with other Hells Angels.
Last week, prosecutors set out in gruesome detail how they believe Hells Angels members used the Fresno funeral home to commit the alleged crimes.
Crematory manager Levi Phipps had testified at trial he had received a call from Hefferman on July 16 2014, instructing him to be at the funeral home and leave the “hangar door open”, prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum.
Phipps said he was then threatened at gunpoint by two men while they loaded a body into the incinerator.
Shortly after, the crematory manager added he had received another call from Heffman, who this time asked Phipps to keep quiet.
Prosecutors said Phipps’s testimony is corroborated by cellphone records, The Guardian reports.
“The only reason Hefferman wanted that access was to make bodies disappear without a trace,” prosecutors wrote.
“Merl Hefferman arranged to have Joel Silva’s body illegally cremated.”
Prosecutors claim the cremation of Silva was allegedly the result of a months-long campaign by Hefferman, who told the director he was interested in making things “disappear” and would one day call upon the man for a favor, The Mercury News reported.
The morning after Silva was killed, Hefferman’s son and another man arrived with a body wrapped in bags and forcibly inserted it into the cremation oven, where a body was already undergoing a cremation, authorities said.
Prosecutors said that there were other three bodies in which Hafferman allegedly helped disappear.
Phipps told a federal grand jury that several months after the disposal of Silva’s body, Hefferman allegedly contacted him again to arrange yet another cremation.
Prosecutors say that the second body could have belonged to Robbie Huff, a Hells Angels member who went missing in 2015 and, according to prosecutors, colluded in Silva’s murder and cover up.
A third occasion allegedly involved the disposal of a body the prosecution believes to be of Art Carasis, a Hells Angels member who went missing in 2016.
Phone records between Hefferman and Phipps corroborate Phipps’s testimony, prosecutors say.
The fourth alleged victim was not named by prosecutors, although Hefferman’s attorney James Bustamante identified him as Hells Angels member Juan Guevara.
InstagramHefferman pleaded guilty to disposing of the body of Joel Silva, but vehemently denied involvement in any others[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
