(KRON) – Three members of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club who operated out of the Bay Area have all been sentenced to prison for the rest of their lives, U.S. Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey announced Friday.
Prosecutors said this subset of Hell’s Angels members operates primarily out of Sonoma County, but also has bases in Santa Rosa and Fresno. Ramsey described the members of Hell’s Angels and the following case as a “brutal brotherhood” whose actions “should shock the conscience of us all.”
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In this case, here are the names of the following Hell’s Angels members:
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Jonathan Nelson, 46, aka “JonJon”
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Russell Taylor Ott, 70, aka “Rusty”
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Brian Wayne Wendt, 45
FBI Special Agent Robert Tripp describes the three as “the most violent of the dozens of convicts.”
On October 10, 2017, a federal grand jury indicted eleven members and associates of the department for “an array of criminal activities,” including “murder, narcotics distribution, assault, robbery, extortion, illegal possession of firearms, and obstruction of justice.” prosecutors said.
About a year later, a grand jury returned a superseding indictment, which added a murder charge in connection with the killing of Hell’s Angels member Joel Silva.
Nelson, who was then president of HASC, arranged for Ott to take Silva to Fresno, and Silva agreed to travel there with Ott. After the two arrived at the Hell’s Angels Fresno clubhouse, Wendt, then president of the Fresno Hells Angels Charter, shot Silva in the back of the head,” the complaint states.
The next morning, Silva’s body was delivered to a local crematorium and burned, prosecutors said.
In addition to Silva’s murder, the indictment stated that this Hell’s Angels chapter made “clear” threats of harm to anyone who cooperated with police regarding the motorcycle club.
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The jury convicted the three Hell’s Angels members with the following:
Prosecutors said Nelson was also convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering and use or possession of a firearm in connection with a violent crime. Five other defendants have pleaded guilty to RICO conspiracy charges and have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 84 months, prosecutors said.
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