Hells Angels associate’s gas station hit was messy, court says

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Frédérick Silva left a big mess when he killed an associate of the Hells Angels at a gas station in St-Léonard.

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Montreal police had a lot of evidence to collect after Sébastien Beauchamp was shot to death by the gunman outside an Ultramar on December 20, 2018, including a stray bullet that ended up lodged in one of the bombs.

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Silva was found guilty of first-degree murder in the hit. Now, his alleged accomplice, Giovanni Presta, 37, is on trial at the Montreal courthouse.

Evidence during last year’s trial revealed that Silva chased Beauchamp around the outside of the gas station on Langelier Blvd., near Robert Blvd., before managing to kill him. Presta is alleged to have acted as the getaway driver.

On Monday, David Desrochers, the lead investigator for Project Megalo, the investigation that led to the arrests, was called as the first witness in Presta’s trial before Superior Court Judge Marc-André Blanchard.

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The judge was shown a long series of photos as Desrochers described how a stray bullet ended up in the gas pump and another went through the window of the Couche-Tard convenience store connected to the gas station and hit a back wall. He said police found a vehicle parked nearby that was also damaged by a stray bullet.

An autopsy revealed that Beauchamp was hit by four of the many bullets Silva fired that afternoon.

Desrochers said three firearms were left at the crime scene and several spent shell casings were found outside the gas station.

A second witness called to testify Monday, Victor Melo Gomes, an investigator with the Montreal police major crimes unit, told the judge that Silva was a wanted man before the day Beauchamp was killed.

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By then, Silva was a suspect in the 2017 attempted murder of Montreal mob leader Salvatore Scoppa and the murder that year of Daniel-Armando Somoza-Gildea, a Concordia University student killed outside a strip bar. at Notre-Dame-de-Grace.

When police began searching for Silva, they discovered he had extensive ties to organized crime, Melo Gomes said.

“We analyzed the surveillance reports and the information that we had at our disposal to see what the best path would be,” said Melo Gomes.. “I saw links with people linked to the Italian mafia, motorcycle gangs and people from street gangs.”

While being questioned by defense attorney Dominique Shoofey, Melo Gomes confirmed that police had a list of 14 people they suspected of supporting Silva while he was in hiding, including Mario Sollecito and Vito Salvaggio. Both have been linked to the Montreal mob. Sollecito is the brother of alleged Montreal mob leader Stefano Sollecito, with whom Salvaggio has often been seen.

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Melo Gomes said police targeted four people during the search for Silva, including Presta, Bernard Cherfan, 42, and Cherfan’s brother Rony, 26. (Bernard Cherfan was fatally shot inside a Laval restaurant last June.)

Melo Gomes explained how police came to suspect that Presta was Silva’s driver the day Beauchamp was killed.

The investigator said a security camera near the scene of the shooting captured footage of a man resembling Silva getting out of a white Chevrolet Malibu before Beauchamp was killed. The camera recorded how the man adjusted a mask that completely covered his face before heading towards Langelier Blvd.

Investigators could see that the man who got out of the Malibu was not the driver. They were able to read only part of the license plate, but noted other features, including damage to the right rear of the vehicle.

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“For us, from what we got from the scene, that was the vehicle used in the murder of Sébastien Beauchamp,” Melo Gomes said.

On January 30, 2019, two patrolmen informed Melo Gomes that they had seen the vehicle and IInvestigators were sent to seize it. The vehicle was equipped with a GPS locator, which provided important information: The car had been parked in a storage location that Presta had visited at least twice while under surveillance. And he had traveled close to the Ultramar station where Beauchamp was killed.

Also, on the day of the hit, the vehicle had stopped at a Petro-Canada on Metropolitan Blvd. Surveillance cameras from that station provided “excellent footage” of Presta gassing the Malibu, Melo Gomes said.

Presta was at Petro-Canada 19 minutes after the murder. Footage showed him passing the vehicle through the car wash there and entering the station to buy two bottles of a product used to clean the interior of a vehicle.

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