Giovanni Presta found guilty of murdering Hells Angels associate in St-Léonard

Giovanni Presta, the man who helped hit man Frédérick Silva kill an associate of the Hells Angels in St-Léonard nearly four years ago, was found guilty of first-degree murder at the Montreal courthouse on Thursday.

Superior Court Justice Marc-André Blanchard said the Crown presented enough evidence to prove that Presta manufactured a firearm and silencers used to kill Sébastien Beauchamp on Dec. 20, 2018, helped Silva track Beauchamp in the days leading up to the murder and drove Silva to the hit.

Silva killed Beauchamp by shooting him several times while he was at a gas station on Langelier Blvd. in St-Léonard. The hit was carried out in the middle of the afternoon while several other clients were also at the gas station. Evidence revealed Silva was reckless as he chased Beauchamp around the gas pumps. One errant bullet pierced the window of the station’s convenience store and ended up in a wall at the back.

The murder victim was once a member of the Rockers, a Hells Angels support club that did most of the dirty work for the biker gang during Quebec’s bloody biker gang war between 1994 and 2002. More than 160 people were killed during the conflict.

After Beauchamp was killed, the Montreal police recovered three firearms at the gas station. One was a homemade Cobray firearm equipped with a homemade silencer. The other two firearms also had homemade silencers on them.

When police searched Presta’s home in Terrebonne in 2019, they found a laptop that contained more than 2,300 photos on how to manufacture firearms, several books on how to make silencers and documents about the same type of Cobray firearm recovered at the gas station.

The silencers Presta made were similar to one found at Silva’s residence when he was arrested in 2019. A ballistics expert who testified during the trial described Presta’s handiwork as “ingenious” and somewhat unique because he used a mechanism rarely seen on silencers.

Police learned that Presta used the laptop to research the Cobray firearm when he returned home after Beauchamp was killed.

Investigators also learned that Presta had ordered 44 GPS location devices off the internet before the organized crime hit was carried out. Two of the devices were found underneath Beauchamp’s vehicle after he was killed. When the police carried out searches at Presta and Silva’s homes, they found some of the other tracking devices Presta had purchased.

Blanchard said in his decision that it was very clear Presta was the person who drove the Chevy Impala that dropped Silva off near the gas station before he killed Beauchamp. Evidence included footage from security cameras that recorded Presta cleaning the Impala at a Petro-Canada gas station after the murder. Evidence related to the Impala appeared to be the most convincing link connecting Presta to the murder. He was also recorded with the Impala while at another Petro-Canada station before the murder.

“All of this ensures that logic and good sense inevitably bring us to identify Presta as the driver,” Blanchard said, adding there was also evidence that Presta knew the security code used at a warehouse in Terrebonne where the Impala was stored before and after Beauchamp was killed.

The Impala was rented under a false name, Nathan Beaulieu, the same name as a former member of the Montreal Canadiens, and an address that did not exist.

Silva was found guilty of Beauchamp’s murder before Presta’s case went to trial. He was also found guilty of murdering three other men. Silva has since decided to co-operate with the Sûreté du Québec and the Montreal police in a major investigation into organized crime.

Presta automatically received a life sentence on Thursday with a period of parole ineligibility set at 25 years.

pcherry@postmedia.com

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