OAKLAND — An Oakland man who’d allegedly been working security for an illegal casino was caught with a gun that had been used in an unsolved killing just 17 days earlier, federal prosecutors revealed Thursday.
In court filings, an assistant U.S. Attorney revealed that 25-year-old Ray Gilbert was arrested last Aug. 16 on suspicion of possessing a pistol that had been used to kill 21-year-old Mynyamani Stevenson outside of a Lutheran church in Oakland on July 29. No one has been charged with killing Stevenson, but prosecutors argued the possession of the gun meant one of two things.
“Either (1) that (Gilbert) was involved in the murder, or (2) that he associates with and exchanges firearms with people who use those guns in murders,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Leif Dautch wrote in court papers. He wrote that the gun had also been tied to an unsolved 2022 shooting in Antioch, but offered no details about that incident.
According to authorities, the investigation into Stevenson’s death is now tied to another unsolved killing that occurred on Aug. 16, just 12 hours after the police raid on Gilbert’s Oakland home. In that incident, a woman named Tatiana Brice, 26, was found shot to death in the East Oakland hills, on the 5100 block of Keller Avenue.
Brice left behind a 2-year-old son, a GoFundMe page in her memory says.
Ten days before Brice was killed, police received a tip that she’d talked about her involvement in Stevenson’s killing. Not only that, but the tipster reportedly told investigators that Brice had been bragging about her alleged involvement in the homicide to patrons at illegal gambling dens in Oakland.
No one has been charged in connection with either killing.
The revelations regarding the gun used in Stevenson’s homicide came as federal prosecutors are attempting to convince a judge not to release Gilbert from Santa Rita Jail in Dublin while his gun possession case is pending. Gilbert faces charges of being a felon in possession of the firearm in federal court, and the Alameda County District Attorney has also charged him with possession a gun found during a police raid of an illegal gambling den.
The state gun charges stem from a July 5, 2023 police raid on a suspected illegal casino at a house on the 2300 block of East 16th Street in Oakland. Gilbert and three other men, all believed to be working security for the casino, were arrested and charged with possessing at least one of three guns reportedly found in the building.
Six weeks later, federal prosecutors also charged Gilbert with possessing the gun that was found on the Aug. 16 raid of his home. He has been in jail since Aug. 28, and cannot be bailed out, court records show.
But Gilbert’s lawyer has filed a motion to release him to a halfway house in San Francisco.
“(Gilbert) understands the incredible privilege it would be to be released on bail. The release plan proposed is restrictive, but less restrictive than custody,” Assistant Federal Public Defender Samantha Jaffe wrote in a letter proposing Gilbert’s release.
In an earlier detention motion, prosecutors describe Gilbert as a suspect in organized retail theft and a string of robberies perpetrated by members and associates of the Oakland-based Case Gang. Gilbert’s phone was also wiretapped in 2020 — along with six other suspected Case Gang affiliates — as part of a joint police investigation into the unsolved 2020 killing of 27-year-old Shawn Tillis in San Pablo, and the nonfatal shooting of an ex-Case member who’d been deemed a “snitch” by the gang, according to court records.
No charges were ever filed against Gilbert or the five others related to either shooting. One of the other suspects was later charged in a violent robbery of a San Leandro cannabis grow warehouse where a group of assailants took a hostage and fatally shot him, court records show.
In 2021, Gilbert was bitten by a police dog that’s now at the center of a major investigation into alleged police corruption in Antioch. In that case, then-Antioch police Officer Morteza Amiri sicced his dog, Purcy, on Gilbert just seconds after Gilbert exited an allegedly carjacked vehicle that was spotted parked in the Hudson Townhouse Apartments.
After Gilbert was arrested, Amiri questioned him on how he “makes money” despite claiming to be unemployed, video of the incident shows.
Gilbert was arrested after Purcy bit him “for approximately 45 seconds,” according to police reports released by the city of Antioch. It was one of dozens of biting incidents involving Amiri, who last August was indicted on charges of conspiring with two other Antioch officers to commit violent civil rights violations, including by shooting people with less lethal guns and siccing dogs on people.
The May 5, 2021 biting of Gilbert is not included in the indictment against Amiri. But after the incident, Amiri was “verbally counseled on his tactics and deployment,” because then-Lt. Joseph Vigil — who is now the city’s acting chief — found it was “inconsistent” with best policing practices, according to Antioch police reports.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu is set to rule on whether to release Gilbert on Jan. 22.