Hearing Set for Woman Linked to Charles Russ

A Florida woman believed to be the girlfriend of Charles (Chuck) Russ will appear Monday before a U.S. magistrate in Ft. Lauderdale on federal charges of harboring a fugitive.

Alisa Noveshen, 20, is being held at the North Dade Detention Center pending the hearing.

Noveshen, an Oakland native, was arrested Friday afternoon by FBI agents at the Hollywood Beach Hilton Hotel in Hollywood, Fla., where she works, according to William A. Gavin, head of the FBI’s Miami office.

Gavin said Noveshen knew that Russ, who is the prime suspect in his wife’s 1987 death in San Diego, was a fugitive and that she willingly concealed his whereabouts from the FBI.

If Noveshen is convicted of the federal charges, she faces a penalty of a $1,000 fine and/or one year in prison, Gavin said.

Russ, 39, was arrested before dawn Thursday morning while strolling on a private beach in Hollywood. He is in the Broward County jail awaiting extradition to San Diego, where he will be tried on charges of grand theft and forgery for allegedly bilking his mother-in-law out of her life’s savings.

San Diego police also want to question Russ about the February, 1987, death of his wife, Pamela, 33, who was beaten by an unknown assailant, then run over with her own Mercedes-Benz on North Torrey Pines Road near Del Mar.

FBI agents had contacted Noveshen in May at a Hallandale, Fla., condominium after viewers of the television show “America’s Most Wanted” had called to indicate that Russ, going by the alias Patrick Donovan, was living there.

Russ had fled the area by the time agents arrived to question Noveshen, and she was extremely uncooperative, the FBI said.

Russ was later traced to Richmond, Va., where he was working as a minimum-wage laborer and renting a room from a young couple, according to Phil Gonzalez, a publicist for the television show. Russ again eluded capture.

Russ apparently returned to Florida to see his girlfriend, and was staying at the North Beach Hotel on North Ocean Drive in Hollywood. Gavin said Noveshen is believed to be the woman who registered Russ at the hotel, under his alias of Donovan.

A woman who answered the telephone at the small hotel declined to be identified and said only that Russ had caused no trouble during his stay.

A manuscript that Russ had been keeping of his life on the run, which was discovered in a trash bin behind the hotel Tuesday, led to his capture.

Ron Orrantia, spokesman for the FBI in San Diego, said Saturday that Noveshen’s arrest will “basically put out a message that you can’t interfere or mislead federal agents when they’re pursuing their business.”

Orrantia said the federal statutes for harboring a fugitive are rarely employed because the crime is very difficult to prove.

“We run into this on numerous occasions when we’re looking for fugitives,” he said. “In this situation, there was obviously some attempt on the part of the girlfriend to hide him or mislead the FBI.”