Surfrider Foundation Lands O.C. Prosecutor

What’s a celebrated prosecutor to do when the job of his dreams opens up?

For Senior Assistant Dist. Atty. Christopher Evans, who has brought some of Orange County’s most notorious criminals to justice, there was no question. Evans, 44, will leave his post to become executive director of the Surfrider Foundation, a grass-roots environmental and surfing advocacy group.

It may seem like quite a shift in direction, from prosecuting murderers to fighting for cleaner beaches, but Evans says he thinks one experience will flow smoothly into the next.

“I would like to bring what I’ve learned here about advocacy and about leadership and administration and management in order to help prosecute the coastal environmental movement,” Evans says.

A lifelong surfer, Evans says he has been a Surfrider member since the late 1980s.

Since joining the homicide unit of the district attorney’s office in 1990, Evans has prosecuted some of the highest-profile cases in Orange County history. Among those was the murder of Denise Huber, a 23-year-old Newport Beach woman who vanished in 1991 after her car broke down. Her disappearance triggered an intense nationwide search. Her corpse, nude and bludgeoned, was found in Arizona in July 1994 in a freezer owned by former Orange County handyman John J. Famalaro, who was sentenced to death for his crimes.

Evans will assume his new post after he wraps up one more case: the prosecution of Hung “Henry” Thanh Mai, who has admitted gunning down CHP Officer Don J. Burt during a July 1996 traffic stop.