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Perceptions about the ‘King of Pot’ differ

August 17, 2014, 9:41 am
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MONTREAL — There are two sides to Jimmy Cournoyer.

On one hand is the man described as a considerate person who spared no expense in 2009 when a man, celebrating Cournoyer’s 30th birthday with a group of friends on the island of Ibiza, suffered an accident that left him paralyzed for life.

Cournoyer spent “tens of thousands” to make sure his friend, a fellow Laval resident who had no travel insurance, was well treated in a hospital for a week and then flown back to Canada by air ambulance.

The other side of Cournoyer, 34, is the one awaiting sentencing Aug. 20 in a U.S. case where he has been characterized as one of Canada’s most prolific drug smugglers.

Cournoyer, a high school dropout from Laval dubbed by some media as “the King of Pot” last year when details of his case in New York were made public, is facing a sentence of anywhere between 20 years, the mandatory minimum for some of the charges he pleaded guilty to, and 30 years, as the U.S. attorney has requested. Cournoyer is estimated to have smuggled more than 109,000 kilograms of Canadian-grown pot into the U.S. over a decade. During the course of the investigation, police seized hundreds of kilos of marijuana, 83 kilograms of cocaine and 60,000 ecstasy pills.

The injured friend, who is now paraplegic, sent a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Raymond Drearie asking him to consider Cournoyer as “not only as (a) felon but also as man of soulfulness capable of great deeds” before deciding on a sentence.

Statements by the defence say Cournoyer’s family fell apart when he was 16, after his father walked out, leaving him, his mother and brother struggling financially. Cournoyer left high school to help support the family, taking jobs installing pools and working on the assembly line at a candy factory. When he was 18, he was arrested for the first time for selling pot out of an apartment in Laval.

Documents filed by U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch paint a different portrait — that of a cold-blooded drug dealer who partnered with the Mafia and Hells Angels and would stop at nothing, including having a woman severely beaten, to achieve his goals.

The difference in perceptions caused a flood of paper to be filed at a New York district court in recent weeks. Near the end of July, defence lawyer Gerald McMahon filed a letter stating several allegations made in Lynch’s sentencing memorandum are false, including one alleging that, in 2001, Cournoyer almost pulled a loaded gun on members of the Peel Regional Police when they surprised him as he was leaving a hotel room in Toronto. The police officers were arresting Cournoyer after he sold 10,000 ecstasy pills to an undercover cop.

Lynch responded a week later with a 15-page letter providing more details on why authorities in the U.S. believe Cournoyer worked in partnership with the Rizzuto crime family and the Hells Angels. Her letter also contained a detailed report of Cournoyer’s arrest in Toronto on Dec. 2, 2001. Police described how Cournoyer, a martial arts expert, fought with the arresting officers as he tried to head back into his hotel room and reached inside his jacket. To the officers, it appeared Cournoyer was reaching for the .45 calibre handgun they found inside his jacket. It was loaded with five hollow-tipped bullets, designed to cause more damage than a standard shaped bullet.

Cournoyer ended up serving time in a Canadian penitentiary near Montreal for the ecstasy case. According to the U.S. government, he was released on parole in 2007 having made valuable connections to organized crime figures on the inside. During the same year, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration began its investigation into Cournoyer’s network. It estimates the network made more than $1 billion. As part of a guilty plea entered last year, Cournoyer allowed the U.S. government to confiscate more than $10 million in cash seized during the investigation. That includes more than $5.5 million (U.S.) seized in one raid in Salina, Kan., on Oct. 13, 2010.

More than a dozen people who worked with Cournoyer became co-operating witnesses for the DEA probe. Lynch’s reply to McMahon’s criticisms quotes one witness who met Cournoyer when both were brought to court just after the indictment against Cournoyer was unsealed. At that point, Cournoyer apparently did not know the person, referred to as CW-12 in court documents, had become a government witness. Cournoyer suspected a defence lawyer he knew had supplied information that helped the DEA investigation. He had also figured out who three of the many co-operating witnesses were.

“Cournoyer informed CW-12 that the four ‘co-operators’ were ‘finished’ and drew his hand across his own throat in a slashing motion. Cournoyer then fashioned his hand into the shape of a gun — gestures which CW-12 clearly understood to mean that Cournoyer intended to have these suspected witnesses against him killed,” Lynch wrote in the last document filed to Drearie. She reiterated the government’s position that “for the reasons set forth above” Cournoyer should be sentenced to a 30-year prison term.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

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Editorial: Restoring confidence in Montreal’s police

August 20, 2014, 5:49 pm
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As Premier Philippe Couillard pointed out, most Montreal police officers bravely uphold their sworn duty to serve and protect every day, in sometimes dangerous circumstances.

And those who appeared to be derelict in their duties Monday, standing by as hooligans desecrated Montreal city hall during a protest against Quebec’s municipal pension reform bill, “are not representative of most officers,” as Couillard has noted.

That said, Montreal police have an image problem — one that began long before the disgraceful events of Monday night.

In recent years, public confidence has been slowly ebbing: From police bullets killing Fredy Villanueva and wounding three other men in the summer of 2008, to the fatal shootings of several mentally ill homeless men and an innocent bystander, to diverging perceptions on whether the force showed patience or brutality during the Printemps érable, citizens have found reason for concern about how police have been doing their jobs.

A few other cases have further chipped away at the force’s reputation, including those of Agent 728, aka Stéfanie Trudeau, charged with assault for her aggressive arrest of two musicians; Benoît Roberge, the organized-crime investigator who pleaded guilty to leaking secrets to the Hells Angels; and Ian Davidson, who committed suicide amid suspicions he was trying to sell a list of informants to the Mafia.

The general public may be divided over whether police are too hard or too soft on masked or marauding demonstrators, or what to make of the fact no officers have been charged in any of the shootings, despite public inquiries and probes by the Sûreté du Québec. But the debacle at city hall has garnered universal outrage.

When Montreal police lose moral authority, credibility and respect among average citizens, not only are their jobs made more difficult, but this city becomes a more dangerous place.

Adding insult to the injury, Montreal Police Chief Marc Parent assigned the force’s own officers to investigate what transpired at city hall, showing a disappointing lack of judgment. If there is already grumbling about a double standard in policing, this will only crystallize the impression.

Mayor Denis Coderre and Couillard are also misreading the situation badly when they say they have confidence in Parent’s course of action.

Calls have been building over the last number of years — from human rights groups as well as from Quebec’s ombudsman — for an independent watchdog to investigate when police are accused of wrongdoing.

In fact, the National Assembly unanimously passed Bill 12 to create the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes — in May 2013.The previous Parti Québécois government never set it up. And though Couillard paid it lip service during the spring election campaign, his public security minister recently said it wouldn’t be active until 2015 or 2016.

Coincidentally or not, the top job at the civilian oversight body was just posted by the provincial government Wednesday.

But if the bureau had been already up and running, it could and should have been called in to probe the actions — or inaction — of Montreal police Monday. The fact it’s not is, lamentably, a missed opportunity to take an important step toward restoring public trust.

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Porter’s ties to SNC go back further than previously thought

September 9, 2014, 7:37 pm
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Arthur Porter, who is accused of orchestrating a $22.5-million fraud against the McGill University Health Centre, acknowledges in a new tell-all memoir that during the bidding process for the MUHC superhospital contract he was being wooed by one of the bidders, SNC-Lavalin, to work as a lobbyist on international contracts.

Porter says that his work for the engineering firm was to begin only after the $1.3-billion superhospital construction contract was awarded. He doesn’t acknowledge his cosy relationship with SNC-Lavalin during the bidding process might already have constituted a conflict of interest.

“SNC-Lavalin had asked me to work for (its international) division in 2005, shortly after my arrival in Canada,” Porter writes in his book, The Man Behind the Bow Tie: Arthur Porter On Business, Politics and Intrigue. The Gazette obtained an advance copy on Monday.

The revelation is significant because it suggests that Porter’s ties with SNC-Lavalin date farther back than the prosecution’s case, which alleges that the kickback scheme was first hatched only in 2008. The timeline is critical: the provincial government kicked off the bidding process for the superhospital in 2007 between two competing consortia, one of which was headed by SNC-Lavalin. At that early point, according to the book, Porter had already been in talks for two years with the CEO of SNC-Lavalin, Pierre Duhaime, about an eventual job to drum up international business for the Quebec-based conglomerate.

“I was very interested” in the lobbying consultancy for SNC-Lavalin, Porter writes. “I knew that Montreal would be my last stint as a hospital administrator. The day-to-day running of the mega-hospital was going to be much less exciting than getting it built, and I had quickly begun to cultivate the next phase of my career in international business.

“And I liked Pierre Duhaime very much. He was a funny, flashy and aggressive executive,” Porter adds.

Until now, Porter has never declared publicly that SNC-Lavalin was courting him during the bidding process, although The Gazette has previously reported on the existence of an internal memo by the MUHC touting possible joint ventures with the engineering firm in Kuwait and other countries. That internal memo was produced while Porter was at the helm of the MUHC.

Ultimately, Duhaime, along with Porter, would face charges as part of an eight-person conspiracy to defraud the deficit-ridden public hospital network.

“We drafted legal documents on the terms of my consultancy, effective once the bidding process had ended,” Porter writes about his relationship with SNC-Lavalin. “In the meantime, I offered to do some informal, unpaid work on their behalf.”

Porter points out that the final decision to award the contract was made by Normand Bergeron, CEO of Infrastructure Québec; Clermont Gignac, in charge of the modernization of Quebec hospitals; and himself in a sealed-off room in the presence of an auditor and Quebec’s ethics commissioner.

Ironically, a book that Porter has written as part of a campaign to assert his innocence could provide the prosecution with some added context in its case against him.

Porter, however, denies that he accepted $22.5 million in bribes to secure the contract for SNC-Lavalin, suggesting that he is the victim of a “witch hunt” because he was an outsider who succeeded in getting an English-language hospital built in Quebec.

Porter and his wife, Pamela Mattock, were arrested by Interpol agents on May 26, 2013, while travelling to Panama. In the book, he states that he was en route to Antigua and Barbuda, with a “diplomatic passport” from his native Sierra Leone, to set up a cancer clinic. But one of the big unanswered questions in the book is why Porter would choose to fly first from his home in the Bahamas to Panama, hundreds of kilometres to the west, rather than straight to Antigua and Barbuda, already located in the Caribbean.

Porter says he’s sharing a prison cell in La Joya with a Hells Angel from Quebec and a drug lord from the United Kingdom. Because of his outside reputation and his status as a physician, Porter says he has succeeded in running a pawn business in jail and has the benefits of a cook named Julio and an inmate, called “The Mexican,” who teaches him Spanish. He also has acquired what he refers to in jest as a “summer home” in jail, a rooftop spot where he can breathe fresh air and enjoy the view.

aderfel@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: Aaron_Derfel

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Arthur Porter’s book details daily life inside jail

September 12, 2014, 8:42 am
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Despite being locked up in a notoriously violent Panamanian jail for more than a year, Arthur Porter says he enjoys the services of a personal cook who prepares his meals, a carpenter who fashioned a bed for him that converts into a desk and a Spanish-lessons teacher who is known simply as “The Mexican.”

His jail cell — which he shares with a Quebec Hells Angel and a drug lord from the United Kingdom — is carpeted, he says, and all must take off their shoes before entering.

Porter, formerly CEO of the McGill University Health Centre, was able to write his poison-pen book, The Man Behind The Bow Tie, with the aid of an iPad — a verboten item in the overcrowded jail where many prisoners do not have the luxury of a cell but must sleep on the gym floor or in the hallways.

Porter credits the keen political and business skills he honed in the outside world — skills that catapulted him to the heights of power in Quebec — with keeping him alive in jail. Indeed, he claims in his memoir that he is now running a “lucrative” business as a pawn broker, charging high interest to inmates on weeklong loans of sums as low as $25 and then usually keeping pawned items worth double, like a much-in-demand fan, when they’re not able to pay.

A fellow inmate he calls Western Union — who, mysteriously, is able to arrange for money transfers from the outside world — helps Porter procure his cash for pawn-brokering, minus a hefty 10-per-cent fee. And with Porter’s new-found prison wealth, he has managed to buy everything from fresh oranges to a rooftop “summer home” where he can breathe fresh air and enjoy panoramic views with three other powerful prisoners.

Porter writes that he was able to parlay his medical skills as a physician into privileged status in a jail where underpaid, young and scared guards leave the inmates to their own devices except for the weekly rollcalls. Even as he himself says he is fighting lung cancer that has spread to his bones, Porter notes that he treats inmates for a variety of ailments — from the common cold to old festering bullet wounds (and as he confided in a recent interview with Maclean’s magazine, rape-related injuries, too).

He has become particularly adept at removing stitches with a nail clipper, he adds, and once used a pair of pliers to extract an infected molar from a patient — using pure cocaine as an anesthetic. Oh, and he learned to sleep while standing up when he was penned in with dozens of inmates in a holding cell for a few days before being transferred to La Joya.

Such fantastical exploits beg the obvious question: is any of this true or another tall tale by a man who has managed to smooth talk everyone from Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard to Prime Minister Stephen Harper?

Independent accounts of Porter’s prison lifestyle by a few fellow inmates who have either contacted The Gazette or tweeted to the outside world would appear to buttress at least some of Porter’s claims.

In June 2013, just days after Porter arrived in La Joya, a convicted Canadian drug-trafficker emailed The Gazette a shower-stall photo of Porter standing in Bermuda shorts next to fellow inmates, and said that Porter had already acquired through clandestine means a Blackberry and was close to securing a coveted bed.

Another inmate, who writes a blog called Behind Bars, has corroborated Porter’s claim of the overcrowded conditions at La Joya, writing that prisoners “who don’t have spaces in the cells are forced to build shacks on top of the cells or put up hammocks. … The rest sleep on the gym floor. … Others set up their sleeping mats in the passages when others have gone to bed. It’s definitely a jungle!”

But back to Porter’s book. In a chapter entitled, “Anything is Possible in La Joya,” Porter spares no detail in describing life in the vermin-infested prison populated mostly with Colombian, Venezuelan, Mexican and Panamanian drug dealers who have formed vicious gangs and where “knives and guns (are) tucked into the fronts of shorts.”

“The prison is a raw portrait of humanity,” Porter writes in the book, which is being published by Figure.1 on Sept. 15.

“It is kill or be killed. Natural selection is the order of the day and only the strongest survive.”

Since medical care is “non-existent” in La Joya, “my position as a doctor placed me in high esteem,” and his first break came when he made friends with a pilot of the late, fearsome Colombian drug kingpin, Pablo Escobar. The inmate “asked me to join him in his cell. That single request immediately vaulted me into the ranks of (the) top inmates at La Joya.”

The Colombian pilot is protected by a “big dog” — essentially a prisoner-bodyguard — who now protects Porter.

“For the vast majority of the inmates, the best they can hope for is to stay alive, with cold concrete for a bed,” writes Porter. “I have seen men beaten, bloodied and even killed right before my eyes.”

But prison life has also been tough on Porter, who is contesting extradition to Quebec to face charges of defrauding the MUHC of $22.5 million. His lawyer, Ricardo Bilonick, said that two months ago, Porter was maced in the face by prison guards during a raid in which he lost consciousness for five to 10 minutes and had to be revived by fellow inmates. And of course, there is the terminal cancer Porter says he has been battling and for which he was told initially that he had only nine months left to live.

That was 20 months ago — before he started writing his book in an unsanitary prison while treating patients and himself, in his case, with chemo drugs that his lawyer delivers to him. But as he told Maclean’s, he hopes he’s in the “one per cent of cases” that respond very well to the experimental drug he’s taking.

In the meantime, he has his “employees” do the menial chores for him, like cleaning toilets.

aderfel@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: Aaron_Derfel

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Ex-mayor Gérald Tremblay knew about corruption: police informant

September 15, 2014, 7:42 pm
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MONTREAL — He knew.

A secret police informant claims former Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay knew about a corrupt system at city hall in which construction companies allegedly gave a 10-per-cent cut from their rigged municipal contracts in equal portions to the Mafia and to Tremblay’s now-defunct Union Montreal party, states a newly released section of an affidavit filed in court by Sûreté du Québec investigators.

“Gérald Tremblay is well aware but he prefers to play the ostrich,” the affidavit quotes the source, who is known only by a code in the document. Even the code is redacted, however.

The source, one of three unidentified informants in the affidavit, contradicts Tremblay’s repeated denials that he was aware of corruption in his administration.

The affidavit was filed by investigators with Opération Marteau, the police investigative unit of Quebec’s permanent anti-corruption squad, in 2010 to obtain search warrants from a judge to search the cellphone records of Tremblay’s former right-hand man, Frank Zampino.

The Unité permanente anticorruption, or UPAC, arrested Zampino, who quit politics in 2008, with eight other individuals in May 2012 on fraud and conspiracy charges related to an alleged plot to rig the sale of the city-owned Contrecoeur site in the city’s east-end in favour of the firm Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc. between 2006 and 2007.

The Gazette petitioned the court in 2012 to obtain the search warrant containing the affidavit. Other media have since joined The Gazette to have a judge unblock redacted portions of the affidavit.

The source, who is one of three unidentified informants in the affidavit, contends that the city of Montreal “is infiltrated” by the Mafia, which “controls” the awarding of municipal contracts. The informant says that members of the Mafia obtain the majority of water and sewer contracts, the affidavit reads. And, the informant says, it was the Mafia that made the “rule” that companies have to be “invited” to bid on municipal contracts. That means that a legitimate business that doesn’t know the “rule” and that asks the city for the public tender documents to bid on a contract quickly gets a visit from goons who get the message across to the business to not submit a bid.

The informant says the so-called “invited” companies that can bid on city contracts have to add 10 per cent to their bids, the affidavit says. Half of that goes to the Mob and the other half to “the entourage of mayor Gérald Tremblay, either to the councillors responsible for awarding the contract and for Tremblay’s election campaigns,” the affidavit continues, citing the informant.

Gérald Tremblay is well aware but prefers to stick his head in the sand, the affidavit says, citing the informant. That fact “pleases the councillors involved since he (Tremblay) is awkward facing questions that are asked.”

In another excerpt that the judge has rendered public, a second informant not identified in the affidavit told police that companies belonging at the time to former construction magnate Tony Accurso, who was also arrested in the Contrecoeur case, Simard-Beaudry, Construction Marton and Montage d’acier international, as well as Construction F. Catania used the Hells Angels as a “persuasive force” against people who were “off-putting.” The informant alleged that the Mafia controlled the calls for tender for roads, sewers, water mains and waste water treatment, a market worth about $10 billion per year, in such municipalities as Montreal, Terrebonne, Mascouche and Repentigny.

None of the allegations in the affidavit has been tested in court.

lgyulai@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: CityHallReport

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Justice Minister Vallée says she won’t meddle with Charbonneau Commission

September 16, 2014, 9:37 pm
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QUEBEC — It isn’t for a politician to meddle with the work of the Charbonneau Commission by calling for an extension of the independent inquiry’s mandate, said Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée. She was reacting to a dead-letter Parti Québécois motion to prolong the commission’s public hearings — although the commission itself hasn’t asked for any more time.

“The members of the commission are masters of their own work and we have to respect that,” she said. “It isn’t up to me, from far away, from the outside and without access to the documents they have compiled, to start playing manager and to criticize.”

Earlier that day, the PQ’s point person for ethics and integrity, Stéphane Bergeron, said the commission should be allowed to go into extra innings so it could hear from more witnesses.

“Certain testimony left us hungry for more,” Bergeron said. “An artificial date shouldn’t bring a sudden end to the gigantic work conducted so far. The commission must go to the end of its mandate, other witnesses must be heard.”

The commission has a responsibility to explain why it didn’t summon certain witnesses, Bergeron added. “If it was simply a question of time, of deadlines, that doesn’t justify rushing the end of their work and not getting to the bottom of things,” he said.

Bergeron said his call for an extension was prompted by “extremely troubling” comments by retired Sûreté du Québec inspector Sylvain Tremblay, who told Le Devoir on Monday that the commission overlooked key witnesses and evidence possibly implicating the Quebec Liberal Party.

“They had ample material with the Duchesneau report, Operation Diligence and Operation Colisée,” Tremblay said. Tremblay was one of main SQ officers involved in the police operations SharQC and Diligence, which led to a crackdown on the Hells Angels and established links between gangs and FTQ-Construction, according to Le Devoir.

“They had everything to describe the system. And that was their mission,” he continued.

“If you look at the final result, the objective isn’t completely attained. The system is still in place.”

As things stand, the commission heard from the last of 190 witnesses on Sept. 11.

The inquiry is set to wrap up in April next year, when it is expected to deliver its final report. The commission’s term was already extended once, in March of 2013. A former forensic accountant for Hydro-Québec, Michel Forget, holds the honour of being the last to testify before Justice France Charbonneau.

gvendeville@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: geoffvendeville

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Former FTQ boss Jocelyn Dupuis guilty of defrauding union (with video)

September 26, 2014, 4:42 pm
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Just because things have always been done a certain way, doesn’t make it right.

Jocelyn Dupuis learned that lesson the hard way Friday when a Quebec Court judge found the former head of Quebec’s biggest construction union guilty of defrauding the organization through inflated expense reports.

In a period of just 43 weeks during his 11-year reign at the helm of the Quebec Federation of Labour, Dupuis submitted expense claims for $225,000, almost all of it spent in restaurants.

A charge on Dupuis’s credit card for $41.61 from St-Hubert became an expense of $1,685.18 from Brochetterie Grec on his FTQ expense claim. That meant a windfall of $1,643.57 for Dupuis.

One meal at Gibby’s for which there was an official receipt from the restaurant showed lunch for four people totalled $1,545.12 and included two bottles of wine at $295 apiece. That was expensed over the Christmas holidays, when the FTQ construction offices weren’t open.

Crown prosecutor Jacques Dagenais said it was strange that in 2008 a wealthy trade union would accept a scrap of paper as a receipt for meals totalling thousands of dollars.

“There were no controls in terms of the expenses,” he said outside the courtroom after the verdict was rendered. “People who do not see themselves as crooks or bank robbers and would never outright steal … when it comes to public funds, they show more laxity, as if it’s less serious.

“But in fact public money is more sacred.”

Throughout his trial in April, Dupuis’s lawyer maintained that everyone on the FTQ executive committee knew about the lax system of bookkeeping and the committee approved the monthly expense reports.

But in his 25-page written judgment that took him over an hour to read aloud in court, Judge Denis Lavergne said the negligence of the victim “does not constitute a defence against a criminal act.”

“It is implausible and contrary to common sense … that the executive committee of a serious trade union organization would be complicit in approving payment for meals based on false documents ..,” he wrote.

That behaviour would “deliberately contravene the interests of union members” and the “most basic transparency,” he wrote.

Dupuis claimed several receipts of about $400 each from a breakfast joint called Hawg’s Deli, but the owner said his total sales wouldn’t even reach that in a day.

Dupuis, who resigned from the FTQ in 2008 after a scandal over his expense claims, sat in the front row, his jaw often clenching as the judge read the judgment. Once Lavergne reached the verdict and called a recess, Dupuis left the room and ducked into another room with his lawyer.

After a warrant for his arrest was issued in 2010 while he was vacationing in Florida, Dupuis turned himself in. The warrant stemmed from Operation Diligence, an offshoot of the police investigation into the Hells Angels, covering the period from Dec. 3, 2007 to Nov. 11, 2008.

Late last year, Dupuis took the stand at the Charbonneau Commission looking into corruption and collusion in the province’s construction industry and was quizzed about his links with high-ranking Mob enforcers and members of the Hells Angels.

The commission has heard repeated allegations that the FTQ’s powerful construction wing and its Fonds de solidarité investment fund were influenced and infiltrated by organized crime.

A pre-sentencing hearing was set for Oct. 21.

smontgomery@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: MontgomerySue

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Helicopter escapees’ drug trial prepares to be handed to jury

October 4, 2014, 3:41 pm
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The drug trafficking trial of three men who pulled off a daring escape from a penitentiary near Quebec City in June, only to be recaptured days later, has entered its final stage.

The three men, Serge Pomerleau, 50, Denis Lefebvre, 53, and Yves Denis, 35, escaped from the Quebec Detention Centre, commonly referred to as Orsainville, on June 7 by using a helicopter despite the fact officials at the jail knew the trio were plotting it months beforehand, in March. They were found several days later hiding in a rented condominium in Old Montreal.

The three men were first arrested in 2010 in Operation Ecrevisse, a lengthy investigation by the Sûreté du Québec into drug trafficking and a long series of violent acts, including homicides, in the Abitibi region and elsewhere. More than 50 people were arrested in Operation Ecrevisse but four men — the trio who escaped in June and a man named Thierry Beland — were singled out as alleged leaders of the many drug traffickers within the network and their cases were transferred from a courthouse in Val d’Or to Quebec City. When the men arrived at the detention centre near Quebec City in March, authorities there already had information that they would try to escape and that a helicopter would likely be used to carry it out.

The trio escaped while their trial before a jury was well underway. When they were recaptured two weeks later the trial resumed but Beland’s case was severed from the others and returned to the Val d’Or courthouse to be heard at a later date.

The trio are alleged to have supplied drugs like cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines to many parts of the Abitibi region and, according to evidence heard during the trial, were connected to the Hells Angels outlaw motorcycle gang. Pomerleau, the alleged leader of the entire network, faces 28 charges in all in the drug trafficking trial including conspiracy, four counts of drug trafficking and several counts related to firearms. Denis faces 19 charges in the Quebec City case and Lefebvre faces 19.

Superior Court Justice Louis Dionne, the presiding judge in the trial, ended the day Friday by sequestering the jury and informing them he would resume his final instructions Saturday morning before sending them off to deliberate. The jury will continue to be sequestered until they reach a verdict on the many charges.

If they are convicted, the three men face the possibility of having to serve very long sentences. One man arrested in Operation Ecrevisse, as the leader of one of three drug trafficking cells that operated in the Abitibi region, pleaded guilty to a series of charges in 2011 and received a 10-year prison sentence. He has since become a witness for the prosecution. Another leader of one of the drug trafficking cells, Carlo Placidi, 60, a close friend of Pomerleau’s, received the equivalent of a 12-year prison term in January.

The three men also face charges related to the escape in a separate case that is not before the jury. All three men are also charged with murder in the deaths of Benoit Denis and Johnny Coutu. Denis was killed in a town near Joliette in May 2010, and Coutu was killed in Laval during the summer of 2009. The trial for both murders is scheduled to be heard at the Montreal courthouse, over the course of five months, beginning in January 2016.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

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Rock Machine boss Jean-François Émard arrested on drug charges

October 6, 2014, 1:54 pm
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A man who has done little to hide the fact he is the leader of a motorcycle gang that once waged a bloody war with the Hells Angels in Quebec is behind bars following his arrest on drug trafficking charges.

Jean-François Émard, 38, appeared before a judge at the Valleyfield courthouse on Monday where he faces four criminal charges. The Crown objected to his release and he was ordered detained for a future bail hearing. Émard was arrested late Sunday night after a Sûreté du Québec officer pulled over a car in Valleyfield for a routine Highway Code violation. The driver, a woman, was suspected of violating her probation, the car was searched and police found 490 methamphetamine pills, said SQ Sgt. Joyce Kemp, adding a 38-year-old man (Émard) was a passenger in the car.

On Monday, Émard was charged with possession with intent to traffick in methamphetamines, possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, possession of $300 suspected of being the proceeds of crime and simple possession of marijuana. A 30-year-old woman from Ontario faces similar charges. According to the indictment, Émard lists his residence as being in a small town in Ontario, near the border with Quebec, but in previous arrests he has listed his address as being in Quebec.

In December 2013, he completed a 2-year sentence he received after having pleaded guilty to to three counts of drug trafficking as well as the production of an illegal narcotic.

During the past summer, he granted at least two interviews to the French language station TVA and to La Presse, during which he and other men with him showed off their gang patches, confirming that the Rock Machine, a gang that disappeared in 2000, was back in Quebec. Émard told TVA he was the vice-president of the gang’s worldwide membership. The gang’s name alone evokes memories of a violent conflict the Rock Machine was involved in against the Hells Angelsthat began in 1994 and resulted in the deaths of more than 160 people, including several innocent victims. But in September, Émard told La Presse the resurrected version of the Rock Machine is not an enemy of the Hells Angels.

“There is no war. To the contrary, we respect them,” Émard told the newspaper, while adding that they party with the Hells Angels.

The Rock Machine in Montreal was founded at least two years before the Hells Angels declared war in 1994 on it and a group of other organized crime gangs that came to be known as The Alliance. It was founded by Salvatore and Giovanni Cazzetta, two brothers who had previously known then Hells Angels leader Maurice (Mom) Boucher through their ties to a Montreal street gang. Originally, the Rock Machine was intended as a reaction against the Hells Angels. It wasn’t a motorcycle gang and it did not adhere to a strict set of rules like the ones the Hells Angels are asked to follow. But by the late 1990s, the Rock Machine did become a motorcycle gang, apparently as part of its eventually successful effort to join the Bandidos, a much larger international gang.

In 2000, the Rock Machine was officially folded into the Bandidos. But before that happened, the Hells Angels offered several members of the Rock Machine the chance to defect to their side and many did, notably Salvatore Cazzetta. The defections, combined with a large-scale police roundup of the Bandidos in 2002 following an investigation dubbed Operation Amigo, appeared to crush whatever was left of the original Rock Machine.

The more recent version of the Rock Machine has ties to the past version. Its website lists three Canadian members in a section titled “Brothers behind Bars.” One of the men is Danny Borris, 40, a resident of New Brunswick who is incarcerated. Borris was arrested by the Montreal police, in 2002, in Operation Amigo, and ended up receiving a 12-month sentence for drug trafficking in Operation Amigo.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

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Rock Machine 2.0: A dark chapter re-written?

October 7, 2014, 3:13 am
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A man alleged to be a leader in a newly resurrected version of the Rock Machine motorcycle gang was arrested Sunday and was charged Monday in Valleyfield with drug possession.

Jean-François Emard, 38, was arrested during a routine police operation. At 38, Emard was all of eight-years old-when a bloody gang war broke out between a 20th century version of the Rock Machine and the Hells Angels. By the time the shootings and bombings had stopped in 2002, more than 160 people were dead, several of them innocent bystanders, and Quebec’s police forces had finally been galvanized into recognizing the role criminal biker gangs played in Quebec’s illegal drug trade and how far they were prepared to expand it. And in the end, the Rock Machine had been declared the loser of that gang war.

But Emard has given at least two interviews to media in recent months where he has confirmed his leadership role in the motorcycle club but denied it is a rival organization to the Hells, the most powerful gang of its kind in the world. But if it isn’t positioning itself for some kind of role in the gang hierarchy, what exactly is it doing here in Quebec 12 years after apparently losing its power base? We asked that question to Gazette police reporter Paul Cherry. Click on the audio player below to hear what he had to say. And remember, you can listen to all of our podcasts at montrealgazette.com/montreal@themoment on iTunes  and follow us on Facebook

 

 

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Quebec taking steps to avoid repeat of helicopter prison break

October 30, 2014, 5:14 pm
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After two jailbreaks involving helicopters in 15 months, Quebec is taking pains to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

The provincial government is moving forward with six recommendations derived from a partly redacted report on the investigation into the helicopter prison break in Orsainville last June, Public Security Minister Lise Thériault said Thursday.

The author of the report, retired deputy public security minister Michel Bouchard, calls for systematic searches of all prison staff and a review of the security conditions for inmates with links to organized crime.

Even before the report’s publication on Thursday, Thériault said the government had sprung to action by setting up no-fly zones around prisons and covering some prison yards with steel netting.

After three inmates with ties to the Hells Angels and facing drug trafficking charges escaped from the Quebec Detention Centre in Orsainville on June 7, the Parti Québécois skewered the government for overlooking the lessons from an earlier helicopter escape. About 15 months before, two men held a helicopter pilot at gunpoint and forced him to fly over the St-Jérôme Detention Centre to airlift out two detainees.

Although not asked to investigate the first helicopter jailbreak, Bouchard weighed in to put the Orsainville escape into context. The report describes the St-Jérôme incident as “surprising but predictable” since it was the first incident of its kind in the province, but had many precedents in France and two in Belgium in 2007 alone.

“It is difficult to conclude that prison personnel were well-prepared to react in the face of such a method of escape,” Bouchard wrote.

In her defence, Thériault referred to a short passage in the 76-page report saying the cabinet had been supplied “erroneous, incomplete or imprecise” information. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, she said: “What’s important for me is that we reviewed our procedures so that we can talk to one another and give ourselves the right information. I can tell you corrective measures were taken.”

Asked if any prison staff were held accountable for supplying false information, Thériault replied: “I’m not carrying out a witch hunt. I’m here to take action.” The report’s recommendations have already been applied or will be soon, the minister said in a news release.

In the days following the Orsainville escape, Thériault contradicted herself several times in interviews, notably when she said a judge had lowered the security conditions of the three inmates when it was in fact a prison official who made the decision. In a radio interview, Thériault suggested someone in her entourage must have “lied” to her.

The Parti Québécois’ public security critic, Pascal Bérubé, said the report should reveal the name of the person who supposedly lied to the minister. “I don’t think Mr. Bouchard should have any objection to revealing the identity of that person since it’s clearly someone of a very high level who is advising the minister,” he said.

With files from The Canadian Press

gvendeville@montrealgazette.com

Twitter.com/geoffvendeville

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Other Hells Angels who were recently released

November 5, 2014, 4:15 pm
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They were members of the most feared criminal organization in Quebec during the 1990s, but the Hells Angels’ Montreal-based Nomads chapter’s dominance within the underworld came to a screeching halt in 2001 thanks to a long police investigation.

Almost all members of the Nomads chapter received lengthy prison sentences as a result of Operation Springtime 2001. In 2009, the biker gang’s five remaining chapters were dealt an equally crippling blow from Operation SharQc, which resulted in almost all of the gang’s members in this province being rounded up as well.

Recently, a few very influential members of the Nomads chapter have reached the statutory release dates on their sentences at the same time the Hells Angels are reported to be regrouping in Quebec. Most still have years left on their sentences and can be tossed back inside a federal penitentiary for merely meeting with a fellow Hells Angel. But below are a few men, like Michel Rose, the police will probably keep an eye on as the biker gang tries to re-establish the status it previously held among Quebec’s underworld.

Related

Wolodumir “Walter” Stadnick — Arguably the most influential Hells Angel in Canada when he was arrested in Operation Springtime 2001. While he resided in Ontario, Stadnick, 61, was a founding member of the Quebec-based Nomads chapter. During the 1990s, he was the key figure in keeping the Hells Angels connected to smaller biker gangs in Ontario before they established chapters in that province en masse in 2000. Stadnick has been a Hells Angel since 1982 and, at one point, was the gang’s national president in Canada. In September 2004, he was sentenced to a 20-year prison term after being convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, drug trafficking and participating in the activities of a gang. At the time of his sentencing, he had 14 years left to serve. On May 26 this year, the Parole Board of Canada imposed very strict conditions of his statutory release. According to a summary of the parole board’s decision, the police were very opposed to Stadnick, who served his time in a penitentiary in Ontario, setting foot in a certain province. The name of the province was redacted from the summary, but it was apparent it was Quebec. He is required to follow a curfew, reside at a halfway house and is not allowed to ride a motorcycle. He is required to follow any conditions imposed on his release for the next four years.

Donald “Pup” Stockford — During the Operation Springtime 2001 investigation, police found evidence that Stockford, 52, served as vice-president of the Nomads chapter between 1996 and 2001. Like Stadnick, Stockford was based in Ontario but was a founding member of the Nomads in Quebec. He was a key go-between for the Hells Angels in Quebec when they decided to patch over several smaller biker gangs in Ontario in 2000. Detailed accounting records kept by the Nomads revealed that Stockford transacted in 267 kilos of cocaine and 173 kilos of hashish in 2000. Stockford, a Hells Angel since 1993, was also sentenced to 20 years in 2004 and had 15 years left to serve when he entered a penitentiary. On Sept. 8, the parole board imposed conditions on his statutory release. He is also required to reside at a halfway house and is not allowed to wear any gang paraphernalia.

Denis “Pas Fiable” Houle — Last year, Houle, 61, didn’t show up for his parole hearing and was turned down for full parole and day parole. He received a 20-year sentence in 2003 after pleading guilty to some of the charges filed against him in Operation Springtime 2001. He was left with 15 years to serve when he pleaded guilty. Houle reached his statutory release date in September 2013 and the parole board imposed a condition that he not associate with anyone with a criminal record until his sentence expires in 2018.

Gilles “Trooper” Mathieu — He claims to have quit the Hells Angels in 2003, after he received a 20-year sentence following guilty pleas to charges filed in Operation Springtime 2001. In 2009, his disaffiliation with the gang was considered official by Correctional Service Canada, but the parole board was cautious and denied Mathieu day parole and full parole. In 2013, when Mathieu, 64, reached his statutory release date, the board imposed a condition that he reside at a halfway house. He appealed the condition through the board’s appellate section, but it was rejected in July.

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The Story So Far: Cell phones and flip-flops – PKP's getting angry

November 19, 2014, 1:14 pm
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Nine arrested in Laurentians as police bust alleged drug ring with ties to Hells Angels

November 19, 2014, 2:17 pm
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A regional integrated squad led by the Sûreté du Québec arrested nine people Wednesday as part of an investigation into a marijuana trafficking ring that provincial police allege was run by a man with ties to the Hells Angels.

The people arrested are suspected of growing pot in various parts of the Laurentians as well as selling it. As of Wednesday afternoon, the police seized more than 6,300 marijuana plants, 219 grow lamps and 25 pounds of marijuana packed in bags. Officers also seized three vehicles and uncovered equipment at two locations that was used to camouflage the high consumption of electricity normally associated with a large-scale marijuana grow-operation.

The organized crime squad made the arrests in municipalities in the lower Laurentians including St-Jérôme, Mirabel and St-Lin-des-Laurentides. According to a statement issued by the Sûreté du Québec, one of the people arrested is a 32-year-old man from St-Jérôme “who has ties to the Hells Angels,” the world’s largest outlaw motorcycle club.

Sgt. Gino Paré, a spokesperson for the SQ, said the investigation into the ring began in January and most of the people arrested will be charged with production and possession of marijuana. A few will also probably be charged with stealing electricity from Hydro-Québec, Paré added.

Eleven search warrants were carried out in residences, vehicles and a warehouse on Lamontagne St. in St-Jérôme. More than 60 police officers from the SQ and municipal police forces from Laval, St-Jérôme and Mirabel took part in the police operation. Regional integrated squads are based in various parts of Quebec and bring together investigators from the SQ, whose expertise is in combating organized crime, with their colleagues from municipal police forces.

Three people made appearances before a judge at the St-Jérôme courthouse on Wednesday. Of the three, Martin Carrière, 32, and José Nolet, 43, were ordered to be held in custody for a bail hearing scheduled on Thursday. They were both charged with conspiracy to produce marijuana and possession of marijuana with the intent to traffic. The third man, Jean-François Charette, 31, faces less serious charges and was ordered released on Wednesday after agreeing to follow a series of conditions. The other people arrested on Wednesday will probably be charged at a later date.

While alleged to have ties to the most notorious biker gang in the world, Carrière does not have a criminal record in Quebec’s provincial courts. Nolet has a criminal record that dates back to 1990, when he resided in Val d’Or, for a series of minor thefts.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

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Case against Hells Angel won't go to trial until 2016

November 20, 2014, 5:36 pm
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Despite being arrested more than five years ago in an investigation of the Hells Angels’ alleged illicit activities in the downtown core and on the South Shore of Montreal, biker Salvatore Cazzetta likely won’t have his day (or weeks) in court for another two years.

Cazzetta, 59, sported a winter jacket with a Harley Davidson logo on the back and kept his long hair in the same ponytail he has worn for decades, while appearing before Superior Court Justice Marc David at the Longueuil courthouse on Thursday. He is out on bail and appeared to have no objection to learning that his trial, estimated to last six weeks, won’t be heard until September 2016, at the earliest.

A request Cazzetta made several months ago, to have his trial severed from the anticipated trial of three other men — Peter Rice, 57, and his sons Burton, 39 and Peter Francis, 36 — contributed to the delay.

The men were arrested in 2009 along with 40 other people as part of Project Machine, a Montreal police investigation into drug trafficking in downtown Montreal that branched off to include alleged contraband cigarette trafficking in Kahnawake. Cazzetta and the three other men face charges related to the contraband tobacco part of the investigation. They are accused of defrauding the governments of Quebec and Canada, by depriving both of tax revenues from the sale of cigarettes, and conspiracy to do the same. Cazzetta and Peter Francis Rice are also charged with committing a crime for the benefit of a criminal organization.

A prosecutor who substituted for Philippe Vallières-Roland, the actual Crown attorney in the case, told David on Thursday that the prosecution wants Cazzetta to be tried with Rice and his sons. She asked the judge to assign Cazzetta’s case to a pre-trial hearing scheduled for Friday where Rice and his sons are to appear before Justice Guy Cournoyer. David rejected the request because his colleague, Cournoyer, already ruled earlier this year that he can’t hear Cazzetta’s motion requesting a separate trial.

“It’s like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube,” David said while explaining why the court can’t return Cazzetta’s case before Cournoyer, for the time being.

David agreed with a request, from defence lawyer Patrick Davis, to place Cazzetta’s case on the next Superior Court role, which begins in Longueuil on Jan. 5. It was then that the judge advised both sides that, because the Superior Court schedule is so tight in Longueuil, both Cazzetta and the Rices won’t see their trials begin until September 2016.

The outcome of Cazzetta’s case is being monitored carefully by police investigators. Cazzetta is alleged to be a leading member of the Hells Angels Montreal chapter. It and the gang’s four other chapters based in Quebec were frozen in 2009 after arrests were made in Operation SharQc, a police investigation that led to a roundup of almost every member of the biker gang based in Quebec. The gang, which has chapters all over the world, has rules that require each chapter has six members who are able to attend functions like monthly meetings.

While no trial has been held yet in Operation SharQc, some Hells Angels who pleaded guilty early on — to taking part in an general conspiracy to murder rival gang members — have already finished serving their sentences. During the month of June, the Hells Angels motorcycle club official world website posted a message stating: “HAMC Montreal. Welcome back to the family.” It is an indication the chapter is no longer frozen and has at least six members that can go back to sporting the gang’s colours. The notice was posted a few months after the 96-month sentence to David Lefebvre expired. Lefebvre, 41, a member of the Montreal chapter, received the sentence in connection with Operation SharQc.

The gang’s Sherbrooke chapter recently posted a message on the same website indicating it will be “reopening soon.”

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

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Lawyer convicted of gangsterism will stay in jail

November 27, 2014, 2:19 pm
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Louis Pasquin, the first lawyer in Canada to be convicted of gangsterism, learned Thursday he has run out of options ‎and will have to continue serving time in a federal penitentiary for drug trafficking.

The Supreme Court of Canada announced Thursday it will not hear Pasquin’s appeal of the case in which he was arrested, along with a Hells Angel and a well-connected drug trafficker in a police operation code named Project Piranha.

After his arrest, in 2006, Pasquin — a defence lawyer who for years handled cases at the Montreal courthouse — launched a constitutional challenge of how telephone calls secretly recorded by the Sûreté du Québec during the investigation were allowed into evidence.

He claimed the recorded conversations were protected by attorney-client privilege, which restricts police from listening to conversations when a lawyer is defending a client.

Two Quebec Court judges listened to the recordings and determined provincial police could continue wiretapping Pasquin’s conversations with the drug trafficker, Louis-Alain Dauphin.

A trial judge also allowed the recordings into evidence when Pasquin’s case started. In April, a panel of three Quebec Court of Appeal judges unanimously ag‎reed with the trial judge.

Thursday’s decision by the Supreme Court means Pasquin, who was incarcerated in May, will serve his sentence while all the major players arrested in Project Piranha are already free.

Timeline of events

Jan. 27, 2004: The Sûreté du Québec begins Project Piranha, an investigation into Louis-Alain Dauphin, a well-connected yet independent drug trafficker who operated primarily in the Laurentians. Investigators suspect Pasquin is helping Dauphin in his drug deals.

Oct. 26, 2005: A request is made to a Quebec Court judge to determine whether 68 intercepted conversations are protected by attorney-client privilege. The judge ultimately determined that 47 of the conversations were not protected. During the investigation, police seized 49 kilos of cocaine, after which Pasquin and Dauphin stopped talking so much over the phone.

March 14, 2006: Pasquin is arrested. He is among 23 people eventually indicted in Project Piranha, including Hells Angel Salvatore Brunetti, Dauphin and Michael Russel, a pilot who flew drugs into Montreal for Dauphin from Kelowna, B.C.

March 9, 2007: Dauphin and Brunetti plead guilty to taking part in a conspiracy to trafficking in cocaine in various cities north of Montreal and a gangsterism charge. Dauphin was sentenced to a seven-year prison term while Brunetti was sentenced to two years.

June 2008: Brunetti, 62, reaches his statutory release date and is allowed to leave a penitentiary.

March 6, 2009: After a lengthy trial, Pasquin is convicted on four charges, including the drug trafficking conspiracy and trafficking in substances designated for the profit or under the direction of a criminal organization, making him the first lawyer in Canada to be convicted of gangsterism.

June 12, 2009: Pasquin is sentenced to a 54-month prison term but avoids entering a federal penitentiary by filing an appeal over the recorded telephone conversations.

Jan. 18, 2011: Dauphin is granted full parole by the Parole Board of Canada.

Feb. 27, 2011: The 18-month prison sentence pilot Michael Russel received, after pleading guilty in August 2009, expires.

April 15, 2014: The Quebec Court of Appeal releases a unanimous decision maintaining three of the charges Pasquin was convicted of, including conspiracy and gangsterism, but acquits him on one drug trafficking charge. Pasquin continues to insist he introduced Russel to Dauphin but knew nothing of their drug-trafficking schemes. The Crown argues that, on their own, each piece recorded conversation proves little, but when considered together make clear Pasquin was facilitating Dauphin and Russel’s transactions and letting them use his house for meetings. The appellate court agrees Pasquin had difficulty explaining what was behind some of the cryptic conversations. Three weeks later, Pasquin is brought to a federal penitentiary to begin serving his sentence. Because he was convicted of gangsterism, he is required to serve at least half of his sentence before being eligible for parole.

Nov. 27, 2014: The Supreme Court of Canada announces it will not hear Pasquin’s appeal.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

twitter.com/pcherryreporter

Paul Cherry is the Montreal Gazette’s crime reporter.

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Mom Boucher's son charged with threatening cops

December 1, 2014, 12:06 pm
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The son of a former Hells Angel who was once one of the most notorious criminals in Canada is behind bars after being charged with uttering threats to police officers.

Francis Boucher, 39, a man who was known in the 1990s as “Le Fils” when he was part of the Hells Angels network run by his father, Maurice (Mom) Boucher, has been detained after Montreal police responded to a call about a man who was uttering threats at a bar on Beaubien St. on Friday.

The man appeared to be impaired and threatened to kill staff at the bar and to burn the place down when they tried to calm him, Montreal police Constable Raphael Bergeron said.

“When we arrived, he was escorted outside and he started insulting the officers. Then he made threats to assault and kill the officers. He said they didn’t know who they were dealing with,” Bergeron said.

Francis Boucher is the son of former notorious Hells Angel Maurice (Mom) Boucher.

Francis Boucher is the son of former notorious Hells Angel Maurice (Mom) Boucher.

The younger Boucher was once part of the Rockers, a Hells Angels underling gang created by his father in the early 1990s. Members of the Rockers were ordered to do much of the dirty work for the Hells Angels’ Nomads chapter, based in Montreal, while it waged a bloody war with rival criminal organizations over drug trafficking turf.

Maurice Boucher, 61, is serving a life sentence for ordering the murders of two prison guards (and the attempted murder of another) and his once considerable influence on the Hells Angels in Quebec appears to be a thing of the past. In April, the Journal de Montréal reported that the elder Boucher had been voted out of the world’s most notorious outlaw motorcycle gang. As a convicted criminal serving a life sentence, he is of little use to the gang. If he were to be released, the Parole Board of Canada could attach conditions on his parole that would make him a liability if he took part in meetings that gang members are required to attend.

The extensive network Maurice Boucher created was dismantled in March 2001 as part of a lengthy investigation dubbed Operation Printemps 2001. As a longtime member of the Rockers, Francis Boucher was among the dozens of people arrested and ended up serving a 10-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, drug trafficking and participating in the activities of a gang. He reached his statutory release date, the two-thirds mark of his sentence, in 2009 but it was revoked after he was charged with threatening a woman he knew.

After he was arrested on Friday, Boucher was charged with five counts in all, including a threat to burn a Montreal police cruiser and two charges alleging he violated probation in a series of cases he pleaded guilty to recently that were related to conjugal violence. The case returns to court on Friday.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

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The Story So Far: Son of ex-Hells kingpin arrested

December 1, 2014, 12:56 pm
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Quebec's notorious Nomads chapter ready for parole

December 28, 2014, 6:16 pm
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The Hells Angels’ Nomads chapter in Quebec was once the most feared organized crime group in the province.

Its founding members were selected from the gang’s Montreal and Trois Rivières chapters, in 1995, by Maurice (Mom) Boucher (a Hells Angel for eight years at that point) as part of a plan to wage war with anyone who opposed his goal to expand the gang’s drug-trafficking turf exponentially.

Over the course of six years, more than 150 people were killed, including several innocent victims. At least 85 bombs were set off — including one in 1995 that killed Daniel Desrochers, an 11-year-old boy who was playing near a Jeep when it exploded — and 140 arson fires were set.

By 2000, it was clear the Nomads were winning the war as police discovered accounting files that revealed the chapter was making $5.5 million in profits, per month, off the sale of cocaine and hashish.

A written summary of a Parole Board of Canada decision made public last week concerning one of the Nomads, Gilles Mathieu, describes the group as one that “created a climate of terror within society.” The chapter was wiped out by a series of arrests in March 2001, following a police investigation dubbed Operation Printemps 2001. According to the Hells Angels’ official website, it no longer exists. Most of the chapter’s members ended up pleading guilty to charges of drug-trafficking, gangsterism and taking part in a general conspiracy to commit murder.

They received sentences that, for the most part, will expire between 2018 and 2020. Over the past year, four of the chapter’s members reached their statutory release dates, the two-thirds mark of their prison terms, and at least three appear intent to remain Hells Angels for life. But an overview shows Operation Printemps 2001 had a serious impact. One member is dead and another is on the lam. Three others are serving life sentences that would make them a liability to the gang if ever released. Another three have convinced the parole board they have quit the gang.

Hells Angels Nomads biker

Maurice (Mom) Boucher, the reputed head of the Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels in Quebec, flashes peace sign to photographers outside a funeral home in Montreal where wake for Normand ‘Biff’ Hamel is being held on Friday April 21, 2000.

Maurice (Mom) Boucher, 61. While many people in law enforcement believe he will be incarcerated for the rest of his life, the founder of the Nomads chapter can apply for day parole in roughly eight years. In 2002, Boucher was found guilty of ordering the deaths of three prison guards (one survived) in an attempt to intimidate Quebec’s justice system. He is serving three life sentences and has spent most of his time so far at a maximum-security penitentiary in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines. The year 2014 was a bad one for Boucher. He was reportedly kicked out of the Hells Angels in March and, in November, his son Francis, a former member of the Rockers, an underling gang the elder Boucher created, was arrested for threatening police officers.

David (Wolf) Carroll, 62. Where in the world is Wolf Carroll? That is the question Interpol poses on the current “Wanted” poster posted online seeking any information on the Hells Angel who has managed to avoid capture for more than 13 years. Interpol notes the “Hells Angels have chapters in more than 20 countries and information suggests that Carroll has frequented a number (of them) including Brazil, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, United States (as well as countries in South America and Europe).”

Nomads Hells Angels

Nomads member Rene Ouellette-Charlebois looks on from the Hell’s Angels Sorel bunker Friday December 29 in Tracy, Quebec.

René (Balloune) Charlebois, died at age 48. Earlier this year, a provincial coroner determined Charlebois took his own life, on Sept. 26, 2013, as the Sûreté du Québec closed in on the chalet in Îlette-au-Pé, near Sorel, where he had been hiding after having escaped from a penitentiary 12 days earlier. He was serving a life sentence for murdering a police informant. Shortly after Charlebois’s death, a friend of his turned over recordings to the SQ that contained evidence that Benoît Roberge, a Montreal police detective, had sold information about ongoing investigations to Charlebois. Roberge was arrested and, in March, pleaded guilty to breach of trust and participating in the activities of a criminal organization. Roberge is currently serving an 8-year prison term.

André Chouinard, 54. In February, Chouinard told the parole board he quit the Hells Angels in 1999, just one year after he was named a member of the Nomads chapter. Despite having a stellar reputation as a high-volume drug trafficker, he fell out of favour with the gang and, according to Chouinard, he left Quebec and went into hiding for years because the gang would not tolerate him as competition. He was indicted in Printemps 2001 and was arrested in 2003. A year later, he was sentenced to a 20-year prison term and was turned down for day parole in February.

Paul (Fon Fon) Fontaine, 47. He was a key player in Boucher’s first effort at expanding the gang’s control of drug-trafficking turf in eastern Montreal. As a member of the Rockers, he took orders from Boucher and, on Sept. 8, 1997, he and an accomplice murdered provincial prison guard Pierre Rondeau and almost killed Rondeau’s colleague, Robert Corriveau. Fontaine went on the lam for years after killing Rondeau and was named a full-patch member of the Nomads while he was hiding. In 2009, a jury found Fontaine guilty of both first-degree murder and attempted murder. He is currently serving a life sentence.

The Hells Angels Nomads chapter: Left to Right: Maurice (Mom) Boucher, André Chouinard, Normand Robitaille, David (Wolf) Carroll, Gilles (Trooper) Mathieu, Donald (Pup) Stockford, Wlater (Nurget) Stadnick, Normand (Biff) Hamel, Louis (Melou) Roy and Denis Houle. Seated: Michel Rose.

The Hells Angels Nomads chapter: Left to Right: Maurice (Mom) Boucher, André Chouinard, Normand Robitaille, David (Wolf) Carroll, Gilles (Trooper) Mathieu, Donald (Pup) Stockford, Wlater (Nurget) Stadnick, Normand (Biff) Hamel, Louis (Melou) Roy and Denis Houle. Seated: Michel Rose.

Denis (Pas Fiable) Houle, 61. Houle was serving a federal prison term in 1995 when Boucher persuaded him to leave the Montreal chapter and form the Nomads. While serving that sentence, Houle told the parole board: “With the Hells Angels, I have found a family.” This time around, Houle claims he quit the gang sometime after receiving his current overall 20-year prison sentence. He reached his statutory release date in September 2013.

Gilles (Trooper) Mathieu, 64. Like Houle, Mathieu reached his statutory release date in September 2013 but the parole board imposed the condition that he reside at a halfway house. Mathieu claims he quit the Hells Angels in 2009, but the board had a hard time looking past his longtime membership in the gang. On Dec. 17, Mathieu asked to have the halfway house condition lifted, a request supported by his case-management team. But during the hearing, the board learned Mathieu paid four visits to a barber who is a known associate of other Hells Angels. While Mathieu argued he simply went to the barber for haircuts, the board was skeptical and refused to lift the halfway house residency condition.

Richard (Dick) Mayrand, 51. Mayrand has known for years that his fellow Hells Angels killed his older bother Michel, as part of an internal purge, in 1985. So it comes as little surprise that the 22-year sentence Mayrand received in 2004 has done nothing to shake his faith in the biker gang. A decision taken by the parole board in late November, to impose conditions on his statutory release, reveals Mayrand remains a Hells Angel. “Your fidelity to the Hells Angels organization is qualified without fail. You remain loyal and you do not allow that to be criticized,” the board wrote in a summary of its decision. Mayrand left the gang’s Montreal chapter in January 2000 to take charge of the Nomads chapter while Boucher was detained and awaiting his second trial for murder. Mayrand recently told a parole officer: “I no longer need anything. I only need to help others. I want to be happy without material needs. However, the respect of the individual comes before everything else.”

Normand (Norm) Robitaille, 46. A couple of years ago, the Sûreté du Québec informed the parole board that, since 2009, Robitaille is no longer considered a Hells Angel. He was turned down for day parole in 2013 but has been granted permission, several times, to take unescorted leaves while he studies business at HEC Montréal. As of October, Robitaille had completed seven courses and was signed up for three more during the autumn session. Correctional Service Canada sends emails to his professors to confirm he actually attends classes. He will reach his statutory release date on Jan. 1, 2015.

Hells Angels Nomads

Michel Rose, Hell Angels Nomads and Michel Bergeron, Hells Angels South at the wake for Hells Angel, Normand ‘Biff’ Hamel.

Michel Rose, 59. During a statutory release hearing in November, Rose claimed to have a fax proving he is no longer a Hells Angel but the parole board was skeptical. Rose was fast-tracked into the gang, and named a full-patch member in 1999, because of his abilities as a large-scale drug trafficker and his contacts within the Port of Montreal. He had 16 years left to serve when he entered guilty pleas in 2004. Rose, a grandfather now, was ordered to reside at a halfway house for the six years left on his sentence.

Walter (Nurget) Stadnick, 62. While serving his sentence in Ontario, Stadnick was transferred to a maximum-security penitentiary twice because guards suspected he was involved in loansharking and trafficking in contraband. When his statutory release date arrived in June, he was described to the parole board as a polite and respectful inmate but one who refuses to discuss his involvement with the gang. Stadnick, a member of the Hells Angels since 1982, was ordered to reside at a halfway house and saw a special condition imposed on his release that forbids him from riding a motorcycle.

Donald (Pup) Stockford, 52. Before his arrest in 2001, Stockford, a founding member of the Nomads, worked as a stuntman on Hollywood movies — including the film Narc, starring Ray Liotta. He also has remained loyal to the Hells Angels while he serves the 15-year prison term he received in 2004. “You clearly decided to adopt criminality as your lifestyle and you took cold-blooded decision(s) to achieve your goals and there is nothing in your file to suggest that you have changed,” the parole board wrote in September. The board imposed a condition that Stockford reside at a halfway house while he is out on statutory release.

Richard (Rick) Vallée, 57. Vallée was a founding member of the Nomads chapter but was not indicted in Operation Printemps 2001. That’s because he was detained in a U.S. murder case in 1995, and later went into hiding after staging a brazen escape from a Montreal hospital before he could be extradited. He was eventually arrested, in 2003, and later convicted of murder, in 2008, following a trial in Albany, N.Y. He is currently incarcerated at a high-security penitentiary in Lewisburg, Penn.

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Release revoked for Bandido who once plotted to kill Mom Boucher

December 30, 2014, 1:09 pm
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A former biker gang member who plotted to kill former Hells Angel Maurice (Mom) Boucher during the biker war has seen his release on a lengthy prison term revoked after being allegedly linked to a marijuana grow-op.

Jean (Le Français) Duquaire, 58, was one of the more aggressive rivals to the Hells Angels as the biker gang sought to expand its drug trafficking turf in Quebec during the 1990s. The Hells Angels took on several organized crime groups and many members of those gangs eventually agreed to join the Bandidos, the only other outlaw motorcycle gang that, by the end of the 1990s, had a worldwide membership comparable to the Hells Angels.

Duquaire was a founding member of the Bandidos chapter in Montreal, an organization that was crippled, in June 2002, by Operation Amigo, a Montreal police investigation that resulted in the arrests of its members. During at least one of the trials related to Operation Amigo, a former gang member testified that, during the summer of 2000, Duquaire orchestrated an attempt to kill Boucher, who convinced fellow members of the Hells Angels’ Nomads chapter to commit to the conflict (Boucher, who is serving life sentences for murder, was reportedly voted out of the Hells Angels this year). After having spotted Boucher, who was riding in a green Volkswagen Beetle, at a gas station at the corner of Sherbrooke St. and St-Laurent Blvd., Duquaire ordered two gang members to arm themselves, track down the car and kill him. The men were unable to locate Boucher.

You knew very well what was going on at that residence. You knew that you were facing a risky situation. What you achieved (in terms of rehabilitation) seemed real and significant, but you were leading a double life — Parole board, in its decision to revoke Duquaire’s release

In 2003, Duquaire pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder, drug possession, illegal firearms possession, trafficking in weapons and participating in the activities of a criminal organization. Duquaire received a 16-year sentence for his leading role in many of the criminal activities uncovered by Operation Amigo and was left with 12 years to serve.

In 2010, he reached his statutory release date, the two-thirds mark of his sentence, and the Parole Board of Canada attached the condition that Duquaire be required to reside at a halfway house. For more than two years, Duquaire followed the rules of his halfway house well enough that the board lifted the condition. In April 2013, he was allowed to go free but in September of this year he suddenly found himself back behind bars.

According to a summary of a decision by the parole board, parole officers were advised that on Sept. 22 Duquaire showed up at a residence in St-Jérôme that was under surveillance by police investigating a marijuana grow-operation. He was accompanied by friend, who was carrying fresh earth for some of the plants.

Related

Duquaire was arrested as he exited the residence. A search of his car turned up $7,000 in cash and, inside the residence, police seized 40 kilos of marijuana buds. Duquaire told parole officers he had only been at the residence for 15 minutes and was there to collect rent for his girlfriend which, he claimed, explained the $7,000.

Despite the explanation, the parole board had doubts. Duquaire had the right to a hearing before the board in October but refused to attend. He is currently charged, at the St-Jérôme courthouse, with the illegal production of marijuana and possession with intent to traffic. The case returns to court on Jan. 23.

Duquaire’s current sentence expires on March 23, 2015.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

twitter.com/pcherryreporter

Paul Cherry is the Montreal Gazette’s crime reporter.

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