Francesco Fazio, one of eight Canada Revenue Agency auditors charged in a lengthy RCMP investigation into alleged corruption at the agency’s Montreal office, has become the first to be convicted in connection with the probe.

On Friday, Quebec Court Judge Manon Ouimet said she simply did not believe Fazio, 57, a now-former auditor with CRA, when he claimed that the reason he stopped auditing Stamatis Argiroudis’s restaurant in 2005 was because Argiroudis had threatened him. During the trial, which started on June 8, Fazio testified that he dropped the audit because Argiroudis claimed he knew former Hells Angels leader Maurice (Mom) Boucher and members of street gangs, and therefore had underworld connections that could put an end to a nasty CRA audit.

In 2005, Argiroudis owned La Belle Place, a restaurant on Ontario St. E. Fazio was assigned to do a forecast audit of the restaurant’s potential revenue because its reported revenue appeared low. The audit involved more than a dozen visits to the restaurant to see how many clients it handled over a fixed period of time, and Fazio went over all of its receipts. At the end of the audit, Fazio told Argiroudis the restaurant would owe $600,000 in taxes based on Fazio’s estimate of the restaurant’s undeclared revenue from the sale of beer and food.

While summarizing the evidence she heard, Ouimet said Argiroudis was shocked the amount, and that the auditor then offered to discuss the matter privately in the restaurant’s disabled bathroom. Fazio searched carefully for any cameras in the bathroom, and then made Argiroudis an offer.

Argiroudis testified that Fazio told him: “If you give me $90,000 I can come back with a more favourable evaluation.”

The restaurant owner said that he was shocked by how much of a bribe Fazio was seeking, and asked him why it was so high. He testified that Fazio replied: “I have to take care of people in my office.”

The exchange occurred in 2005, and much has transpired since. Argiroudis said he consulted two friends, including well-known Montreal businessman Peter Sergakis, and asked them whether they thought he should pay the bribe. He said both men advised him not to pay it. When Fazio returned, Argiroudis testified, he turned him down and mentioned his meeting with Sergakis and the other businessman. He said Fazio insisted on being paid a bribe and suggested Argiroudis “find the money.”

Argiroudis testified that he assumed Fazio eventually backed out of his file because Sergakis is well-known public figure.

The auditor who took over the Argiroudis file testified that Fazio was noticeably disappointed when the audit was transferred to her. She said Fazio claimed it was because he had put a lot of work into it.

The company that owned La Belle Place during the audit went bankrupt in 2007, and the restaurant has since changed owners. Argiroudis moved to Greece and never filed a complaint with the police. The second auditor in La Belle Place’s file ultimately determined the restaurant owed more than $100,000 in taxes from undeclared revenue. But by then, Argiroudis’s company was bankrupt.

In 2008, the RCMP launched Project Coche, an investigation into the CRA’s offices in downtown Montreal, as an extension of an investigation into two companies owned by 63-year-old (now former) construction magnate Antonio Accurso. The companies used fake invoices to decrease their reported revenues, and the RCMP started Project Coche because CRA employees allegedly provided guidance in the scam. The scale of the probe gradually widened and targeted other alleged forms of corruption, including Fazio’s request for a bribe in 2005.

The RCMP contacted Argiroudis in 2011 and by the following year, Fazio was charged with bribery, government fraud and breach of trust.

During the trial, he said he never asked for a bribe, yet Ouimet found Fazio guilty on all three counts.

Ouimet said that while she is convinced Argiroudis was capable of tax evasion, she believed the restaurateur’s account because he had nothing to gain from Fazio being convicted of a crime a decade later. Ouimet also noted that Fazio often looked to the ceiling of the courtroom while testifying, and had difficulty looking directly at her when asked.

During the trial, Argiroudis said that he did know Boucher, because the notorious Hells Angel used to dine at his restaurant before being convicted, in 2002, of ordering the murders of two provincial prison guards. But Argiroudis testified that while he did mention this acquaintance to Fazio, it had not been intended as a threat.

The case returns to court in July to set a date for a sentence hearing.

In February last year, the RCMP announced that Project Coche had come to an end. In all, eight former CRA employees, including Fazio, were charged in a variety of cases. The trials of the other seven have not yet begun.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

Five Hells Angels who pleaded guilty last month to taking part in a general conspiracy to commit murder were sentenced to time served on Wednesday, creating the possibility the gang can resurrect another of its chapters within days.

The five men were full-patch members of the Trois-Rivières chapter while investigated in Operation SharQc, a probe that targeted almost every member of the biker gang based in Quebec and led to charges being filed against 156 people in April 2009. The arrests made that year caused the Hells Angels to “freeze” all five of its chapters in Quebec. The gang’s international rules require that a chapter have at least six members who can attend functions like its monthly meetings.

Things appeared dire for many of the full-patch members arrested in 2009 because they were initially charged with several counts of first-degree murder as well as a conspiracy to commit murder between 1994 and 2002. But since then more than 100 have entered guilty pleas to the conspiracy charge while the first-degree murder charges were stayed.

During the sentence hearing at the Gouin courthouse on Wednesday, Quebec Superior Court Justice André Vincent was presented with a joint recommendation that the five men — Jean-François Bergeron, 53, Marc-André Hotte, 42, Steve Rainville, 41, Gilles Robidoux, 61 and Bernard Plourde, 51 — be sentenced to the time they have already served behind bars. A technicality in the Criminal Code required that Vincent sentence them to serve at least one more day behind bars.

Prosecutor Robert Rouleau said Bergeron, Hotte, Rainville and Robidoux have served the equivalent of 12 years and four months since they were arrested in 2009. (That’s based on a formula that every day served counts as two days.) Plourde has served the equivalent of 10 years and 10 months because he was already serving a prison term when the arrests in Operation SharQc were carried out.

As of Friday, all five can return to attending the gang’s functions if they are still members (several of the men arrested in Operation SharQc have said in court that they have retired from the gang). Alain Biron, 59, a man who has served as the president of the Trois-Rivières chapter in the past, was sentenced to time served last month when he pleaded guilty to being part of the same murder conspiracy. Also, the sentences of at least a couple of other Trois-Rivières Hells Angels will expire in a matter of months, including influential member Aurele Brouillette, 63, who had 29 months left to serve when he was sentenced for the murder conspiracy in 2013. Police sources have alleged in the past that Brouillette and Rainville were behind the establishment of a Hells Angels chapter in the Dominican Republic in 2009.  

Last year, the Hells Angels worldwide website claimed the Montreal chapter had been unfrozen and that the Sherbrooke chapter would be soon. References to all Quebec-based chapters on the same website have since changed and the link referring to the Sherbrooke chapter returning soon has vanished entirely.

Plourde has been a member of the Trois-Rivières chapter for more than a decade. In 2003, he was sentenced to a 66-month prison term after he was convicted on several charges related to a drug trafficking investigation, dubbed Operation Satchi, into how the Trois-Rivières chapter controlled drug trafficking across the Saguenay region. According to past Parole Board of Canada decisions, Plourde “controlled a vast territory” where the drugs he supplied were resold. In 2004, he told the parole board he intended to remain with the Hells Angels but argued that didn’t mean he would return to activities like drug trafficking. He was turned down for parole but qualified for a statutory release in March 2005.

Three years later, on Oct. 12, 2008, police in Jonquière were called to check out a disturbance in a bar in that city. When two patrol officers arrived they found Plourde inside with a dozen other people. The bar was a mess and the police noticed traces of blood inside. As they tried to investigate what happened Plourde spat in the eye of one of the police officers and said he would rip his head off.

Months later, Plourde pleaded guilty to using violence, or the threat of violence, to intimidate someone associated with the justice system. He was sentenced to a nine-month prison term, a sentence he was still serving when he was arrested in Operation SharQc.

A jury trial, involving 10 other men who were arrested in Operation SharQc, is scheduled to begin on Aug. 3.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

A bunker belonging to the Hells Angels’  Trois-Rivières chapter will be torn down today, reports CBC News.

According to the Quebec Superior Court, the land could not be bartered against the cumulative $62, 000 the club owed in property taxes.

Roughly 15 members vacated the bunker earlier in May, removing all of the building’s contents, despite no repossession order by Judge André Vincent.

Once the building is demolished, the land will likely be sold.

Two men associated with the Hells Angels pleaded guilty on Friday to taking part in a murder conspiracy and, in doing so, have avoided being part of a so-called megatrial set to begin on Monday.

Louis (Pee Wee) Ruel and François Goupil both cited health issues when they appeared before a judge at the Gouin courthouse on Friday and entered guilty pleas to taking part in a general murder conspiracy, from 1994 to 2002, while the Hells Angels were at war with rival gangs across the province of Quebec. More than 120 people with alleged ties to the Hells Angels were arrested, in April 2009, as part of a lengthy investigation led by the Sûreté du Québec dubbed operation Operation SharQc. Goupil was granted bail just four months after being part of the large roundup and Ruel was granted a release as well, in October 2010. More than 100 of the people who were arrested in Operation SharQc have since pleaded guilty to taking part in the same conspiracy.

Goupil, 45, a former Hells Angel who reportedly left the gang’s Sherbrooke chapter in good standing in 2002, has a problem with one of his legs that requires surgery and Ruel, 51, a member of the Quebec City chapter, has problems with his heart. Both were facing the ordeal of what is expected to be a lengthy jury trial — estimated to last at least 18 months — before entering their pleas on Friday.

Seven other men with alleged ties to the notorious biker gang are still scheduled to be part of the trial. Besides the conspiracy charge, the trial will also include seven first-degree murder charges. Goupil was the only one of the nine men set to go on trial who was charged with all seven counts of murder. The charges were stayed in exchange for his guilty plea to taking part in the conspiracy. Ruel was facing five counts of first-degree murder if he had opted for a trial.

Goupil is scheduled to have a sentence hearing on Aug. 7 and Ruel is scheduled to have his on Nov. 18.

Ruel became a full-patch member of the Hells Angels on Dec. 5, 1992, just months before the biker gang became involved in a bloody conflict over drug trafficking turf with gangs like the Rock Machine, Dark Circle and later on the Bandidos.

Two years after joining the Hells Angels, on Dec. 22, 1994, Ruel pleaded guilty to conspiracy, drug possession, extortion and other charges related to a Sûreté du Québec investigation of a cocaine trafficking ring. When he was arrested Ruel was found to be carrying a loaded .38 calibre revolver with him and the investigation revealed he was the head of the ring. He was sentenced to a six-year prison term on the same day he entered his guilty plea. According to Parole Board of Canada decisions made while Ruel was serving that sentence, Ruel told psychologists that he developed a sense of self-esteem in joining the Hells Angels after being raised by parents who paid little attention to him.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

twitter.com/PCherryReporter

Six years after arrests were first made in Operation SharQc, a jury is expected to finally hear an opening statement on Monday in the trial of seven men charged in a case that involves a conspiracy by the Hells Angels to commit murder over a period of eight years as well as the murders of seven men, including an innocent victim of the gang war.

The seven accused — alleged to be members or retired members of the Sherbrooke and Quebec City chapters of the Hells Angels — face a trial that could take as long as two years to complete. Jury selection alone required 13 court dates held during the month of May. The trial will be presided over by Superior Court Justice James Brunton and held at the Gouin courthouse located next to the Montreal Detention Centre on Gouin Blvd. It is a courthouse that was specifically built to handle cases involving several accused at the same time.

While 156 people were indicted on a variety of criminal accusations in Operation SharQc in April 2009, the trial beginning on Monday represents the first time evidence filed in the case will be presented to a jury.

Émery Martin, 54, a New Brunswick resident alleged to be a member of the biker gang’s Quebec City chapter, is the only one of the seven accused not charged with at least one of the seven counts of first-degree murder. Like all the other six he is charged with taking part in a conspiracy to commit murder that the Crown alleges began in July 1994 and ended eight years later in July 2002, a period that came to be commonly referred to as Quebec’s biker war. The charge lists 126 other people who were involved in the conspiracy (including dozens of men who have since been convicted in Operation SharQc) and alleges the people who were targets of the conspiracy were members of gangs (the Alliance, Dark Circle, Rock Machine and Bandidos) or independent drug dealers who refused to buy narcotics from the Hells Angels. But one of the men named among the seven counts of first-degree murder was an innocent victim of the conflict. Dany Beaudin, 28, was fatally shot on April 17, 2000, in St-Frédéric-de-Beauce, a town 270 kilometres northeast of Montreal, while standing outside a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts. Seven of the nine men on trial are charged with playing a role in Beaudin’s murder, an alleged case of mistaken identity.

The seven homicides were carried out between March 5, 1997 and Aug. 12, 2001. Four of the victims were found in the Eastern Townships and the others were in Quebec City, St-Frédéric-de-Beauce and Sainte-Catherine-de-la-Jacques-Cartier.

Christian Ménard, 37, an alleged member of the Sherbrooke chapter, is only charged with one of the murders — the Aug. 12, 2001, slaying of Robert Léger, 43, a member of the Bandidos biker gang who was shot outside his chalet in Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley, a town in the Eastern Townships. Ménard is the youngest of seven men on trial while Claude Berger, 66, alleged to be a retired member of the Sherbrooke chapter, is the oldest. Berger faces six counts of first-degree murder as well as the conspiracy charge.

The other accused are Yvon Tanguay, 65, Michel Vallières, 48, and brothers François and Sylvain Vachon (ages 43 and 48 respectively).

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

The start of the long-anticipated SharQc trial in Montreal has been pushed back another week after a juror was excused on Monday.

The court excused one juror at the juror’s request, because the juror was offered a career-advancing opportunity at work.

Six people, alleged to be members or retired members of the Hells Angels, are facing charges of conspiracy to commit murder over the eight years between 1994 and 2002, as well as several charges of first-degree murder.

The conspiracy allegedly targeted members of rival gangs, including the Alliance, Dark Circle, Rock Machine, and Bandidos, or independent drug dealers during Quebec’s biker wars.

Among the charges is one for the murder of Dany Beaudin, a 28-year-old who was fatally shot in what is believed to be a case of mistaken identity. Beaudin was killed in St-Frédéric-de-Beauce, 270 kilometres northeast of Montreal, while standing outside a rehabilitation centre. Five of the men have been charged with his murder.

A seventh person, Emery Martin, changed his plea to guilty on Monday, on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder which was the only charge he faced.

Quebec Superior Court Justice James Brunton told the jury that he would like to begin the trial with a full, 14-person jury.

The trial, which is anticipated to last approximately two years, should begin this coming Monday. It will be held at the courthouse on Gouin Blvd. which was built to handle cases involving several accused at the same time.

ksheridan@montrealgazette.com

Charges against one of the men who was to stand trial in connection with Operation SharQc have been dropped, Radio-Canada reported Tuesday night.

The Crown has withdrawn charges of conspiracy to commit murder and premeditated murder against Christian Ménard. No reasons were given for the decision.

Ménard, 37, an alleged member of the Sherbrooke chapter of the Hells Angels, was only charged with one of the murders — the Aug. 12, 2001, slaying of Robert Léger, 43, a member of the Bandidos biker gang. Léger was shot outside his chalet in Ste-Catherine-de-Hatley, a town in the Eastern Townships. 

There remain only five accused in the SharQc trial, which was to begin last Monday but has been delayed until Aug. 10 after a juror was excused for professional reasons.

Another of the accused, Emery Martin, pleaded guilty to a murder conspiracy charge on Monday and awaits a sentencing hearing next Friday.

SAINTE-ANNE, N.B.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in New Brunswick believe a member of the Hells Angels from Quebec who disappeared in 2008 and was sought in Operation SharQc was murdered and buried in the north of the province.

According to the RCMP, Mario Bergeron, a resident of Quebec alleged to be a full-patch member of the Quebec City chapter of the Hells Angels, disappeared in April 2008.

But investigators believe Bergeron was killed and his body buried in the area of Sainte-Anne-de-Madawaska, 30 kilometres southeast of Edmunston. He was 43 years old at the time of his disappearance.

RCMP Superintendent Daniel Nowlan said the police are appealing to anyone who could have information that would help them find Bergeron’s body.

As recently as 2014, Bergeron was thought to be on the lam as one of 10 people still wanted in SharQC, a Sûreté du Québec-led investigation in 2009 that led to charges against 156 people.

Bergeron received a three-year prison term for selling cocaine in 1998 while working for the Hells Angels in Quebec City. He is alleged to have become a full-patch member on Sept. 13, 2006.

Nowlan, who said Bergeron’s murder is believed linked to organized crime, said no charges have been laid in the case so far.

The RCMP, with the help of police forces in Edmunston and Grand-Sault, have followed up on leads, conducted interviews and searches around Sainte-Anne-de-Madawaska.

Investigators are asking anyone who may have seen suspicious activities in the area in April 2008 to contact the police.

As an example, the police say it’s possible that heavy equipment was used to hide Bergeron’s body.

While they might not be called to testify any time soon in the ongoing Operation SharQc trial, prosecution witnesses Sylvain Boulanger and Dayle Fredette, former members of the Hells Angels, already loom large over the proceedings.

When she made her opening remarks to the jury last week, prosecutor Fotini Hadjis appeared to be trying to prepare the nine men and five women selected to hear evidence over what is expected to be the next 18 months for the fact that Boulanger and Fredette were cold-blooded gang members in the past. She let them know from the outset that the prosecution’s two key witnesses were very willing participants in the gang’s conspiracy to eliminate rival gangs in Quebec between 1994 and 2002 and were part of a criminal organization that, by 1997, was willing to pay between $25,000 and $100,000 to people who took part in successful hits on their rivals.

Five men who were alleged to be members of the Hells Angels’ Sherbrooke chapter during the period in question are all charged with conspiracy to commit murder and seven first-degree murder charges are also part of the trial at the Gouin courthouse. Hadjis revealed that both Fredette, 45, and especially Boulanger, 51, had important roles in some of the homicides. Both men are likely to be grilled about what they did for the Hells Angels when they are eventually cross-examined by defence lawyers during the trial. Fredette in particular will likely be asked about how it feels to know he was one of two gunmen who killed an innocent victim of the gang war.

Hadjis also said Boulanger and Fredette are expected to say the Hells Angels were aware that ending the lives of innocent people “was part of the risk of their trade.” Both were also aware that a man named Jean-Marc Émond was killed near his business in Ste-Foy, on Nov. 3, 1999, in another case of mistaken identity. They are expected to testify Émond was killed by two Hells Angels, who mistook him for a member of the Rock Machine — one of the gangs that opposed the Hells Angels while they aggressively expanded their drug trafficking turf after 1994.

Three of the accused in the current trial — Michel Vallières, 48, Sylvain Vachon, 48, and his brother François, 43 — were singled out as having allegedly had a direct role in some of the seven murders. Hadjis did not mention the other two accused — Claude Berger, 66, and Yvon Tanguay, 55. But Hadjis alleged the entire membership of the Hells Angels’ Sherbrooke chapter were willing participants in the war. For example, Hadjis said all members contributed 10 per cent of their profits from drug trafficking into a collective fund used to finance the war. Hadjis also mentioned the roles other Hells Angels, who have already been convicted in SharQc, played in the murders.

Related

• Read more about Operation SharQc

Here is a summary of what the jury is expected to hear about each murder in the months to come:

Michel Mathieu — March 5, 1997 — Deauville

According to Sylvain Boulanger, Mathieu was an independent drug trafficker and importer who competed with the Sherbrooke chapter. Boulanger is expected to testify he was present when different members of the chapter discussed killing Mathieu. He is also expected to say that Sylvain Vachon planned the murder and asked Boulanger to supply the firearm that would be used because Boulanger was the Sherbrooke chapter’s sergeant-at-arms.

Mathieu’s partner at the time he was killed is also expected to testify. Hadjis said the woman will testify she was inside a car with Mathieu, on De Venice St. in the Deauville section of Sherbrooke, when he was shot. She is expected to say they were followed by another vehicle for a while before it passed them on the passenger side and someone opened fire on Mathieu.

Sylvain Reed — March 12, 1997 — Sherbrooke and Ste-Catherine-de-Hatley

Boulanger will testify that Gaetan David knew Reed and alerted the Hells Angels that Reed was hanging out with members of the Rock Machine. At the time, David, 46, was not a member of the Hells Angels but he became one later.

Hadjis said it was Sylvain Vachon who relayed the information to other members of the Sherbrooke chapter.

“According to Sylvain Boulanger, the Sherbrooke Hells Angels feared (Reed) was transmitting information (about them) to the enemy clan. Above all, the Sherbrooke Hells Angels wanted to avoid seeing the Rock Machine get, from Sylvain Reed, personal information that would allow them to be attacked,” the prosecutor told the jury.

Hadjis also said Boulanger took part in the preparation of Reed’s murder by supplying a firearm and a stolen vehicle that would be used. He is expected to testify that Sylvain Vachon and David confided in him about the murder after it was carried out. Boulanger is expected to say that because David knew Reed well he was able to drive him to Sylvain Vachon’s home with the goal of interrogating him.

“They wanted to know if he had given any information on the Hells Angels to the Rock Machine and to get information (out of Reed) on the Rock Machine,” Hadjis said.

Boulanger is expected to testify that Sylvain Vachon later confided in him that Reed was suffocated inside Vachon’s home with a garbage bag placed over his head. The firearm wasn’t used because Vachon didn’t want to leave traces of blood inside his home, Hadjis said.

Boulanger is also expected to testify that Sylvain Vachon placed Reed’s body in a stolen Chevrolet that was driven, by Vallières and David, and abandoned on the side of a highway where it was found.

Daniel Savard — Feb. 10, 2000 — Ste-Catherine-de-la-Jacques Cartier

“Sylvain Boulanger will say that this murder (occurred) during the period when he and other members of the Sherbrooke chapter provided muscle to the (Hells Angels’) Quebec City chapter to eliminate the competition in Quebec City,” Hadjis said, adding that both Boulanger and Fredette will testify Savard was either a member or a former member of the Rock Machine who had just got out of prison.

The prosecutor also said Fredette participated in Savard’s murder by acting as the driver of a stolen minivan used to carry it out. He is expected to testify that a different member of the Quebec City chapter was the man who pulled the trigger of a hunting rifle equipped with a telescope used to kill Savard inside his home. Boulanger supplied Fredette and Morin with intelligence on Savard, including his daily routine.

Fredette will testify that he and the shooter abandoned the minivan near Savard’s home and set it on fire. They also got rid of the rifle after switching vehicles.

Boulanger is expected to testify that François Vachon and Michel Vallières were involved in the planning of Savard’s murder and helped him do surveillance on their target. Based on what they learned while following their target, Boulanger advised Mario Auger and Pierre Hamilton, both members of the Quebec City chapter, that Savard could easily be shot from a distance, through a window, while he was relaxing inside his home.

“Sylvain Boulanger will tell you that seeing as how Daniel Savard was a member, or former member, of the Rock Machine. A bonus of $50,000 was paid out for this murder,” Hadjis said.

Dany Beaudin — April 17, 2000 — St-Frédéric-de-Beauce

Both Boulanger and Fredette are expected to say that “Beaudin was a person who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, it was a case of mistaken identity,” Hadjis said. “The Hells Angels believed he was a person related to the Rock Machine (who was residing) at a halfway house in St-Frédéric-de-Beauce.”

Boulanger is expected to testify he and other members of the Sherbrooke chapter took part in the planning of the murder and supplied the firearms that were used. Fredette is expected to testify he and Steve Duquette, 49, a Hells Angel, acted as the gunmen. Duquette shot Beaudin with a rifle from a distance and Fredette finished the job from up close with a handgun. Fredette is also expected to testify that Gaetan David acted as a getaway driver for this murder.

Martin Bourget — July 7, 2000 — Granby

Bourget was killed at the Tropicana camping ground in Granby by someone who used an automatic firearm equipped with a silencer.

“Sylvain Boulanger will explain that this murder was carried out through a collaboration between the Hells Angels chapters in Sherbrooke and Trois Rivières,” Hadjis said while adding that Bourget was killed because he was a member of the Rock Machine. Boulanger is also expected to testify that Normand Marvin Ouimet, 46, a member of the Trois Rivières chapter, was the person who wanted the murder carried out and the one who asked Sherbrooke for help.

The prosecutor said the evidence will show part of the intelligence gathered by the Hells Angels for the murder came from a leak within the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec, the provincial automobile insurance bureau.

Marc-André Thibault — Sept. 5, 2000 — Quebec City

Boulanger and Fredette will testify that Thibault was killed because he was a chemist who collaborated with the Rock Machine. Boulanger is expected to testify that he, François Vachon and Vallières did surveillance on Thibault for several weeks before he was shot in an underground garage at a building where he lived.

Boulanger is expected to say that $50,000 was split among the Sherbrooke and Quebec City chapters as payment for this murder.

Robert Léger — Aug. 12, 2001 — Ste-Catherine-de-Hatley

Boulanger will testify that at this point in the war the Hells Angels had convinced several members of the Rock Machine to join them.

“It was a way to put an end to the war and to assimilate the enemy. However, the war continued for those who refused to become Hells Angels,” Hadjis said. Instead of joining the Hells Angels, Léger opted to join the Bandidos, another international outlaw motorcycle gang.

He was killed outside his chalet in Ste-Catherine-de-Hatley, a small town in the Eastern Townships. Two masked men chased Léger on his property before shooting him 11 times. Boulanger is expected to testify that François Vachon and Duquette were designated as the shooters in this murder.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

There won’t be much reprieve from the ongoing heat wave today with temperatures starting out at 23 degrees and climbing to 30 (feels like 39 with humidity) during the day.

Things won’t cool off too much in the night with temperature going down to a low of 27.

The loonie: At 6 a.m., the Canadian dollar was worth 76.55 cents U.S., up slightly from yesterday (76.3) at the same time.

Coming up today

— A group protesting aircraft noise in Montreal is to release the results of a study.

— A coalition representing the taxi industry will present a proposal it made to the Quebec Transport Department that calls for the creation of a professional order that can discipline members of the industry.

— Hearing to be held at the Montreal courthouse on Wednesday for Leslie Greenwood, one of a group of men linked to the Hells Angels.

Photo of the day

Don’t forget to submit your photos of Montreal via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram by tagging them with #ThisMTL. See them appear at montrealgazette.com/thismtl and we’ll feature one per day right here in the morning file.

Quote of the day

Friends actor Matthew Perry turns 46 years old today. Perry has also starred in a handful of movies such as Fools Rush In, The Whole Nine Yards and 17 Again.

Although he was born in Massachusetts, Perry has a duel citizenship because of his mother and grew up in Otttawa.

I have a huge interest in hockey because I grew up in Canada, where it’s kind of the law that you love hockey.

Montreal this morning is a regular morning update to keep you in the know about what you should expect before starting your day. This file will stop updating at 11 a.m. For more updates on the day’s top stories, breaking news and more, visit montrealgazette.com. Is there something you’d like to see first thing in the morning? Got suggestions to make? Send your thoughts to micote@montrealgazette.com or via Twitter @MickCote.

Members of the Hells Angels appeared to hold at least two meetings that required security a week after their enemies were caught with explosives the summer the biker war in Quebec started.

Thursday, the jury hearing the Operation SharQc trial of five men who are alleged to have been members of the Hells Angels Sherbrooke chapter during the conflict was shown videos recorded by police. The police recorded images of several members of the Hells Angels in Quebec showing up for meetings in Sorel and Longueuil in July 1994. The conflict took place between 1994 and 2002.

The meetings were held on July 20, 1994, at the bunker the Hells Angels Montreal chapter used to use as a clubhouse in Sorel, and the following day in Longueuil, in an apartment next to a motorcycle shop called Bob Chopper that, at the time, was located near the Jacques Cartier Bridge.

Images of men standing outside, apparently acting as protection while members of the biker gang entered and exited, suggest that whatever was being discussed inside was important, or urgent.

Pierre Nolin, a police investigator who helped shoot the videos from unmarked police cars parked outside the buildings, testified Thursday morning at the Gouin courthouse.

Related

• Read more about Operation SharQc

At one point in the video — shot outside the clubhouse in Sorel — about a dozen Hells Angels are seen leaving the parking lot on Harley Davidson motorcycles, followed by a man in a car.

As the video camera focuses it becomes evident the man driving the car coming out of the Sorel clubhouse was Claude Berger, 66, one of the five accused in the current trial.

The five men are charged with conspiring to murder people who were either members of rival gangs or independent drug dealers who opposed the Hells Angels and their plans to expand their drug-trafficking turf in Quebec between 1994 and 2002. Seven first-degree murder charges are also part of the trial.

Prosecutor Alexis Dinelle stopped the video to halt on the image of Berger and asked Nolin if he recognized the man. Nolin confirmed it was Berger and said he recognized him in the courtroom, even though, with the passage of time, Berger’s hair is now completely white.

Based on a technicality, lawyers for the defence objected to Nolin having identified Berger as being in the video. Superior Court Justice James Brunton agreed and explained to the jury that Nolin was called as a witness to testify about the video in general and why he shot it. But the judge also noted that the jury can infer on its own that the curly-haired man driving the car is the same curly-haired person seated in the courtroom. Berger is acting as his own lawyer.

Berger is also seen in another video that was shown to the jury on Thursday. It was recorded on May 15, 1996, outside the clubhouse used by the Evil Ones, then a Hells Angels puppet gang based in St-Basile-le-Grand. In that video several Hells Angels and members of their once many puppet gangs are seen gathering at the clubhouse for what appeared to be a party. Berger is seen arriving in a car, seated in the front passenger seat. The video was recorded by police as they stopped everyone who approached the clubhouse and asked them to produce identification.

Viewed on their own, the videos reveal very little. But the jury has been told that men who were considered enemies of the Hells Angels had been arrested, on July 14, 1994, in possession of bombs, in and near Montreal.

Signs in the videos that the Hells Angels were concerned for their safety come in the form of underlings who appeared to be working security outside the meetings. One example was Donald Magnussen, a (now deceased) man who Nolin described as an associate of the Hells Angels. During both meetings, the muscle-bound Magnussen is seen standing outside both buildings. At one point, while standing outside the motorcycle shop, Magnussen is seen using a T-shirt as a mask while the police film him.

At another point in the video, a man is seen talking into a walkie-talkie as he escorts another man from the apartment next to the motorcycle shop to a waiting car.

Nolin described how he and the other police officers recorded the videos in plain sight of the bikers. One of the Hells Angels, David Rouleau, is seen, in the video recorded in Longueuil, smiling and waving toward the camera as the officers did their work. At the start of the trial, the jury was told that after the group of rival gang members were arrested, Rouleau and another member of the Sherbrooke Hells Angels called an emergency meeting where other members agreed to join in the biker war with Hells Angels from other parts of the province.

Besides Berger, the other accused are Yvon Tanguay, 65, Michel Vallières, 48, and brothers Sylvain, 48, and François Vachon, 43.

The trial resumes on Friday.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

The Hells Angels bunker in Sorel was humming with activity on July 20, 1994.

A video, recorded by police parked outside the building the gang’s Montreal chapter used as a clubhouse back then, illustrates how, for a period that stretched for several hours, men were coming and going to the building on Prince St. at a remarkably steady rate that day.

The jury hearing the trial of five men charged with conspiring to commit murder between 1994 and 2002 was shown the video at the Gouin courthouse this week. All five of the accused are alleged to have been members of the Hells Angels’ Sherbrooke chapter during the period in question. And while the nine men and five women who are part of the jury have yet to be told what significance the video will play in what is expected to be an 18-month trial, it appears to be part of a narrative laid out by the Crown in its opening remarks.

The Crown alleges the Sherbrooke chapter of the Hells Angels decided in 1994 to join a gang war after other members of the Hells Angels in the province were already involved in it. The Hells Angels wanted to expand its drug trafficking turf in Quebec and decided to go to war with rival gangs and independent drug dealers who opposed them. On July 14, 1994, a group of men from a rival gang were arrested in possession of bombs and the Sherbrooke Hells Angels believed the bombs were intended to be used on their associates.

The Crown alleges the Sherbrooke chapter held an emergency meeting, took a vote to become involved in the gang war and then members travelled to spread the word to other Hells Angels in the province afterward. The timing of the meeting held in Sorel, six days after the bombs were seized, suggests this might have been a moment when many other Hells Angels were informed the Sherbrooke chapter would join in the war.

In the video, Claude Berger, 66, one of the accused in the trial, can be seen exiting the clubhouse as he drives away in a car around 4 p.m. that day. His departure was preceded by about a dozen Hells Angels who rumbled away from the clubhouse on noisy Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

The jury was also told several men apparently standing guard outside the building as full-patch gang members entered were, in 1994, considered to be Hells Angels underlings. But while the images captured by the police suggest something serious was being discussed inside the clubhouse that day, defence lawyer Cristina Nedelcu raised an interesting point on Friday.

While cross-examining the Crown witness who recorded the video, retired Sûreté du Québec investigator Pierre Nolin, Nedelcu asked him to focus on three specific sections of it. What is apparent is on the same day the clubhouse, or at least a part of the property outside the building, was under construction. The van of a contractor who specialized in repairing concrete is seen pulling into the parking lot about three hours before Berger left. In another part of the video, a man sporting a tool belt, complete with a hammer hanging off it, is seen exiting the gated entrance to the parking lot. Nedelcu also highlighted a brief moment where a large pile of crushed gravel is visible in back of Donald Magnussen, a (now deceased) Hells Angels underling who appeared to be standing guard outside the clubhouse.

Nedelcu, who is representing 48-year-old Sylvain Vachon in the trial, didn’t ask Nolin what he thought of the construction workers’ presence on the property, but the implication was clear: if the Hells Angels were holding such a sensitive meeting why would construction workers be on the property? In another part of the video, a man is seen pulling up in a van with signage identifying his company as being experts in repairing Harley-Davidson motorcycles. The man was also able to enter the property that afternoon without a problem as he appeared to be led to the vehicle he was called in to work on.

The three other men who are charged in the same case are Yvon Tanguay, 65, Michel Vallières, 48, and Vachon’s brother François, 43. All five men are charged with conspiring to commit murder. Seven first-degree murder charges are also part of the trial.

The jury hearing the trial will not sit next week and will resume hearing the case on Aug. 31.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

The Operation SharQc trial began with a raid in April 2009. But the roots of the case go back to the Quebec biker wars between the Hells Angels and rival gangs.

Here is a timeline of the key events that led to the trial and on Friday to the release of five alleged retired members of the Hells Angels’ Sherbrooke and Quebec City chapters.

A Superior Court judge put an abrupt end to the first murder trial to go before a jury in Operation SharQc after ruling the Crown withheld evidence from the defence for years.

In a stunning decision delivered at the Gouin Courthouse on Friday, Superior Court Justice James Brunton ended the murder trial of five men who were alleged to have been members of the Sherbrooke chapter of the Hells Angels, between 1994 and 2002, while the biker gang was at war with its rivals across Quebec. The men — Claude Berger, 66; Yvon Tanguay, 65; François Vachon, 43; Sylvain Vachon, 48; and Michel Vallières, 48 — were all charged with conspiracy to commit murder over the eight-year period but also faced first-degree murder charges as well. As a result of Brunton’s ruling, they all walked away free men on Friday.

About 10 prosecutors who were in the room looked stunned by Brunton’s criticisms about how they had only disclosed key evidence to the defence a month ago.

Across the floor, four of the accused inside the prisoner’s dock were all smiles. As Brunton reached the end of his decision, Vallières pumped his arms upward and pointed both of his thumbs in the air.

Operation SharQc involved an unprecedented roundup of almost every member of the Hells Angels in Quebec in April 2009. Charges were filed against 156 people in all, including several of the gang’s associates. Since then more than 100 men have pleaded guilty to taking part in a general conspiracy to commit murder. But the trial of the five represented the first time a jury heard evidence in the case.

The judge also said the actions of the Crown made him conclude that there was no remedy available, for example a new trial, to correct the problem.

“I think it is an enormous relief,” said Mylène Lareau, a defence lawyer who, along with Debora de Thomasis, represented Tanguay during the trial. “Justice was served. It took time. We all fought for years to demonstrate what the judge concluded today.”

“We all had hopes because we believed in what we were doing,” Lareau said in reference to all six defence lawyers involved in the case. “But, you know, there are things you can’t control and it is the court that has to deliver the most difficult decisions.”

Brunton said the prosecutors adopted “a desire to win at all costs to the detriment to the fundamental principles that form the foundation of our penal justice system.” The defence lawyers declined to comment because there is still a trial pending in SharQc, involving two anglophones scheduled to have a trial in English.

The defence team following the judge’s decision to stop the SharQc trial. From right to left: Debora De Thomasis (blond hair), Nellie Benoit, Cristina Nedelcu, Chantal Gariepy, Mylene Lareau and Anne-Marie Lanctot.

“(SharQc) is a case without precedent. (The Crown) did things that have never been done. Sometimes there is a price to pay for that,” was all Lanctôt was willing to say about the stinging criticism of the Crown contained in Brunton’s 17-page decision.

Berger, a retired member of the Hells Angels, was the only one of the accused out on bail for the trial. He also acted as his own lawyer. When asked by reporters how he felt after he walked out of the courtroom, he simply said: “Happy.” And when asked if he felt frustrated over having to wait so long for his case to end he shrugged and said: “That’s okay. Life is beautiful.”

When the judge then called in the jury, which had been given a few weeks off while Brunton heard arguments on the defence motion that ultimately put an end to the trial, he thanked them for their service.

Jean-Pascal Boucher, a spokesperson for the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales, said the prosecutor’s bureau would read Brunton’s decision carefully before deciding whether to appeal.

Brunton’s decision involved a development in the trial that occurred on Sept. 10, exactly one month after the jury had begun hearing evidence. The Crown told Brunton it was in possession of new evidence concerning two previous investigations into the Hells Angels — dubbed Projects Snack and Cadbury. Defence lawyers had been demanding the Crown disclose the evidence pertaining to those investigations since April 2011. In December 2011, the Crown responded to the request simply by stating “The documents requested are not in our possession.”

In April 2014, a different Superior Court judge ruled the Crown abused procedure by not having disclosed the documents in question to the defence back in 2009.

When the evidence was finally disclosed to the defence last month they learned that it included statements that would have allowed them to challenge the credibility of Sylvain Boulanger, a former Hells Angel who turned informant and the most important witness in Operation SharQc. The evidence involved the murder of Sylvain Reed, a man who was killed on March 12, 1997.

Four of the five accused were charged with murdering Reed and Boulanger had given statements to police alleging they and other members of the Sherbrooke chapter were involved in the slaying. However, the documents turned over to the defence last month revealed the police had evidence, from two other informants, describing a completely different scenario behind the murder.

“No other remedy can make up for the abuse described in this judgment,” Brunton said in the conclusion of his decision.

“This abuse goes beyond negligence or even harassment. It constitutes an attack on the fundamental principles of fairness that all criminal cases should benefit from.”

Related

• The SharQc case: a timeline
• SharQc: The five who have been set free

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

Robert Simpson lives in constant fear his food will be poisoned one day for having turned informant in a double murder ordered by a member of the Hells Angels.

Simpson, 53, revealed his fear while testifying at the Montreal courthouse on Tuesday, his sixth day on the witness stand in the trial of Leslie Greenwood, 45, a Nova Scotia resident charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Kirk (Cowboy) Murray and Antonio Onesi. Both men were shot dead by Simpson in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on Jan. 24, 2010. Simpson has testified the murders were ordered by Jeffrey Albert Lynds, a Hells Angel based in Nova Scotia. Greenwood is alleged to have acted as Simpson’s driver before and after the men were killed.

After deciding to become a co-operating witness in February 2011, Simpson was placed in a witness protection program and currently serves his life sentence at a correctional facility. The location of the facility is a secret but, Simpson said he lives in “a condo” that is part of a building that houses six other inmates who live under the same protection.

Simpson said he and the six other inmates do not eat the food supplied by the facility at all.

“Are you afraid of being poisoned?” asked defence lawyer Paul Skolnik at one point.

“Absolutely,” Simpson said.

Simpson revealed his fear while being asked by Skolnik how he managed to increase the amount of money he is paid on a monthly basis from $50 per month — as was called for in his original witness contract — to the $100 per month he currently receives. Simpson said the $50 monthly payment was supposed to go toward his canteen, a list of food items inmates are allowed to have brought into a penitentiary instead of what is available inside an institution. He said he was very surprised to learn he would be taxed “about 40 per cent, just like everyone else” on what he is paid on a monthly basis.

He said he pushed to have the amount increased to $100 per month because he quickly realized he couldn’t feed himself. He said the decision to increase the stipend to $100 had to also apply to the other six inmates he is serving time with because, the authorities determined, they all have to be treated equally. Simpson, a career criminal, conceded he had never paid income tax in his life before.

Despite living in fear that his next bite of food will be his last, Simpson said life in the witness protection program at least alleviates the constant stress he lived with while serving almost all of his adult life inside Canadian penitentiaries. He had already told the jury he killed five men while serving time behind bars and that he was attacked several times himself, including a fight during which he was stabbed and had “flatlined” while being treated in a hospital.

During his final day of cross-examination on Tuesday, defence lawyer Paul Skolnik suggested that Simpson “embellished” Greenwood’s implication in the double homicide to convince authorities he merited being in the witness protection program. Only a small percentage of Simpson’s testimony over the six days he testified touched on Greenwood. Simpson said Lynds imposed Greenwood on him as a driver when the Hells Angel ordered Murray be killed because Murray had failed to carry out an earlier order to murder a drug dealer in Verdun.

Simpson has alleged Greenwood knew all along that he was driving Simpson and his younger brother Timothy from Nova Scotia to Montreal with the goal of killing Murray. According to Simpson, Onesi was to be killed as well if he acted as Murray’s driver that day, as he had often done in the past. Simpson also alleged that when he, his brother and Greenwood checked in to the St-Jacques Hotel in N.D.G., hours before the double slaying, Greenwood offered up a plan to kill Murray. Simpson told the jury Greenwood suggested inviting Murray to the hotel and then dismembering his body after killing him there. He also said Greenwood suggested setting the hotel room on fire to destroy the evidence.

Simpson said he dismissed the idea as “stupid” because it would have been too messy and because he didn’t want his younger brother to go through the horror of seeing a body being dismembered.

Skolnik suggested that Greenwood merely gave the Simpson brothers a lift and had no idea what was going to happen in Montreal. He also implied that Simpson offered up Greenwood as an accomplice to make sure he’d get into the witness protection program.

“Are you saying (Greenwood) was the selling point for me getting into witness protection? Absolutely not,” Simpson said in reply.

Later on, Simpson clarified that as part of his agreement with authorities he had to tell Montreal police Det.-Sgt. Denis Hogg about every crime he ever committed and include every accomplice he could remember. He is required to testify in court in any case where his statements produce criminal charges, including the homicides he committed inside federal penitentiaries.

The trial will resume on Friday with a new witness.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

One question left hanging after a Superior Court judge called an abrupt end to the first trial to go before a jury in Operation SharQc is what will happen to the second trial involving two anglophones.

Justice James Brunton’s decision on Friday put an end to the trial of five men who were members of the Sherbrooke chapter Hells Angels during Quebec’s biker gang war between 1994 and 2002.

The decision was a stinging criticism of how the Crown stonewalled defence lawyers for years and prevented them from seeing evidence, until the trial was well underway, that would have allowed them to challenge the credibility of Sylvain Boulanger, a former full-patch member of the Sherbrooke chapter who decided to become an informant. Boulanger’s statements to the police formed the very basis of the conspiracy to commit murder accusation that almost everyone arrested in Operation SharQc was charged with.

Among many other things, Boulanger gave the police several statements about the March 12, 1997 murder of Sylvain Reed, a drug dealer the Hells Angels suspected had sided with the Rock Machine while it was at war with that gang.

What the Crown failed to disclose to defence lawyers representing four of the five men on trial was that two other informants had given investigators a completely different version of how Reed was killed. Evidence of the alternate version was only disclosed to the defence on Sept. 21.

The Crown is now left with a key witness — who was provided with an informant contract that calls for him to be paid $2.9 million in total if he ever testifies in a trial — whose credibility can be hammered before a jury.

The trial of the two anglophones — John Coates, 49, alleged to be a former underling in the Sherbrooke chapter, and Robert Bonomo, 68, an alleged member of the Montreal chapter — is scheduled to begin on Jan. 9, 2017. The date was based partly on the assumption the trial of the five men whose cases ended on Friday would last 18 months.

Thomas Walsh, the lawyer representing Coates, said on Wednesday that he did not expect the Crown would have proceeded with a trial against Coates even before Brunton’s decision. Walsh said that because his client was not a full-patch member of the Hells Angels during the war he was never part of the vote that was taken to join in the conflict. Coates is only charged with being part of a conspiracy and, unlike many other Hells Angels arrested in SharQc, does not face any first-degree murder charges.

Walsh said he plans to argue his client would have had no decision-making power in the general conspiracy. “Before the Crown goes to trial it takes a really good look at its evidence. I believe that when they do so (in Coates’ case) they won’t proceed with a trial. That was my opinion even before (the first trial was aborted).”

When asked if he will file a motion, pertaining to the trial scheduled in 2017, Walsh said he has yet to decide the next step for Coates.

“I’m going to wait for the dust to settle (on Brunton’s decision),” Walsh said. “There were some really interesting points made in it. The bottom line is that when the police and prosecutors team up and work closely together it’s a slippery slope.

Part of the Crown’s agenda is to have a fair trial. They are supposed to be separate from the police and be able to say ‘no’ to them when they have to.”

Walsh said defence lawyers have met with similar problems in the past and he praised Brunton’s decision as “encouraging.”

“We need that from time to time — to remember what the principles (of justice) are,” he said.

Bonomo’s lawyer could not be reached for comment.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales, the office that represents the province’s prosecutors, said it is still analyzing Brunton’s decision and has yet to decide whether to appeal it.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

Should a Hells Angel be allowed to wear his gang colours while attending court proceedings where fellow gang members are accused of murdering for the group?

That’s the situation special constables at the Gouin courthouse found themselves in on Sept. 27, 2013, when Daniel Normand, 57, of the gang’s South chapter, showed up for a court hearing dressed in a jacket that included the Hells Angels notorious death-head patch on his back. Wearing the patch is a sign the man sporting it is a full-patch member of the world’s most notorious biker gang.

Normand was among the dozens of Hells Angels who were arrested in Operation SharQc, in April 2009. But on that day in 2013 he was a free man. On Oct. 26, 2012, Normand pleaded guilty to being part of the general conspiracy to commit murder, the criminal accusation that was the foundation of the SharQc investigation. The police had evidence almost all of the men who were members of the Hells Angels in Quebec had taken part in a vote in 1994 where they agreed to go to war with rival gangs. By the time Normand entered his guilty plea, he was left with an 11-month prison term to serve.

Related

• Read more about Operation SharQc

So when he showed up sporting his gang colours in 2013, for a court date involving gang members who were still charged in SharQc, the special constables manning the security checkpoint at the entrance to the courthouse wondered if he should be allowed in.

One even took pictures while Normand underwent standard search procedures that members of the public are subjected to entering the Gouin Courthouse. Normand’s belt buckle, with the words “Hells Angels” in gold on it, was one of the items photographed. Normand was allowed to sit in the courtroom, with his gang colours on, but other special constables were made aware of his presence.

On Nov. 26, 2013, Madeleine Giauque, the former lead prosecutor in SharQc, filed a motion seeking to have a definitive opinion on the issue. In her motion she wrote that: “the emblems associated with the Hells Angels and other outlaw motorcycle gangs are notably tools of propaganda and intimidation for this organization.

“It is in the interest of justice and its healthy administration to prevent such behaviour from being repeated in the future to avoid any of the interference that can result from it.”

Giauque asked that anyone wearing such emblems on clothing, accessories or even tattoos be barred from entering the courthouse. Lawyers representing the men who were about to go to trial argued there was no evidence that anyone had tried to intimidate anyone at the courthouse since the case began in 2009 and suggested a ruling on the issue was pointless.

In a decision that was subject to a publication ban until the murder trial of five men arrested in SharQc was aborted last week, Quebec Superior Court Justice James Brunton agreed to Giauque’s request, but only in part. He ordered that anyone wearing an emblem or a message associated with outlaw biker gangs could be barred from entering the courthouse.

But when it came to the issue of tattoos, Brunton ordered that all men who wanted to attend court dates related to SharQc be required to wear long-sleeve shirts. As part of the same ruling, Brunton ordered that no more than three motorcycles could be allowed in the courthouse’s parking lot at a time.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

Staff in charge of security at the Gouin Courthouse requested extraordinary security measures be put in place at the Hells Angels murder trial because they believed the key informant witness who was about to testify has a $500,000 contract on his head.

The trial of the five men charged in Operation SharQc was aborted last Friday after Superior Court Justice James Brunton ruled the Crown abused procedure by withholding evidence concerning the informant, former Hells Angel Sylvain Boulanger, from defence lawyers for years.

While hearing arguments on the disclosure issue over the latter half of the past month, Brunton also held a special closed-door hearing, on Sept. 29 and 30, to hear evidence from the people in charge of security at the courthouse. According to a decision that was never delivered because the trial was aborted, but made public on Thursday, Boulanger was about to be called as a witness in the murder trial and security officials considered the potential threat to his safety to be serious.

Boulanger was a member of the Sherbrooke chapter of the Hells Angels before he decided to become an informant for the police. Statements he made to investigators formed the basis of the SharQc investigation and led to the arrests of more than 100 of the gang’s members in 2009. If he had testified in the murder trial it would have been his first appearance in public in years.

“There are threats against the witness Boulanger. There is a contract on his life which calls for the payment of $500,000 for the person who kills him. His photo was seen posted in different locations associated with the Hells Angels, not just in Quebec but elsewhere in (Canada). The photos were accompanied by (statements suggesting informants) have to be eliminated. Considering the nature of the Hells Angels organization, their will and their capacity, the threats are considered serious by the authorities,” Brunton wrote in his summary of testimony provided by Benoit Vigneault, a sergeant with the special constables who testified at the special closed-door hearing.

Brunton called the closed-door hearing because one of the requests from courthouse security called for all members of the jury in the trial to undergo the same type of search that all members of the public are required to go through when they enter the Gouin Courthouse. The judge was concerned the added security measures, with the trial already a month old, would be prejudicial toward the accused. He noted that no one on the juries assembled for biker trials held at the special courthouse a decade ago had to go through the security measures.

Members of the public are required to turn over any briefcases, purses and personnel effects to special constables who place the items in bins and run them through an x-ray machine. Courthouse security also wanted defence lawyers to have to go through the same measures even though they had no evidence a lawyer, or a member of the jury, might be interested in killing Boulanger. Two defence lawyers who were specifically chosen to be part of the hearing informed Brunton that requiring attorneys to be searched would have been unprecedented.

Courthouse security also wanted to install a metal detector at the door of the courtroom even through there is already one located at the entrance to the courthouse.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

The second informant to testify in the trial of a man accused of being the getaway driver in a double murder in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce had a low opinion of the Hells Angel who ordered the hit.

Timothy Simpson, 49, is the younger brother of 53-year-old Robert Simpson, the first informant who testifiedat the Montreal courthouse in the trial of Leslie Greenwood, 45, of Nova Scotia. Robert Simpson was the man who pulled the trigger in the Jan. 24, 2010, murders of Kirk (Cowboy) Murray and Antonio Onesi in the parking lot of a McDonald’s restaurant.

Timothy, who was armed with a shotgun, watched his brother’s back while the slayings were carried out. Both brothers have pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and are serving life sentences. Both have testified Greenwood was imposed on them as the driver by Jeffrey Albert Lynds, a Hells Angel based in Nova Scotia who was part of a Nomad chapter in Ontario.

While testifying before the jury on Friday, Timothy Simpson said he had serious doubts about Lynds shortly after he first met the Hells Angel in 2009. He and his brother Robert, a career criminal, were introduced to Lynds by Brian Patrick McGuire, a LaSalle resident who Timothy Simpson was good friends with.

A plan was hatched to have Lynds purchase drugs from a drug dealer named Louis (Le Gros) Vigeant and sell them in Nova Scotia while using Robert Simpson as protection. The first deal involved the purchase of two kilograms of hashish and 70 pounds of speed. Lynds decided to send the speed by train to Nova Scotia and asked Timothy Simpson to bring it. Simpson said on Friday as he approached the train station where he was supposed to get off — and meet a person he had never met before — he started to panic. Both of the Simpson brothers were on the lam from halfway houses and Timothy Simpson was worried he’d be caught and returned to a penitentiary. Simpson said during the train ride he wondered about Vigeant and Lynds because of their odd behaviour. His concerns grew to the point he didn’t get off at the train station Lynds had asked him to. Instead, he got off at the next station, in Truro, N.S., and took a taxi to deliver the speed to Lynds’ house.

“I liked (Lynds) a lot, but for a full-patch Hells Angel, I just didn’t know. Especially for a Nomad — these guys are supposed to be able to go into any province and set up (drug trafficking turf) and not have to ask for permission (from other Hells Angels). The Hells Angels I knew while serving time in the pen, those were really serious guys. They would work out in the gym all day. They were businessmen,” Simpson said. “Jeff was using drugs. He smoked crack and he always seemed to be scrounging for drugs. (The Hells Angels) I knew could pick up a phone and get drugs easily.”

Timothy Simpson said he raised his doubts about Lynds’ competence to his older brother at one point before Murray and Onesi were killed. But Robert Simpson asked his younger brother to have faith in Lynds.

“I was more suspicious of Jeff than Rob was. He (wanted) to believe in him. He says to me ‘he’s a good guy He just has problems. I’ve had problems, too,’ ” Timothy Simpson said.

According to Timothy Simpson, Greenwood was to be paid $3,000 by Lynds for driving the brothers to Montreal and returning them to Nova Scotia. He also said Greenwood had to tune up the car they used for the hit because it had been left unused on Lynds’ property for weeks during the winter and was “frozen to the ground. (The murder plot) was a real rinky-dink operation.”

Like his older brother had said earlier in the trial, Timothy Simpson alleged Greenwood knew what the purpose of the trip was for.

The trial resumes on Tuesday.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

The double murder carried out in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce five years ago on the orders of a Hells Angel had to be entirely improvised because of a misunderstanding, an informant told a jury on Tuesday.

On the stand for a second day, Timothy Simpson, 49, revealed a key detail that explains why the murders of Kirk (Cowboy) Murray and Antonio Onesi were carried out on Jan. 24, 2010 in a haphazard way that left evidence for police to work with. Leslie Greenwood, 45, of Nova Scotia is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The trial is now in its fifth week.

Greenwood is alleged to have been the getaway driver for Simpson and his older brother Robert Simpson, 53, the triggerman in the slayings and the first informant to testify at the trial. Robert Simpson had agreed to carry out the murder of Murray for Jeffrey Albert Lynds, a Hells Angel based in Nova Scotia. Onesi was killed because, as Robert Simpson had expected, he was acting as Murray’s driver that day.

Both of the Simpson brothers have testified that Greenwood drove them from Nova Scotia to Montreal and that they stopped at a Petro Canada along the way, on orders from Lynds, to purchase a prepaid cellular phone that would be used only for the double murder. As part of the plan, Brian (Cato) McGuire, 54, of LaSalle, a close friend of Timothy Simpson, was supposed to help lure Murray to Robert Simpson.

Timothy Simpson told the jury on Tuesday that shortly after he, his brother and Greenwood arrived in Montreal he called Lynds to update him and at one point told Lynds to “give the lad the number.” He explained that what he meant was that he wanted Lynds to pass on the prepaid telephone number to McGuire.

Apparently, Simpson said, Lynds misunderstood, called Murray and gave him the telephone number.

Shortly after that conversation, Robert Simpson answered the phone and was surprised to hear Murray’s voice. Timothy Simpson recalled seeing his brother’s face when he realized Murray now had the phone number of their “burn-phone.”

“He was shocked. His face went white,” Simpson said.

When asked by prosecutor Annabelle Sheppard why this posed a problem, Simpson replied: “Because now there’s a link between us and the victim.”

Earlier in the trial, Robert Simpson testified that he figured Lynds had double-crossed him by giving Murray the number and that the confusion caused him to panic and improvise plans to kill Murray. On Tuesday, Timothy Simpson also said the confusion changed things for him as well.

“(At this point) I’m feeling panicked,” Timothy Simpson said. “I’m nervous about the whole thing.”

He also admitted that he was the one who scouted out and chose the location for the hit, the far end of a parking lot of a McDonald’s restaurant. He said he chose that location because he and his brother Robert assumed Onesi would be with Murray and they would have to kill both at the same time. He also testified that they had discussed, with Greenwood, the possibility of killing Murray inside the hotel room where they were staying while in Montreal.

One reason that plan was ruled out, Simpson said, was because they figured Onesi would have waited in his car in such a situation.

When Murray called Robert Simpson back, later the same day, he made a hurried decision to invite him to the parking lot under the pretence that Murray would be paid $9,000 for a past drug deal. Robert Simpson lied and said his car had broken down so Murray wouldn’t ask questions over the location of their meeting.

As expected, Onesi was driving the red car Murray showed up in. One part of the hit that had been planned well in advance was for Robert Simpson to kill both men while Timothy Simpson covered his back, armed with a sawed-off shotgun.

“I’m thinking to myself, don’t smile weird because (Murray is) going to get a bad vibe,” Timothy Simpson said when asked what was going on as Murray and Onesi arrived.

He also said Murray greeted both men and offered to have them stay at his home on the South Shore while they were in Montreal. Robert Simpson accepted and Murray leaned into the car to bring his seat forward to make room for the Simpson brothers.

Timothy Simpson said his brother turned toward him for a second and shrugged just before he shot Murray once in the back. Timothy Simpson said time seemed to freeze for a moment while he stared at the small black hole in Murray’s coat. He said Murray didn’t move for a few seconds before his brother fired more shots into him and then Onesi.

After both men were killed, Timothy Simpson said, they made their way to the parking lot of a home-renovation store where Greenwood was waiting in the getaway car. He said Greenwood immediately drove both men back to Nova Scotia.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com