The man who was once the most powerful Hells Angel in Quebec was charged on Thursday with attempting to murder a fellow inmate inside a penitentiary north of Montreal where both were serving life sentences for murder in November. 

A total of five charges were filed against Maurice (Mom) Boucher, 62, at the St-Jérôme courthouse, related to a Nov. 3 incident inside a federal penitentiary in Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, 40 kilometres northwest of Montreal. Boucher, who was represented by defence lawyer Jöelle Roy on Thursday, and another inmate named René Girard, 52, are charged on the same indictment with the attempted murder of Ghislain Gaudet, a 66-year-old man who has been serving a life sentence for murder since 1979. Gaudet was stabbed several times that day but survived the attack. 

Boucher and Girard are also accused of aggravated and armed assault, conspiracy and possession of a weapon. Girard’s case is expected to be brought to court at a later date and he has yet to be formally charged. Boucher’s case returns to court on April 25. 

During the 1990s, Boucher was considered the most powerful Hells Angel in Quebec and was the man who started the violent conflict the biker gang waged with other organized crime groups in the province between 1994 and 2002. More than 160 people were killed during the conflict which is commonly referred to as Quebec’s biker gang war. When the police tried to crack down on Boucher during the mid-1990s, he replied by attempting to intimidate the justice system by ordering the murders of prison guards. Two guards were killed in 1997 by men who were later found to have been following Boucher’s orders. Boucher was convicted of the first-degree murders in 2002 and is serving a life sentence. 

Gaudet is also serving a life sentence for having killed a prison guard. Guy Fournier was fatally shot in 1978 when Gaudet and a few other inmates broke out of a federal penitentiary in Laval. During the prison break, a guard was overpowered and someone stole his gun before it was used to shoot Fournier. Gaudet and three other inmates were convicted of the murder in 1979. 

Girard is also serving a life sentence for a homicide. He was convicted in 1987 of second-degree murder in a case heard in Quebec City. Court records reveal Girard has been a problem for correctional authorities since then. In 2008, he was convicted of having uttered threats while incarcerated at the Donnacona Institution, a maximum-security penitentiary near Quebec City. In 1992, he was found guilty of possessing drugs while at the Port Cartier Institution, another maximum-security penitentiary in Quebec. 

Boucher was also charged last year — along with his daughter Alexandra Mongeau, 26, and his former right-hand man, Gregory Woolley, 43 — with being part of a conspiracy to murder Raynald Desjardins, 62, an influential crime figure who is also currently behind bars. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

The criminal case brought against a police officer who was charged with intimidating Beaconsfield city officials in his bid to flip a lakeside property for a quick profit was quietly dropped, just three months after it was brought to court, due to a lack of evidence. 

On Sept. 11, Sûreté du Québec Constable Peter De Castris, 53, of Roxboro, was charged in a case that was investigated for several months by the Escouade de protection de l’intégrité municipale (EPIM), a Montreal police unit assigned to investigate municipal corruption. Ten charges were filed against him. The charges alleged that De Castris and three other men intimidated and extorted city of Beaconsfield officials in order to obtain permits for renovations to a house on Lakeshore Rd. that were already made without approval from the municipality. 

When the charges were filed, EPIM, which is part of the provincial anti­-corruption unit known as UPAC, issued a statement announcing that De Castris had been arrested along with his brother Dominic, 48, and business partners Robert Brunet, 43, and 50-year-old Gian Di Girolamo. The statement trumpeted how each man faced at least eight charges including money laundering, conspiracy and fraud. 

No statement was issued three months later, on Dec. 15, when the case against De Castris was suddenly dropped at the Montreal courthouse following closed-door negotiations between the defence lawyer for all four men, Gilles Doré, and prosecutor Maryse Trudel, that began almost immediately after the arrests were made. As part of those negotiations, Trudel explained to Quebec Court Judge Pierre Labelle on Dec. 15, the Crown accepted a guilty plea from Di Girolamo on one sole count, municipal corruption “by committing a criminal act,” the harassment of Denis Chabot, the director of Beaconsfield’s urban planning department at the time. 

Brunet, a man who helped renovate the house, was acquitted on all 10 of the charges he faced but agreed to follow court-ordered conditions for a year. In doing so, Brunet conceded Chabot had reason to fear for his safety because of Brunet’s actions in 2012. Doré explained on Dec. 15 that while there was no proof any of the four men threatened or assaulted Chabot, he said that Brunet “capitalized on insecurities” generated by the constant presence of Brunet, Di Girolamo and Dominic De Castris at public urban planning meetings, even when their case wasn’t being heard.

Peter De Castris and his brother were acquitted as part of the same hearing. According to an SQ spokesperson, De Castris is currently suspended from the provincial police force and faces a future disciplinary hearing. But because he was acquitted in December, Quebec taxpayers are currently paying his full salary to do nothing. His salary had been reduced by half while the charges were pending.  

“Considering the global resolution of the case through negotiations with (Gilles) Doré and the plea entered by Mr. Di Girolamo, the prosecution will present no evidence against Mr. Dominic De Castris and Peter De Castris,” Trudel said during the Dec. 15 hearing.

That left Labelle with no choice but to acquit the police officer and his brother. However, during a sentence hearing for Di Girolamo earlier this month, Labelle demanded more information from the Crown.

On Feb. 3, Di Girolamo was about receive an 18-month conditional sentence that included six months of house arrest. But while a different prosecutor read from a long list of the other conditions Di Girolamo agreed to follow, Labelle recognized the names of people Di Girolamo is not allowed to associate with. Included on the list was Charles Huneault, 48, a man with very close ties to the Hells Angels, and Jean-Guy Dubois, 82, a convicted murderer and drug smuggler who was part of a gang of brothers who controlled rackets in Montreal decades ago. Dubois’s brother, Adrien, who died of natural causes in 2014, owned the company that supplied Peter De Castris with the mortgage used to purchase the house on Lakeshore Rd. in Beaconsfield — for $500,000 — in 2011. Another condition called for Di Girolamo to stay away from institutions that lend money during his 18-month sentence.

“Excuse me, but (Di Girolamo) pleaded guilty in a case of harassment that is very specific. Can you tell me why I’m now hearing about (institutions that lend money) and Charles Huneault? Absolutely no mention of this was made when he pleaded guilty.” Labelle said. In response, Trudel revealed a bit more. 

“(The negotiations) involved me and (Gilles) Doré. We sat down together. We had long discussions towards seeing how we could settle the case. We did that in the two months that followed the arraignments of (the four men) so we wouldn’t end up doing the same thing three years from now,” Trudel said, adding the Crown conceded Di Girolamo could have ended up with the same sentence after a lengthy trial. “We sat down together and looked at the interests of everyone.” 

However, during her sometimes emphatic explanation, Trudel never actually explained why Charles Huneault or Jean-Guy Dubois were included in the conditions Di Girolamo agreed to follow. 

After the guilty plea was entered in December, Trudel provided a summary of the case for Labelle. She described how Chabot was attacked on Oct. 5, 2012, by two men (who have never been arrested) who struck him about the head with a baseball bat while Chabot was at the Summerlea Golf and Country Club in Vaudreuil-Dorion. The assault (which left injuries that required 30 stitches to close) occurred one day after Brunet was informed the city of Beaconsfield would not approve the renovations De Castris and his brother had already made — specifically the addition of a balcony at the back of the house. Chabot initially believed the attack was part of a botched robbery but, later the same month, he received an anonymous phone call and anonymous email — that originated from Turkey — threatening him and his family. The timing of the threats led Chabot to conclude it involved his opposition to what was being done to the house, Trudel said. During that same month, Michael Montagno resigned his seat on Beaconsfield council after receiving a call from Di Girolamo on Oct. 17, 2012 asking for his support. 

Trudel also revealed the rest of Beaconsfield city council ultimately voted in favour of the renovations only because they feared for the safety of Chabot and his family.  

“On Oct. 18, (Beaconsfield) councillors made an agreement before holding a (public municipal meeting) to protect Denis Chabot and his family to let the dossier involving 601 Lakeshore go through,” the prosecutor said. “A strategic vote of four versus two was planned to assure the dossier would go through (during a regular council meeting held near the end of October 2012).”

pcherry@postmedia.com

Extra security measures were taken to screen people attending a sentence hearing at the Laval courthouse on Wednesday for a man with close ties to the Hells Angels who was recently warned by police that his life might be in danger. 

Sergio Piccirilli, 56, learned during the hearing that the Crown is asking that he be sentenced to an 18-year prison term in a drug trafficking trial that took a decade to complete. 

Anyone who wanted to attend the afternoon hearing had to go through a screening process where special constables used metal detectors to check people for weapons. In January, Piccirilli was advised by police that investigators had learned a rival criminal organization might be seeking to end his life. He was detained soon after the warning was issued but not for his safety. On Jan. 28, Quebec Court Judge Marie Suzanne Lauzon found Piccirilli guilty on 23 charges he faced in Project Cleopatra, an RCMP investigation into drug trafficking that resulted in the arrest of 36 people in 2006. 

Piccirilli’s first trial was placed in a stay of proceedings, in 2008, after a judge determined the police and a prosecutor committed misconduct by trying to intimidate him into pleading guilty to some of the charges. The decision was contested by the Crown and the new trial was ordered. Piccirilli was convicted of conspiracy, issuing orders for the benefit of a criminal organization and trafficking in methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana as well as a variety of offences involving firearms. 

“We find ourselves with a person who is in a category apart from (the other people arrested in Project Cleopatra),” prosecutor Dominique Dudemaine said while requesting a prison terms of up to 18 years. “We’re not talking about some guy selling drugs on a street corner.” 

Dudemaine reminded Lauzon that while Piccirilli was investigated during Project Cleopatra he met with Hells Angel Salvatore Cazzetta and the two longtime friends discussed whether Piccirilli could rough up drug traffickers who were dealing on what Piccirilli considered his turf. Cazzetta, 61, is considered one of the most influential members of the biker gang in Quebec.

Dudemaine also noted that Torsten Trute, 52, a man who worked directly underneath Piccirilli, is currently serving a 12-year sentence.

Piccirilli’s lawyer is scheduled to make his sentence arguments on Friday. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

The head of the provincial prosecutor’s bureau has ordered an extension of the internal investigation she requested last year to find out why prosecutors failed to disclose evidence to defence attorneys in a high-profile murder trial of five Hells Angels.

Last fall the jury trial, part of Operation SharQc, a major investigation into the biker gang, was aborted after the presiding judge ruled prosecutors had held back on turning over a key part of their evidence for years.  

Annick Murphy, the head of the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP), initially ordered an administrative investigation, headed by Jean Lortie, a former prosecutor and former deputy minister with the Quebec government, on Oct. 16. At the same time, Murphy said she would consider making Lortie’s findings public. Lortie submitted his conclusions to Murphy on Dec. 18 but little has been said since.

The trial was aborted several weeks after a jury began hearing evidence and that was preceded by several months where pretrials motions were heard in court, at great expense to Quebec taxpayers. One of those motions involved repeated demands from defence lawyers to have access to evidence that the Crown only turned over after the trial well well underway. 

On Wednesday, Murphy issued a release stating she has asked for more information before making any decision on what Lortie learned. 

“This step will allow a good comprehension of the sequence of events that held back the (disclosure) of evidence in this (case). Therefore, the administrative investigation is still ongoing,” Murphy said in her statement. 

On Oct.9, the presiding judge in the jury trial, Superior Court Justice James Brunton, ordered the stay of proceedings on seven first-degree murder charges and a conspiracy charge after ruling the four years it took for the prosecution to finally disclose key evidence was an abuse of procedure. In his 17-page decision, Brunton criticized the prosecution for its “desire to win at all cost.” The evidence included information from police informants that provided a completely different portrait behind who was involved in one of the murders compared to the version the Crown was presenting to the jury. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

Amid unstable times for Montreal’s criminal underworld, this week’s broad daylight killing of a well-known member of the Montreal Mafia will almost certainly bring violent repercussions, organized crime experts say. 

So much so that two other convicted Mafia members who were recently released to halfway houses have reportedly been returned behind bars to ensure their own safety. 

“The murder of Lorenzo Giordano is certainly to be followed by other ones in the weeks or months to come,” Pierre de Champlain, an author on organized crime, said this week. 

After receiving statutory release, Giordano had been living in a halfway house for roughly two months before being shot and killed in a Laval sports centre parking lot Tuesday morning. 

Following a lengthy RCMP-led investigation called Projet Colisée, the 52-year-old was arrested in 2007 with five others who had been controlling the Montreal Mafia in the mid-2000s after reputed mob boss Vito Rizzuto’s arrest in 2003. 

Two of the other five men — Francesco Arcadi and Francesco Del Balso — received similar releases in February. Media reports, which Correctional Service Canada would not confirm on Thursday, said they were returned to prison this week for their own safety after Giordano was killed. 

“An individual is under the surveillance of the CSC until the expiration of their sentence, and that includes while they’re under conditional release,” said Jean-Yves Roy, a spokesperson for the CSC. “The CSC must, at all times, evaluate the level of threats or risks that individuals might be facing.”

In a decision rendered last month, the Parole Board of Canada described Del Balso, 45, as a key member of the Montreal Mafia who was directly involved in corrupting Port of Montreal employees to bring in narcotics, notably cocaine and marijuana. 

Police bring Francesco Del Balso, 36 years old, one of the key suspects in a mafia sting was escorted to RCMP headquarters Wednesday, November 22, 2006

An addicted gambler who became co-owner of a “vast sports gaming network,” the decision says, it’s estimated Del Balso and his accomplices took in $26 million in profit. 

Being incarcerated did not initially change his ways, the decision notes, as he was able to recreate a “gang type model” to control “the underground economy within the institution.” He was placed in isolation for threatening and intimating staff members. 

And though Del Balso made improvements, the Board ultimately concluded that his values remained the same as when he entered: he was attracted to money, a luxurious lifestyle, power, control and had the “will to use violence to reach his goals.”

Francesco Arcadi, the man police considered Vito Rizzuto’s replacement in the Canadian Mafia, was among the organized crime figures arrested Wednesday November 22, 2006 in Montreal.

If Del Balso slightly changed his ways, the Board decided that Arcadi, 62, hadn’t at all. 

“You seem to be the same person you were when you arrived, more than seven years ago,” the Board noted in a separate decision in February.

According to the decision, Arcadi was a highly ranked member of the Montreal Mafia, who despite not being charged with any violent crimes, was often consulted about them before they took place. 

“You tell him: Don’t you touch this fellow or I will slit your throat like a goat,” the decision says he once ordered someone. 

Arcadi told the Board he wished to live a simple life upon being released. He wanted to garden, raise animals and spend time with his family. He didn’t fear for his safety, though he planned on equipping his residence with a fence and security cameras. 

The decision makes reference to how two other men described only as “accomplices” were recently released — an apparent reference to Del Balso and Giordano. It says police allege their releases have already had important repercussions in the criminal underworld, before noting its current state of instability. 

That instability comes from the Montreal Mafia living a “moment of great uncertainty,” organized crime expert and author Antonio Nicaso said on Thursday. 

“Something has changed,” he said over the phone from Italy. “And it’s a difficult situation to understand, and one that could lead to more violence.” 

In November, police alleged that Leonardo Rizzuto, 46, and Stefano Sollecito, 48, were the new heads of the Montreal Mafia. The two were arrested after police investigations that uncovered an important alliance between the Mafia, the Hells Angels and street gangs.

“It’s a complete change in the criminal landscape,” Nicaso said. “A turning point in the Montreal underworld. Something that Montreal has never experienced before.”

The Mafia has spread around the world “like a spider casting its web” because it was able to build relationships with politicians and businessmen that could be used to its benefit, he said. 

Its greatest weapon is what Montrealers got a glimpse of during the Charbonneau Commission, Nicaso said: the power of corruption. 

Acts of violence, like Tuesday’s killing and its predicted fallout, are not its strength, he added.

They’re instead an obvious sign that something is not right among its ranks. 

“When they shoot one another, when there are guns, when there is violence,” Nicaso said, “it’s because there is instability. It’s a sign of weakness. A sign of transition.”

jfeith@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/jessefeith

Sergio Piccirilli says the police can’t decide if he’s a Mafioso or a Hells Angel.

Either way, Piccirilli told a Quebec Court judge on Tuesday, they’re hurting his reputation.

Piccirilli, 56, was testifying at the Laval courthouse before Judge Marie Suzanne Lauzon at the sentencing stage of the case where he was found guilty, in January, of 23 charges related to Project Cleopatra, an RCMP investigation into drug trafficking that centred on the activities of Piccirilli’s girlfriend at the time, Sharon Simon. Thirty-six people were arrested in 2006 in Project Cleopatra and Piccirilli’s is the only case that remains open because, in 2008, a stay of proceedings was placed on the charges he faced and then a new trial was ordered.

In the second trial, Lauzon found Piccirilli, 56, guilty of conspiracy, issuing orders for the benefit of a criminal organization and trafficking in methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. He was also convicted on a series of charges related to firearms.

The Crown has requested an 18-year sentence while, on Tuesday, Piccirilli’s lawyer, Patrice Duliot, argued a 13-year sentence would be more in line with jurisprudence.

Piccirilli tried to convince Lauzon that he has spent the past four years trying to be a law-abiding citizen. He said he worked during that time for a towing company, Remorquage Urbain, but that the police are making things hard for him when he is called in to remove vehicles from the scene of an accident.

“I’ve been having a lot of problems with the police when I pick up cars. The police tell my clients I’m a Mafioso and a Hells Angel. It scares people away,” he said.

It was well established during his trial that Piccirilli is a childhood friend of Salvatore Cazzetta, 61, one of the most influential Hells Angels in Quebec. Other evidence presented at trial revealed that Piccirilli possessed a powerful automatic assault rifle while he was under investigation. Duliot said that Piccirilli possessed the weapon, in 2005, because his life was threatened by members of the Rizzuto organization.

Extra security measures were put in place at the Laval courthouse on Tuesday because, in January, Piccirilli, who is currently detained, was warned by police that they recently obtained information that his life is again in danger. Anyone entering the courtroom was required to pass through a mobile metal detector.

When Piccirilli finished his testimony prosecutor Domique Dudemaine told Lauzon that he planned to cross-examine Piccirilli “for several hours” because his testimony had opened up several doors. But Duliot took away the opportunity by asking Lauzon to ignore everything his client said.

Lauzon is expected to make her decision in May.

pcherry@postmedia.com

A Montreal lawyer has been charged with attempting to dissuade a convicted robber from testifying in a court case. 

The lawyer, Dimitrios Strapatsas, 42, was arrested twice last year in connection with a Sûreté du Québec investigation that ultimately saw him charged with attempting to “obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice between April 1-25, 2015, by dissuading” Raynald Leblanc, 43, from testifying in a court case. Strapatsas has already appeared in court on the charge and the next date in his case is set for April. He recently filed a motion in Quebec’s Superior Court seeking to have a stay of proceedings placed on the charge but quickly withdrew the motion before a hearing could be held earlier this month. In the motion Strapatsas denies any wrongdoing. 

According to a lawyer familiar with the case, the Crown initially made an error and identified Leblanc as Raynald Desjardins, the notorious organized crime figure who is currently awaiting a sentence for conspiring to kill Salvatore Montagna, the Mafioso who was fatally shot in November 2011. The lawyer informed the Montreal Gazette that request were made to correct the indictment several times but the change was only made recently. 

One reason why Strapatsas was seeking a stay of proceedings involves his co-accused in the obstruction charge involving Leblanc. The co-accused is John Boulachanis, 42, a man currently awaiting a trial for a murder that dates back almost two decades. In his motion, Strapatsas states that he has served as Boulachanis’ lawyer since 2011 and that the criminal charge he faces prevents him from communicating with Boulachanis. Boulachanis faces criminal charges in other unrelated cases at the Montreal courthouse but the indictment filed against both him and Strapatsas does not make reference to what case Leblanc might have been called to testified in. 

According to an article published last year by La Presse, when Strapatsas and Boulachanis were first arrested on May 28, 2015, the investigation is related to an earlier obstruction case filed against Boulachanis at the Montreal courthouse on Jan. 14, 2015. The article, which quoted unnamed sources, reported that the investigation involved an attempt to publish a video of a police interrogation online “that could have compromised (court) procedures.” 

Leblanc recently pleaded guilty to a series of armed robberies committed in bars in Plateau-Mont-Royal. He also pleaded guilty to robbing a bank in 2010. The Crown is currently seeking to have Leblanc declared a dangerous offender based on his lengthy criminal record. He has a sentence hearing scheduled for Friday. 

Boulachanis was named in an arrest warrant, in 2001, accusing him of the 1997 murder of a man named Robert Tanguay. He was on the lam when the arrest warrant was filed and was arrested a decade later, in the U.S., and was brought back to Canada He was scheduled to have his murder trial, at the Valleyfield courthouse, in April but he recently had the case transferred to the Montreal courthouse. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

After a brief lull, blood is being spilled in Montreal’s underworld.

A homicide and an attempted murder in recent weeks are raising questions about the turmoil in the Montreal Mafia.

The Montreal Gazette asked Pierre de Champlain, a former RCMP intelligence analyst and author of books about organized crime, what is fuelling the violence and what lies ahead for the Mafia, the Hells Angels and local street gangs, which police say have been working together to control drug trafficking in Montreal.

Here are his responses, which have been edited and condensed for space:

On March 1, 2006, police investigate the parking lot where Lorenzo Giordano was shot outside Carrefour Multisports in Laval.

Montreal Mafia

The situation is becoming more and more complex and difficult to follow. I’m pretty sure the police and investigators are all perplexed, too. It’s explosive and anything can happen. I’m convinced that many Montreal mafiosi are very nervous, wondering, “Am I going to be next?”

What we can take from this is that no one has succeeded in standing out as the uncontested new leader of the Mafia since the death of Vito Rizzuto in December 2013. Nobody has been able to bring together all the Mafia clans in Montreal. There’s definitely no emerging leader — that’s why the situation is unstable and volatile.

(Arrested in November, Leonardo Rizzuto and Stefano Sollecito are alleged leaders) of the Montreal Mafia’s Sicilian faction. But there are other factions, there are rivalries. There’s somebody somewhere who is trying to take control. But who? Is it the Calabrese? Is it within the Sicilians? Are there people from outside Montreal who are inserting themselves into this conflict? From Toronto? Hamilton? Anything is possible. The situation is so fuzzy that’s it’s difficult to even come up with a hypothesis as to who will be the new leader of the Montreal Mafia.

During Vito Rizzuto’s era, if everything was going well for organized crime in Montreal, it was because of Rizzuto. Because of his charismatic personality, his abilities as a negotiator, an arbiter, he was able to create a consensus with all the organized crime groups — the West End gang, the bikers and even with street gangs to a certain degree. Everyone was working together, so everything was going well for them.

But with what has happened in the Montreal Mafia over the past few years, all that work will have to be redone. The new leader, the person who takes over as head of the Montreal Mafia, will have to start over with the other criminal groups.

Salvatore Cazzetta, right, leader of the Hells Angels in Quebec, leaves a Longueuil courthouse in 2014. 

Hells Angels

The Hells are restructuring and coming back as strong as they were before the fiasco of Operation SharQc. (In 2009, police filed charges against 156 Hells Angels and associates in the operation. Six months ago, a judge shut down a murder trial involving five men arrested in the operation, ruling the Crown withheld evidence from the defence for years.)

For the Hells, the situation is much better than for the Montreal Mafia. The Mafia is in complete disarray, while for the Hells everything is going well. They’re rebuilding their strength. They’re not decimated by attacks, by murders by rival bands.

Nobody is disputing their leadership. (Arrested in the same investigation that put Leonardo Rizzuto behind bars,) Salvatore Cazzetta is considered the leader of the Hells Angels in Quebec, even though he’s incarcerated.

The Hells rely on small clubs in Montreal and even in the Outaouais region. These little clubs are charged with setting up networks of drug sales and trafficking. They do it under the benediction of the Hells.

Street gangs

With time, street gangs have evolved and have gained a lot of experience on the street — distributing drugs, trafficking in some parts of Montreal.

They have become criminal organizations that are unavoidable in Montreal. That wasn’t the case before, when we only talked about the Mafia, the West End Gang and bikers. To succeed, whoever becomes leader of the Montreal Mafia will not only have to get along with the bikers; he’ll also have to get along with the street gangs.

Recent events

March 28: A 44-year-old man is shot and seriously injured in a Rivière-des-Prairies home. Police suspect the incident is linked to organized crime. Reports say the victim’s name was Nino De Bartolomeis.

March 21: A 42-year-old man is shot dead in a parking lot in Terrebonne, north of Montreal. Reports say his name was Yannick Larose had ties to the Hells Angels.

March 1: Lorenzo Giordano, 52, a leading member of the Montreal Mafia who may have been in line to leader the organization, is shot dead while sitting in a car in a Laval parking lot.

Dec. 10: A café and a restaurant on Jean-Talon St. E. in St-Michel are firebombed. Nobody is injured and damage is minimal. The targeted buildings are reportedly linked to the Montreal Mafia.

Nov. 19, 2015: In a major operation, police arrest the alleged heads of Montreal’s most powerful criminal organizations and declare the Mafia, the Hells Angels and street gangs were working together. Among the 48 people arrested are Leonardo Rizzuto and Stefano Sollecito, described as the heads of the Montreal Mafia. Others charged included: Maurice (Mom) Boucher, the former Hells Angels leader currently serving a life sentence; Salvatore Cazzetta, alleged leader of the Hells Angels; and street-gang leaders Dany Cadet Sprinces and Grégory Woolley.

Sept. 18, 2015: Marco Claudio Campellone, 24, is shot and killed near his home in Rivière-des-Prairies-Pointe-aux-Trembles in a case that may be linked to the Mafia and drug turfs.

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LACHUTE — A suspected member of the Hells Angels Ontario chapter was shot on Saturday in Lachute.

The man was seriously injured, but his life is not in danger, said Sergeant Audrey-Anne Bilodeau of the Sûreté du Québec.

Police were called at around 10:30 a.m. about an incident on Bethany Rd. A man was found lying in a ditch, his motorcycle at his side.

The assailants fled in a SUV, which police are trying to locate.

A well-connected drug trafficker arrested a decade ago received a 15-year sentence in a case that took many twists and turns before finally reaching its end on Monday. 

“Good luck to you Mr. Piccirilli,” Quebec Court Judge Marie Suzanne Lauzon told Sergio Piccirilli, 56, after reading her decision at the Laval courthouse. With the time he has served off and on since he was arrested in 2006, Piccirilli was left with a prison term of 9 years and 9 months. 

When Piccirilli learned how much time Lauzon had calculated as the remainder of his sentence he appeared to be somewhat in a state of disbelief. He turned his head toward two relatives who were seated in the courtroom and let out a sigh. 

While it might be the end of the case in Quebec Court, Piccirilli’s lawyer, Patrice Duliot, has filed an appeal of the decision Lauzon made in January in which she found Piccirilli guilty of 23 charges including conspiracy, issuing orders for the benefit of a criminal organization and trafficking in methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. Piccirilli was also found guilty of the illegal possession of a powerful automatic rifle he obtained after learning leaders in the Rizzuto organization had placed a contract on his head, in 2005, while he was under investigation by the RCMP. Piccirilli was warned by police back then that they had credible information that someone wanted him dead while he and members of a Mafia clan based in Granby were at odds with the Rizzuto organization over who was responsible for how a smuggled shipment of marijuana, worth millions of dollars, arrived in the U.S. spoiled and rotten.

While Piccirilli argued with leaders in the Rizzuto organization (he even showed up at their hangout in St-Léonard in 2005 armed with a pistol) he was being investigated in Project Cleopatra, a Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit investigation led by the RCMP. Piccirilli was arrested in 2006 along with three dozen other people as a result of Project Cleopatra. The main focus of the investigation was Piccirilli’s then girlfriend, Sharon Simon, a Kanesatake resident who was the head of a marijuana trafficking network. As Project Cleopatra evolved the RCMP learned that Piccirilli had a network of his own that was involved in trafficking in methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. The Mounties also learned of Piccirilli’s close ties to Salvatore Cazzetta, 61, one of the more influential Hells Angels in Quebec. The two men have known each other since childhood and held a meeting, during the investigation, where Piccirilli wanted to discuss how another Hells Angel, Claude Pépin, was claiming he controlled turf where Piccirilli was selling drugs. 

In 2008, Piccirilli managed to have a stay of proceeding placed on his case after arguing the Crown and the police had abused his rights as he prepared to go to trial. Piccirilli had argued a prosecutor was trying to bully him into taking a guilty plea and that the police provided conflicting evidence over how they seized the firearm during the investigation. The Supreme Court of Canada ordered a new trial in 2014 after ruling the judge in the first trial could have found a less drastic remedy to deal with the issues rather than issuing a stay of proceedings. 

Duliot said on Monday that he would consult with his client before deciding whether to also appeal the sentence. The Crown, represented by prosecutors Dominique Dudemaine and Marie Eve Moore, had requested an 18-year prison term while Duliot suggested 13 years was more in line with jurisprudence. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

LONGUEUIL – A judge has ordered that murder-related proceedings involving former Hells Angels kingpin Maurice (Mom) Boucher be switched to a Montreal courthouse.

Boucher is to have a preliminary hearing next week on charges of conspiracy to murder crime figure Raynald Desjardins in prison.

The hearing was to be held in Longueuil, but a judge agreed Friday to a Crown request it be moved to the Gouin courthouse.

That Montreal facility is linked by a tunnel to a detention centre where Boucher will stay during the hearing.

Boucher is currently serving life imprisonment in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines penitentiary, north of Montreal, after having been convicted of first-degree murder for ordering the killings of two prison guards in 1997.

André Sauvageau, 57, a leading member of the Hells Angels, was arrested while he was in a restaurant on the South Shore on Wednesday morning.

The Sûreté du Québec said Montreal’s Joint Regional Squad made the arrest as part of Projects Magot and Mastiff, joint investigations with the SQ into drug trafficking conspiracies allegedly run by the Mafia, Hells Angels and street gangs. On Nov. 19, investigators arrested or issued warrants seeking 48 people — including Leonardo Rizzuto and Stefano Sollecito, whom police described as the heads of the Mafia in Montreal.

Sauvageau is expected to appear Thursday at the Montreal courthouse to face charges of gangsterism, drug trafficking, and instructing a person to commit a criminal offence.

The SQ says the investigations are ongoing and more arrests could follow. Two individuals are still being sought: Jesse McCarthy, 39, of Montreal, and Patrick Williams, 41, of Mascouche.

Another court decision critical of how the prosecution handled the most significant criminal case ever brought against the Hells Angels in Quebec has reduced the sentences 35 bikers received for conspiring to murder their enemies. 

The sentences were reduced in a ruling released on Wednesday by the Quebec Court of Appeal. The decision is yet another considerable blow to the legitimacy of how Quebec’s provincial prosecution bureau handled Operation SharQc, a lengthy investigation into the biker gang that initially appeared to cripple the Hells Angels in the province in 2009. 

At least 20 of the men involved in the decision saw their prison terms come to an end on Wednesday. Another eight will likely become eligible for parole as soon as Correctional Service Canada recalculates whatever is left on their sentences. The prosecution bureau —Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP) — is unlikely to appeal the ruling because the sentence reductions were part of a joint suggestion made to the appellate court earlier this year.

Almost every member of the Hells Angels based in Quebec was arrested in Operation SharQc in April 2009. More than 100 of the 156 people initially charged were active or retired members of the world’s biggest outlaw motorcycle gang. Most of the evidence in Operation SharQc involved a period — between 1994 and 2002 — when the Hells Angels were at war with rival gangs over drug trafficking turf across Quebec. The prosecution set out to prove all of the gang’s chapters in the province voted in favour of the war. 

The first trial related to Operation SharQc began last year. But weeks later, on Oct. 9, Superior Court Justice James Brunton placed a stay of proceedings on all of the charges the accused faced. In the decision put an end to the trial, Brunton ruled there was no other remedy available to repair how the prosecution held back in turning over key evidence, involving a murder in the Eastern Townships, that could have been used by the defence to challenge the credibility of a key prosecution witness. 

Brunton’s decision put an end to the trial of five men who were alleged to have been members of the Sherbrooke chapter of the Hells Angels, between 1994 and 2002. The men — Claude Berger, Yvon Tanguay, François Vachon, Sylvain Vachon, and Michel Vallières — walked away free men after having faced charges of conspiracy to commit murder as well as first-degree murder charges.

The stunning decision had a ripple effect that caused dozens of Hells Angels who had already pleaded guilty in Operation SharQc, to the conspiracy charge, to challenge the legitimacy of the plea bargain deals they agreed to and the long sentences they received. In the decision released on Wednesday, the Quebec Court of Appeal agreed that the Hells Angels who pleaded guilty had a case they could have appealed. However, the appeals were filed long after the deadline, which would have been 30 days after they were sentenced. 

“The reproach of the (DPCP) is serious. The prejudice it caused to the (35 men who filed the appeal) is real and substantial: persuaded by the apparent weight of evidence that they did not know was weak, that was hidden from them, they accepted to make an agreement with the prosecution, to plead guilty to the (conspiracy) charge, and made a common suggestion with the prosecution on the sentences they received,” the Court of Appeal wrote in its decision. 

On Oct. 15, less than a week after Brunton delivered his ruling, DPCP director Annick Murphy announced that Jean Lortie, a former prosecutor, would conduct an administrative investigation into how the prosecution withheld evidence from the defence until well after the trial began. Lortie filed a report to Murphy in December, but it was never made public. Instead, in February, Murphy announced, through a statement, that she extended the length of the administrative investigation “to assure a better comprehension of the sequence of events.” 

On Friday, Murphy issued another statement saying that people still have to be met with before the investigation is complete. In the same statement she announced that a committee that was assembled last October to look into the future of so-called megatrials is expected to complete its report “in a few weeks.” 

pcherry@postmedia.com

Sentences reduced by eight years:

• DAVID, Gaétan
• DUQUETTE, Steve
• VALLERAND, Ghislain

Sentences reduced by seven years:

• AUGER, Mario
• BROCHU, Louis
• FILTEAU, Jacques
• FORTIER, Michel
• HAMILTON, Pierre

Sentences reduced by six years:

• AUCLAIR, Guy
• BEAULIEU, Georges
• CHALIFOUX, Sylvain
• DEMERS, Claude
• DURAND, Alain
• ÉMOND, Jacques
• FORGUES, Simon
• FRENETTE, Benoît
• GAGNÉ, Sylvain
• GAMACHE, Martin
• GRENIER, Michel
• LACHAPELLE, Pierrot
• LEDUC, Yves
  MAHEU, Stéphane
• MÉNARD, Stéphane
• OUELLET, Richard
• OUELLETTE, Pierre
• OUIMET, Marvin
• PELLETIER, Marc
• PERRON, Jean-Damien
• PRUNEAU, Patrick
• ROBERT, Jonathan
• RODRIGUE, Yvon
• RODRIGUE, Pierre
• ROYER, Daniel
• RUEST, Alain
• THÉORÊT, Normand

The last remaining case in Operation SharQc ended with a whimper on Tuesday as one of the founding members of the Hells Angels in Canada pleaded guilty to being part of the gang’s biker war in Quebec. 

Robert Bonomo, 69, one of the first men to become a Hells Angels when a gang called the Popeyes was patched over by the world’s biggest international outlaw motorcycle gang in 1977, admitted at the Montreal courthouse that he was part of the general murder conspiracy that was the basis of Operation SharQc. 

In April 2009, almost every member of the Hells Angels based in Quebec was arrested and charged with the conspiracy, which involved the gang’s bloody war with rivals in this province between 1994 and 2002. When the case began, 156 people — gang members and their associates — were listed on one indictment. In 2011, 31 people who were only charged with drug trafficking on the indictment, saw their cases placed under a stay of proceedings after Superior Court Justice James Brunton ruled it would take the Crown too long to actually bring their cases to trial.   

The Hells Angels’ war was over drug-trafficking turf in cities like Montreal, Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivières. More than 160 people were killed during the conflict, including several innocent victims. Originally, most of the Hells Angels arrested in SharQc also faced 22 first-degree murder charges. But almost every gang member among the more than 105 who have entered a guilty plea in SharQc over the years has only admitted to being part of the conspiracy. 

Bonomo did the same on Tuesday and because of errors made by the Crown during a trial that was aborted last year, the longtime Hells Angel was left with only a one-day prison term. Crown prosecutor Marie-Claude Bourassa explained to Brunton that the joint recommendation made on the sentence is actually the equivalent of an 8 1/2-year prison term. Bonomo served 15 months behind bars while he was detained and that was subtracted from the sentence. But, Bourassa explained, the remainder was also reduced based on how, just two weeks ago, the Quebec Court of Appeal significantly reduced the sentences of 35 other Hells Angels to make up for an abuse of process carried out by the Crown in Operation SharQc. Last year, Brunton put an end to the murder trial of five men after ruling the Crown had failed to divulge key evidence to defence lawyers until the trial was well underway. The five Hells Angels walked away free men and, in August, the Quebec Court Appeal ruled the only option available to remedy the same abuse of procedure for the 35 other men, who tried to appeal their guilty pleas, was to reduce their sentences. 

Despite being one of the longest-standing Canadian members of the Hells Angels, Bonomo, who admitted in court that he is still a member, has only one previous conviction on his record — for mischief in 1976. When police carried out search warrants in Operation SharQc on April 14, 2009, they discovered 30 Ziploc bags containing 200 contraband cigarettes. Bonomo was charged with violating tax laws, which are not part of the Criminal Code of Canada. He fought the case and claimed the cigarettes could have belonged to a woman Bonomo has described in court as both his spouse and someone who pays rent to him while residing in the same building in Sorel. He was found guilty in the case in 2013, and ordered to pay a $6,000 fine.  

Bourassa said the Crown had no evidence Bonomo was directly involved in plotting any of the murders that were carried out by the biker gang. However, she added, there was evidence that links Bonomo to a decision made by the Hells Angels in 1999 to pay out bonuses of up to $100,000 to their underlings if they killed a full-patch member of a rival gang. 

The prosecutor described Bonomo as still being influential within the gang, because of his longevity, but characterized his role within it, at the time of his arrest, as someone who settled the gang’s trademark issues across Canada over things like its infamous death-head logo. According to the Quebec business registry, Bonomo is listed as the primary shareholder in Anges de l’enfer Montréal Inc., a company the biker gang has owned since 1981. 

Brunton, the presiding judge in Bonomo’s guilty plea Tuesday, had also heard pretrial motions related to SharQc for several years. When the day ended on Tuesday the judge turned toward Bourassa and asked: “So when my friends ask me what’s going on in SharQc I can tell them it’s over — yes?” 

Bourrasa replied in the affirmative. 

However, technically the case is not closed. According to court records, there are still charges pending against nine other Hells Angels who were never arrested in Operation SharQc. Warrants for their arrest were issued in April 2009 and they have never been found. The nine men are: Mario Bergeron, 52, Michel Bergeron, 60, Marc Bordage, 52, Gaétan Brisebois, 46, Antonio Costella, 54, Luc Émond, 49, Claude Gauthier, 48, Marcellin Morin, 49, and Guy Rodrigue, 58.  

pcherry@postmedia.com

Yet another arson fire suggests someone is intent on sending messages to people tied to the Montreal Mafia. Just before midnight on Thursday, someone set fire to a building that houses a St-Léonard food-distribution company with past ties to the Rizzuto organization.

Firefighters dealt with the blaze on Magloire St., which began after someone smashed a window and tossed an incendiary device inside. Sprinklers contained the flames before major damage was done, Montreal police say.

No one has been arrested, and the Montreal police arson squad is investigating. 

The fire was set at John & Dino, a company that used to be owned by Agostino Cuntrera, a longtime member of the Rizzuto organization who was gunned down in front of the very same company in 2010. 

Cuntrera’s son Liborio, 48, was alleged to have been made a leader in the Rizzuto organization just before the group was rocked by arrests in 2015 and earlier this year. 

Related

• Read more about organized crime in Montreal

It is possible those arrests have disrupted an alliance between the Montreal Mafia, Hells Angels and Montreal-area street gangs that has existed for a few years, police sources speculated recently. Through the alliance, the criminal organizations would deal with disputes at high levels, with orders trickling down. 

The existence of the alliance was revealed after the Sûreté du Québec and Montreal police made arrests in November in Projects Magot and Mastiff. 

“That system appears to have fallen apart,” a police source who investigates organized crime told the Montreal Gazette last week. 

The situation is similar to one in 2009 and 2010, when eastern Montreal was plagued by dozens of fires deliberately set in cafés and businesses. In some cases, the motive appeared to involve disputes over drug trafficking turf, but in others the motives were never made clear by police. 

This week in Laval, someone tried to set fire to Café Bellerose, a past Mob hangout where Ennio Bruni, 36, was shot and killed in 2010 in a Mob hit.

Bruni was an underling in the Rizzuto organization. Project Colisée, a large-scale investigation into the Mafia that ended in 2006, revealed that he had close ties to one of the organization’s leaders, Francesco Del Balso, who was recently released on a lengthy sentence he received after Colisée. 

On Sept. 9, someone tried to set fire to two buildings on Jean-Talon St. E., near Papineau St. that have also been linked to people with ties to the Rizzuto organization in the past. One building is the location of Café Empire, a place Stefano Sollecito, 48, used as a hangout until he and Leonardo Rizzuto, 47, were arrested late last year in Projects Magot and Mastiff.

The other business was Dilallo Burger and Bar, across the street from Café Empire. It was owned until recently by Vito Salvaggio, provincial business records show.

The 42-year-old Laval man received a four-year prison sentence in 2002 after a police investigation into how the Hells Angels were using apartments in Anjou as a banking system while they sold drugs.

Salvaggio was videotaped arriving at the apartments several times, and a Hells Angels accounting system revealed he had sent them nearly $2 million in 2001. 

Last year, Salvaggio was reported to be among a group of leaders who assumed control of the Montreal Mafia after Vito Rizzuto died of natural causes in December 2013. Police believe Liborio Cuntrera, Leonardo Rizzuto, Stefano Sollecito and his father, Rocco, were part of the group. Rocco Sollecito was killed in Laval this past May. 

Marco Pizzi, 46, a man who was charged in the same drug trafficking case as Liborio Cuntrera in May of this year, is reported to have ties to a café that was firebombed in Rivière des Prairies on Sept. 3. An attempt was made on Pizzi’s life in RDP a month before the café was firebombed.

pcherry@postmedia.com 

twitter.com/PCherryReporter

The Hells Angels scored another judicial victory Wednesday as a Superior Court judge tossed out a slew of charges against high-ranking club member Salvatore Cazzetta.

Cazzetta was facing five counts of gangsterism and conspiracy to commit fraud among other alleged crimes stemming from a 2009 arrest. However, Judge James Brunton had to dismiss the charges because of a series of delays in Cazzetta’s trial.

The delays violated timeframes outlined by the Supreme Court of Canada’s Jordan decision — which states that Superior Court trials must be completed within 30 months of the suspect’s arraignment.

Defence lawyers argued Cazzetta’s trial would likely end only in the summer of 2017 — some 96 months after he was charged alongside other suspects in the Machine raids. The operation saw some 600 police from the RCMP, Sûreté du Québec and Kahnawake Peacekeepers break up an alleged contraband tobacco ring.

Brunton issued his decision in a Longueuil courthouse after deliberating for two days.

“We are absolutely satisfied with this decision,” said Anne-Marie Lanctot, Cazzetta’s lawyer. “We were way past the timeframe … Really, the only delays we were responsible for add up to about 11 months. The Crown made a strategic decision to try to introduce evidence that was inadmissible, which caused delay after delay after delay.”

The case against Cazzetta’s co-accused — Peter Rice and his sons Peter Francis and Burton — was also thrown out Wednesday.

This is the second time charges against Cazzetta have been dropped because of unreasonable court delays. In 2011, Brunton dismissed Cazzetta’s case and that of 30 others rounded up in the 2009 SharQC raids.

Though Cazzetta will not serve time for the gangsterism charges, he’s still awaiting trial for his arrest related to the Sûreté du Québec’s Magot-Mastiff’s organized crime probe.

Representatives from the Quebec Crown prosecutor’s office did not respond to the Montreal Gazette’s interview requests.

A key witness in the investigation that produced the arrests of alleged leaders among the Montreal Mafia and Hells Angels is expected to testify in court for the first time Thursday.

The man’s testimony will be part of the preliminary inquiry in Project Mastiff, a lengthy drug trafficking investigation into Leonardo Rizzuto, 47, and Stefano Sollecito, 48, alleged Mafia leaders who were arrested along with 46 other people last November. 

But the witness cannot be named, for the time being, because of an unusual publication ban intended to protect his identity. Last month, out of concerns for his safety, the Crown requested that any information concerning the informant, including his name, be subject to a publication ban. Quebec Court Judge Louis Legault is expected to rule on the matter mid-month. On Wednesday, Quebec Court Judge Nathalie Fafard, who will preside over the preliminary inquiry, agreed to the Crown’s request that a temporary ban, issued by Legault, be maintained until he hands down his decision on Oct. 18.

Publication bans on photos of informants have been routine in similar past cases, but preventing the publication of an informant’s name is a rare step. All of the people charged in Project Mastiff already know the man’s name, which has been mentioned in open court several times in the past. 

Fafard is expected to hear evidence over the course of the next few months. A preliminary inquiry is a step in a case where a judge determines if there is enough evidence to proceed with a trial. On Wednesday, Fafard dealt with administrative issues before hearing from any witnesses. 

Lawyers representing Rizzuto and Sollecito informed the judge that both men already heard most of the evidence gathered in Project Mastiff during a lengthy bail hearing. They requested that their clients only be required to hear evidence from one witness who will testify in November. The evidence will involve how the Crown intends to try to prove Rizzuto and Sollecito were part of a criminal organization. This is key to a gangsterism charge they face. They are also charged with conspiracy to traffic in cocaine.

Rizzuto, the son of now-deceased Mob boss Vito Rizzuto, was denied bail months ago and appeared relaxed as he sat among several other accused in a prisoner’s dock designed to seat dozens in a courtroom at the Gouin courthouse. Sollecito, who was granted bail and is suffering from cancer, was not present for the hearing. 

Lawyer Loris Cavaliere at the preliminary hearing for Danny De Gregoria on a weapons charge at the Palais de Justice in Montreal, Wednesday May 9, 2012.

Another person who was not present on Wednesday was lawyer Loris Cavaliere. He was granted a conditional release this year and his lawyer, Martin Subak, informed Fafard that Cavaliere, 62, intends to renounce his right to be part of the preliminary inquiry. The defence lawyer is charged with participating in the activities of a criminal organization, cocaine trafficking and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine. Weeks ago, another set of charges, related to a semi-automatic pistol seized by police on Nov. 19, were filed against Cavaliere as well. 

At least five other people accused in Project Mastiff renounced their right to hear the evidence that will be presented during the preliminary inquiry. 

Alexandra Mongeau, (daughter of Maurice (Mom) Boucher) leaves the Gouin courthouse in Montreal Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2016. She is one of the people accused in Project Mastiff and asked that she only have to hear the evidence that touches on her.

Another person who asked for permission to attend only part of the preliminary inquiry was Alexandra Mongeau, 26, the daughter of Maurice (Mom) Boucher, the former leader of a Hells Angels’ chapter based in Montreal. Her lawyer, Anne-Sophie Bédard, said that only a small part of the evidence gathered in Project Mastiff involves Mongeau and added that the accused recently gave birth. Mongeau is charged with being in possession of money that was allegedly the proceeds of crime. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

QUEBEC — Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée welcomed a report into so-called megatrials on Wednesday, vowing to implement its recommendations so that “criminals don’t go free.”

Vallée commissioned the report last year after Superior Court Justice James Brunton stunned the province by ending the murder trial of five men alleged to have been members of the Sherbrooke chapter of the Hells Angels, between 1994 and 2002, when the biker gang was at war with its rivals across Quebec.

The men — Claude Berger, Yvon Tanguay, François Vachon, Sylvain Vachon and Michel Vallières — were all charged with conspiracy to commit murder over the eight-year period but also faced first-degree murder charges.

They all walked free as a result of Brunton’s ruling, which blamed the Crown for having a “win at all costs” attitude and withholding evidence from the defence for years.

“That’s not the kind of system we want,” Vallée said, as she received the 174-page report entitled “Pour que le procès se tienne et se termine.”

“When someone commits a crime and we have all the evidence, we really hope that the trial will go forward and that there will be consequences for the criminal acts that occurred.”

In his report, which contains 51 recommendations, retired deputy justice minister Michel Bouchard urges everyone in the justice system to collaborate and be more respectful of deadlines. 

He told the Montreal Gazette his top recommendations include:

• creating a permanent forum for stakeholders to continuously share best practices
• offering police and prosecutors management training (to run a megatrial like a business)
• developing a protocol similar to the one adopted in England in 2005 to improve criminal case management
• providing jurors with better tools to understand the evidence 
• reviewing Quebec’s legal aid to ensure the presence of qualified lawyers

“Megatrials are huge logistical projects,” Bouchard said. “All those people are involved in a major project and they must be able to act, not only as independent people, but as a team, to put the cases in front of the jury and for the trial to proceed in a lapse of time that is acceptable to everybody.”

Bouchard argued it starts with assigning tasks to a specific number of people early on in the process, setting a calendar and developing a strategy for disclosing evidence. 

This last step is especially important, Bouchard said, as it’s currently the main cause of “bottlenecks” and constitutes “the main risk” for ending megatrials prematurely.

“I’m taking these recommendations in a very positive way,” Vallée said. “I’ve been working on changing the culture for the last year, so definitely, for me, these are additional measures that can probably be put in place.”

The Crown prosecutors’ office said Wednesday it will “get to work immediately on implementing the recommendations that concern us.”

Meanwhile, the president of Montreal’s defence lawyers’ association, Danièle Roy, applauded the report and said “collaborating doesn’t mean abdicating.”

“We’ve been saying for a long time that one of the solutions is disclosing evidence in an organized and simplified manner, and that’s what the Bouchard report says,” Roy said.

About 40 megatrials, of 20 or more accused, into cases of theft or fraud are currently underway in Montreal, she said.

cplante@postmedia.com

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An internal administrative review by Quebec’s prosecutors bureau into how a murder trial involving members of the Hells Angels was aborted because the prosecution took too long to turn over evidence to defence lawyers lays no blame on any specific attorney. 

Instead, Annick Murphy, the head of the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP), attributes what happened to a “chain of events” involving different organizations involved in the case. 

On Oct. 9, 2015, Superior Court Justice James Brunton placed a stay of proceedings on murder and conspiracy charges filed against five men — Claude Berger, Yvon Tanguay, François Vachon, Sylvain Vachon and Michel Vallières. All five were alleged to be members of the biker gang’s Sherbrooke chapter between 1994 and 2002, when the Hells Angels were involved in a war with other criminal organizations.

Brunton made the decision after learning that it took four years for the prosecution to turn over evidence related to one of the seven first-degree murder charges in the case — the death of Sylvain Reed, a man who was killed on March 12, 1997, in the Eastern Townships. The evidence revealed police in Ontario had a completely different version of what happened to Reed compared to a statement made by Sylvain Boulanger, a former Hells Angel who became an informant and was the key witness in Operation SharQc. 

In his decision, Brunton criticized the prosecution for adopting “a desire to win at all costs (throughout the trial) to the detriment to the fundamental principles that form the foundation of our penal justice system.”

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Murphy said: “(The responsibility) does not rest on one person in particular.”

She said the blame could be spread between the prosecution and police, but that the administrative review she ordered a week after Brunton’s decision “leaves us with no reason to doubt (they acted) in good faith.” 

The administrative review was done by Jean Lortie, a former prosecutor. 

“(The review) permits us to conclude that no prosecutor, among all of those involved in the case sought to hide, neither from the defence, nor from the court, the existence of evidence that was in the possession of the state,” Lortie wrote in his 69-page report. He also noted the prosecution team lacked the resources required to corroborate all of Boulanger’s allegations.  

pcherry@postmedia.com

The Quebec Court of Appeal has acquitted a man who was convicted a decade ago of murdering one of the highest-ranking Hells Angels in Quebec during the biker gang war. 

Tony Duguay was convicted of murdering rival gangster Normand (Biff) Hamel in 2000.

The appellate court delivered its decision on Wednesday, acquitting Tony Duguay, a former member of the Bandidos, of the murder of Normand (Biff) Hamel, a member of the Hells Angels now-defunct Nomads chapter based in Montreal. Hamel was shot to death in Laval on April 17, 2000. 

At the time of the murder, the Hells Angels were at war with the Rock Machine (a gang that eventually joined the Bandidos) and several other criminal organizations over drug-trafficking turf in all of the major cities in Quebec. More than 160 people were killed between 1994 and 2002 within the context of the conflict. 

The decision was based on new evidence supplied by a witness who testified against Duguay during his trial. The witness, a former gang-member-turned-informant named Sylvain Beaudry, admitted after the trial that he lied while on the witness stand. 

During the jury trial, held at the Laval courthouse in 2006, Beaudry testified about many things. According to the decision released Wednesday by Quebec’s highest court, the turning point of the trial was when Beaudry said Duguay confided in him and told him details about how the killers chased Hamel through the parking lot of a commercial building before he was gunned down. He said Duguay joked about the Hells Angel’s choice of footwear by saying “cowboy boots are slippery.” His testimony matched evidence from an autopsy that revealed Hamel had fallen on his knees before he was killed. 

“However, the informant now says today that he did not receive this information from (Duguay), but that it was supplied by a police officer who was aware of the case,” the court wrote in its decision. Beaudry told the court the information might have been supplied to him by Benoît Roberge, 53, the former Montreal police detective who is serving an eight-year sentence for selling highly sensitive information to a Hells Angel in 2013. Roberge, a specialist in biker gangs, was one of two detectives who convinced Beaudry to turn his back on the Bandidos and become an informant. 

The Quebec Court of Appeal also noted it was established at trial that Beaudry was promised things there were never written into his contract to be a prosecution witness. Beaudry admitted, after Duguay’s trial, that he lied under oath about those promises when he was grilled by defence lawyers. 

Earlier this week, the Crown conceded that if a new trial was ordered they would not use Beaudry as a witness and therefore would not be able to proceed with one. 

Related

• More crime coverage from Paul Cherry: What the jury didn't hear: '$20,000 to get rid of an informant'
• Internal review of what went wrong in SharQc trial lays no specific blame
• 14 accused in Laval corruption case ask to have charges dropped

pcherry@postmedia.com