Biker Trials, The (2 page)

Kane also offered insight into the men who were assembling the Nomads chapter with two goals in mind: to win the war against the Alliance and to expand “business” into those areas of Canada not already dominated by other Hells Angels.

Needing help with this westward expansion the Nomads
chapter was interested in using Kane. That is what the Hells Angels were preparing him for when he first contacted the Interpol office in Ottawa during the autumn of 1994. He asked to speak to someone knowledgeable about biker gangs. He was put in contact with
RCMP
Sgt. Jean-Pierre Lévesque, an analyst for Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (
CISC
). As part of the Ottawa-based bureau, Lévesque was sent intelligence reports on biker gangs collected by police forces in cities and towns across Canada. Lévesque seized the opportunity and set up a meeting with Kane. He then contacted Corporal Pierre Verdon, an
RCMP
investigator in Montreal.

At that point, Kane had had about seven years' experience as a criminal working inside and outside the biker gang world. He had been a member of a gang called the Concordes, based in Saint-Hubert, a town in Montreal's South Shore region. The Concordes was later fused into a Hells Angels' underling gang called the Evil Ones, also based in the South Shore.

Instead of becoming part of the Hells Angels' growing criminal enterprise, Kane decided to go out on his own, concentrating on his own activities, like drug trafficking, contraband cigarettes and weapons. He kept good ties with the Evil Ones but began to notice that without gang ties, he lacked influence. During the summer of 1993, he accepted an offer from two members of the Hells Angels' Montreal chapter to preside over a new affiliated gang in Ontario. The project didn't go well and Kane ended up behind bars, later blaming the debacle on “the imbeciles” he was asked to work with. But when he was released, he had no trouble making contact with the Hells Angels again.

Kane told Lévesque and Verdon that he was willing to work with the
RCMP
for a long time. His ultimate goal was to become a member of the Hells Angels, which he estimated would take between three to five years, while supplying the police with information. In Verdon's notes from the first meeting, the only motive
mentioned was that Kane expected to be paid well for his information. Lévesque and Verdon knew that having someone like Kane working for the police was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and they decided he should be kept as a paid informant. Kane was code-named “C2994” to protect his identity.

On November 4, 1994, Kane made his first mention of Maurice (Mom) Boucher. He had serious concerns about working for the police and betraying such a powerful head of a criminal organization. Verdon noted the concern at the end of 20 pages of notes generated from that November meeting. He wrote: “The source is worried about the possibility of leaks coming from our department. The source is worried about the fact that a police officer who makes $55,000 per year can be bought by the other side. According to the source, a member of the Hells Angels, like Maurice (Mom) Boucher, one of the richest and most influential of the group, is ready to pay double a police officer's salary for those who provide them with information.”

At that point, Boucher was far from being the household name in Quebec he would eventually become. But any police detective involved in organized crime in the province knew his name. By 1994, he was an elusive figure to some frustrated investigators. He appeared to be involved in the Hells Angels' large-scale drug deals, but never in a way that generated enough evidence to implicate him in a major offense. As 1994 neared its end, Boucher, who was then 41 years old, had been head of the Hells Angels' Montreal chapter, which was actually based in Sorel, a city 60 kilometres northeast of Montreal. He had joined the Hells Angels seven years earlier.

The Montreal chapter was chartered on December 5, 1977, becoming the first Canadian chapter of the Hells Angels, joining several others already established in Australia, England and the U.S. at that point. The first chapter had been founded in San Bernardino, California, on March 17, 1948. Even before the Hells
Angels opened shop in Quebec, the province already had its share of biker violence thanks to gangs that plagued Montreal and smaller cities or towns. The Hells Angels in New York were friendly with a gang called the Popeyes in Montreal. The Popeyes had already garnered headlines in Quebec with their violence long before becoming Hells Angels. They were engaged in a bloody war with a gang called the Devil's Disciples. And about a year before they became Hells Angels, several members of the Popeyes were arrested in a small town northwest of Montreal after trashing a hotel and taking three women hostage inside. The Popeyes were friendly with similar Quebec-based biker gangs with names like the Missiles in the Saguenay region and the Sex Fox in Chibougamau (the gang actually used the Looney Toons' character Wile E. Coyote for its patch, instead of a fox). Originally, 17 members of the Popeyes were chosen to be part of the first Hells Angels' chapter in Canada and they later recruited members from other gangs.

One of the Popeyes who joined the Hells Angels was Yves (Le Boss) Buteau, an influential biker who maintained good ties with other gangs in the province. According to news reports after his death, Buteau was a charismatic man and a natural leader, traits that helped him spread the Hells Angels' dogma to other parts of Canada. Buteau would be killed in 1983 while he was the Hells Angels' Canadian national president. The shooter, a 22-year-old drug dealer named Gino Goudreau who had ties to a rival biker gang, went into hiding but was arrested months later. He said he had been dealing hashish in various Sorel parks and in a bar called Le Petit Bourg, the place where he shot Buteau and another biker named Guy Gilbert on September 8, 1983.He testified during a coroner's inquiry that the Hells Angels threatened him on several occasions in the four months before the murder.

Goudreau said he had been shooting pool in Le Petit Bourg when Buteau threatened him yet again and told him to leave the
bar. As Goudreau exited the bar, three bikers followed him outside, confronting Goudreau as he and his girlfriend were preparing to leave on a motorcycle. Goudreau said Buteau threatened him again, saying it was his last night in Sorel as he unzipped his jacket and reached for a revolver tucked under the front of his belt to make his point. Like some cowboy in a Hollywood western, Goudreau claimed he merely beat Buteau to the draw. He pulled a revolver out of a storage box on his motorcycle and opened fire, shooting Buteau, who was the closest. Earlier that summer Goudreau had traded a large quantity of hashish for the gun with one of his customers. Buteau was struck four times, the bullets entering his heart, a lung and a major artery. Buteau and Gilbert were killed. Another Hells Angel was wounded in the shooting. Goudreau was charged with two counts of second-degree murder but was acquitted after claiming self-defense.

The day after Buteau's funeral, a young boy found a bomb, equipped with a remote control detonator, placed along the route where the funeral procession, made up of many bikers, had passed. As the police investigated the bomb, composed ofdynamite and 50 pounds of nails and gravel, they theorized that it had been placed on the side of the road and camouflaged the night before the funeral. At the time of his death, Buteau was considered a key player in the plan to bring the Hells Angels' name and ideology to Quebec and then expand into other provinces in Canada.

Buteau was replaced by Michel (Sky) Langlois, another influential Hells Angel who helped the gang gain notoriety in the years to come. But by then, with the violent people he had selected to wear the Hells Angels' patch, Buteau had already laid the foundation for the gang's take-no-prisoners philosophy.

Luc Michaud was among the members of Missiles selected to join the Hells Angels. The Missiles were based in the Saguenay village of Saint-Gedeon, where they terrorized the 1,750 residents.
They openly trafficked in drugs, and used firearms for target practice in residential neighborhoods. During the late 1970s, Michaud ran a stripper agency for the Hells Angels before becoming a “full-patch” (or full-fledged) member in 1980. He would become part of the gang's second chapter in Quebec, based in Laval, an island city north of Montreal. But two years later, he asked to return to the Montreal chapter as he and other Hells Angels began to realize some members of the Laval chapter were unwilling to discipline themselves into a well-tuned, organized gang. Michaud would later be described as a zealot of the Hells Angels' doctrine and he was believed to be a driving force behind the March 24, 1985, slaughter of five members of the Laval chapter, dubbed the Lennoxville Purge. He was convicted on five counts of first-degree murder for his role in the murders and sentenced to life with no chance of parole until he had served 25 years.

In 1993, however, while he was serving his sentence, Michaud wanted nothing to do with the Hells Angels and was expelled from the gang. He was apparently a changed man. In 2001,he used section 745.6 of the Criminal Code, the judicial review provision, better known as Canada's “faint hope clause,” to convince a jury that he deserved a break on his sentence and was given a chance at parole after having served 20 years. He described his role in the slaughter, saying he had merely pointed a firearm at one of the victims and told him not to move, just before the five Hells Angels were shot dead.

Michaud was released on day parole in May 2003 and impressed parole officials with his rehabilitation. He spent two years in a halfway house, being gradually reintegrated into free society and becoming a family man. He admitted to the National Parole Board that he had been morally blind to what the Hells Angels were doing when he was a member and that he joined them out of an immature need to belong to something, no matter how criminal. He was released on full parole in June 2005.

Among the five Hells Angels murdered in the Sherbrooke chapter's clubhouse in 1985 was Michel (Willie) Mayrand, a former member of the Marauders, a gang based in the Eastern Townships mining town of Asbestos. The Marauders was another of the smaller gangs the Hells Angels used to select its members from during their early years in Quebec. Mayrand's brother Richard joined the Hells Angels' Montreal chapter a year before his brother was murdered. After the slaughter, Richard Mayrand chose the gang over sibling loyalties and decided to stay with the Hells Angels. He even did time for refusing to talk at a coroner's inquest about what happened in Sherbrooke. He would later take on an important role in the Nomads chapter and be a key player in the Hells Angels' expansion into Ontario. He would also be among the people arrested in Operation Springtime 2001.

The Hells Angels' ability to purge five of their own members in such a violent way in 1985 brought them notoriety in Quebec and would influence future developments. The gang's Montreal chapter was left scattered after the purge as many of its members were rounded up as suspects or went into hiding. The chapter needed new blood, younger members who were willing to join an organization with a reputation for killing its own.

Boucher was made a member of the Montreal chapter in 1987, joining Walter (Nurget) Stadnick, who had earned his patch in 1982. Both men would play important roles in the gang's future, not only in Quebec but in the rest of Canada as well.

Stadnick had been a member of the Wild Ones, a gang based in Hamilton, before joining the Hells Angels. Like Boucher and most other members of the Nomads chapter, Stadnick grew up in a working-class neighborhood, but in his case it was in Ontario. Between 1971 and 1988, he had been convicted at least four times for crimes committed in Hamilton and Toronto. The longest sentence he had served was six months for a weapons offence. He eventually became the Hells Angels' national president, despite
the fact he does not fit the profile of a typical biker gang member. He stands only 5 foot 4 inches tall and is thin. When appearing in court he is soft-spoken, polite and quick to smile. But he is also a survivor.

On September 8,1984, the first anniversary of Yves Buteau's death, Stadnick and a group of about 20 other bikers were riding their motorcycles in a close formation along Highway 143 in Saint-Pie-de-Guire, a small town outside of Drummondville. Buteau was from Drummondville and had been buried in a cemetery there. Riding with Stadnick that day were other important members of the Hells Angels from both the Montreal chapter and what would become the Sherbrooke chapter. They were on their way to the cemetery to pay their respects. Denis Houle, a future member of the Nomads chapter was among the group, riding his red 1984 Harley. Michel (Sky) Langlois, who had just replaced Buteau as president of the Montreal chapter, was there too. Ronald Lauchlin MacDonald, the future president of the Halifax chapter, was also along for the ride.

At the same time, a 57-year-old priest driving his car down Rural Road 13 was heading to an event planned as part of the pope's visit to Quebec that year. The priest was apparently late. His car went through a stop sign and barreled into the Hells Angels and their motorcycles. The close formation the bikers were riding in caused a chain reaction as the priest's car plowed through them. Thirteen motorcycles were involved in the accident and four of them caught fire. A Hells Angels' prospect named Daniel Mathieu died shortly afterward in a Sherbrooke hospital. Stadnick was burned badly in the accident and ended up losing several fingers. He also suffered severe burns to his face that were still visible 20 years later.

In 1996, while Boucher was busy with the war in Montreal, Stadnick spent time traveling across Canada making and maintaining important contacts for the gang as it prepared to spread
westward. Stéphane Sirois, a member of the Rockers, traveled that year with Stadnick to Winnipeg where the Hells Angels planned to set up a Rockers chapter whose members would sell drugs supplied from Montreal. Stadnick had no way of knowing Sirois would later leave the Hells Angels' organization on bad terms and agree to work for the police. Stadnick told Sirois that he already had drug dealers working for him in Manitoba so that setting up a puppet club in Winnipeg only made sense. It's hard to know how good business was in Manitoba, but four years earlier, a bag the police suspected was Stadnick's was seized at a Winnipeg airport. Inside it, they found $80,000. Stadnick was charged with possession of the proceeds of crime, but his criminal case ended with the Crown dropping the charges, possibly due to a lack of evidence. Sirois was also with Stadnick as they prepared to travel to Saskatchewan to visit members of the Rebels, a gang celebrating their anniversary. Stadnick talked of how his dream was to see the Hells Angels become the only biker gang in Canada. Two years later, the Rebels were made prospect members in the Hells Angels.