Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle

by Jerry Langton

  A few weeks later, Stadnick was back in Winnipeg for the inquest for the assault trial. No sooner had the judge read the charges than he, chuckling, dismissed the case. Clearly, he pointed out, the drunken off-duty police officers had provoked the bikers. Again, Stadnick was free.

  While the Hells Angels still had no official presence in Manitoba, Stadnick considered his work there successful, despite his run-ins with the police and the press. He had Los Brovos and the Spartans not only talking, but partying together. He had, according to police, good business relationships with both gangs, with the Hells Angels supplying drugs, prostitutes and strippers, which the local clubs marketed to hungry Winnipeggers.

  The situation in Ontario was far less welcoming. The Outlaws were the dominant gang, so Stadnick courted the next biggest, Satan’s Choice. He could often be seen escorting Bernie “the Frog” Guindon, national president of Satan’s Choice, to Oshawa strip joints and even fine Toronto restaurants. “He’d make a round trip of it,” said one OPP officer. He’d see Guindon in Oshawa, take him out for the night, drive over to Hamilton to take his folks to church and then fly off to Winnipeg.” Satan’s Choice was one of many different biker gangs to emerge from Southern Ontario in the middle 1960s. The key difference was the leadership of Guindon, who assumed club presidency in 1965. While not major players in organized crime, the gang made a name for itself by fighting, and sometimes destroying, neighboring gangs. Rumbling with clubs like the Golden Hawks, the Fourth Reich, the Chain Men and others, Satan’s Choice became the most feared and respected bikers in the province.

  And, as the gang grew, it added chapters. Every summer, Guindon hosted an all-members meeting and party in the resort town of Wasaga Beach, about 75 miles northwest of Toronto. It was a habit that didn’t always go down well with other vacationers, but rarely led to any legal trouble. “Oh yeah, it was awful when they came,” said Ian, who had a cottage in Wasaga Beach in the ’60s and ’70s. “They’d camp out right in your front yard without asking and throw garbage and bottles around—and some of them just smelled awful.” Intrusive and obnoxious as they may have been, the bikers had little to fear from the cottagers. “There’s no way we would have called the cops; there were just too many of them and they were mean-looking—real thugs,” said Ian. “We just stepped around them and went about our business as best we could.”

  That tolerance was tested in August 1968 when a Globe and Mail photographer infiltrated the party and took pictures of one of their games, in which a live chicken was placed in a ring with about two dozen bikers, who quickly tore it to pieces. The winner of the competition was the biker with the biggest chunk of flesh. When the photos ran, the public was outraged. The Ontario Humane Society even offered a substantial reward for information leading to the arrest of anyone involved in the game. Nobody came forward.

  A few arrests for animal cruelty wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. Satan’s Choice was big and rapidly getting bigger. At its peak in the early 1970s, Satan’s Choice was the second-biggest biker gang in the world—far bigger than the Outlaws and second only to the Hells Angels—with chapters in Hamilton, Oshawa, Guelph, St. Catharines, Preston (now part of Cambridge), Peterborough, Ottawa, Kingston, Windsor, Montreal and Vancouver. The primary reason for the club’s success was the leadership of its national president, or “supreme commander,” as he preferred to be called.

  A former Canadian amateur light-middleweight boxing champion, Bernie Guindon was a smart man and a natural leader. He became Satan’s Choice president at the age of 22 and recruited area clubs in much the same way Stadnick would decades later—wining, dining and using force when necessary. Satan’s Choice became so impressive that emissaries from the Outlaws and Hells Angels came to Canada and attempted to recruit them, only to be turned down without specific reasons. Guindon was also known for quelling dissension within the club. In 1973, a fight at a strip joint caused the Toronto Satan’s Choice chapter to become enraged and declare war on two major independents, the Vagabonds and the Black Diamond Riders. When Guindon heard, he called a summit meeting with the presidents of both clubs and negotiated a peace treaty without informing the Toronto chapter until afterward. They accepted their commander’s decision without question.

  The success of his mutual tolerance pact gave Guindon an idea. Aware that the Hells Angels were hungry for a foothold in Ontario, he played one superpower against the other. He called his contacts in the Outlaws and they jumped at the chance to form an alliance that eventually also included the Vagabonds and Toronto’s biggest independent club, the Para-Dice Riders.

  Arrested in 1973 for aggravated sexual assault, Guindon went to prison and worked on his boxing. Although he was a model prisoner, claiming that he wanted to represent Canada in the 1976 Olympics or teach kids how to box and avoid the mistakes he’d made, he had a hard time with the parole board. The sticking point was always the same: they wouldn’t release him unless he stayed away from unsavory characters, and the other members of Satan’s Choice fell under that definition. “They’re the only friends I have,” he told a Toronto Star reporter. “I’m not going to give them up.” He served his full sentence.

  The Chicago-based Outlaws saw their opening. Almost as soon as Guindon was behind bars, they sent a group of emissaries with a tempting offer. In exchange for marketing their drugs in Ontario—an attractive proposition in and of itself—the Outlaws offered to treat Satan’s Choice members as equals, and Outlaws chapters in border states even promised to alter their patch to include a maple leaf and a tongue of flame in honor of the Canadian club. Within two months of the alliance being formed, two U.S.-based Outlaws were arrested attempting to re-start their lives under different names in a different country. James “Blue” Starrett, who was running a successful business called Charlie Brown Painting Contractors in St. Catharines, was arrested and deported for escaping a Florida prison, where he was serving time for the shotgun murder of a woman at an Outlaws party. Five weeks later, William “Gatemouth” Edson was caught leaving a Kitchener Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) store. As an Outlaw in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, he’d murdered three Hells Angels, beaten the girlfriend of a Bandidos member and tortured a woman with heated spoons and lit cigarettes because he saw her wearing an Outlaws T-shirt. His fake Ontario driver’s license identified him as Dennis Lupo. Similarly, the most wanted member of Satan’s Choice, a murderer named Howard “Pigpen” Barry was arrested in North Carolina with a Florida driver’s license claiming his name was Tim Jones. He was wearing Outlaws colors at the time.

  Despite the increased trouble with the law, Guindon honored the alliance when he came out of prison, reasoning that it was better to work with the Outlaws than to be at war with them. He was also impressed by the efficient, almost corporate, way they ran their drug business and he certainly didn’t mind the sudden wealth it brought. But it was that industrial style of drug manufacturing that eventually brought down Guindon and his independent biker gang. It happened where the bikers considered themselves most safe. Oba Lake is a remote fishing and hunting spot about 150 miles northeast of Sault Ste. Marie, accessible only by train or floatplane. There were only two buildings on the lake. Next to the train tracks was a lodge where wealthy, mostly American, sportsmen stayed when they were after walleye or moose. The lodge was owned by Alain Templain, an important member of the Oshawa chapter of Satan’s Choice, who flew his own floatplane up north every summer. The other building was much smaller and newer. On an island in the middle of the lake, the Outlaws built a sophisticated drug lab and staffed it with members of Satan’s Choice. Guindon and Templain were there on August 6, 1975, when the island was raided by OPP officers who were posing as fishermen and staying at Templain’s lodge. Caught with nine pounds of PCP and 236 pounds of unfinished PCP with a total value of $6 million, Guindon and Templain went away for 17 years.

  Almost as soon as the commander was in prison, his hand-picked successor, Garnet “Mother” McEwen from the St. Catharines chapter, cal
led a summit meeting. That night he convinced the presidents of the Montreal, Windsor and Ottawa chapters to burn their colors and join the Outlaws. Dissenting members were to be forcibly retired. For the summer of 1977, the party moved from Wasaga Beach to Crystal Beach, just ten miles from the U.S. border, where it became a massive patching-over ceremony.

  When Guindon found out, he offered $10,000 of his own cash for McEwen’s head. But it was too late; the onslaught of giant American super-gangs had begun. The Outlaws had established a massive presence in Ontario and a beachhead in Quebec. The remaining chapters of Satan’s Choice eventually either joined the Outlaws or, without Guindon’s guidance, faded into relative obscurity while he was behind bars. Nobody ever collected on Guindon’s reward. McEwen was eventually exiled by the Outlaws for embezzling $30,000 and fled to Alberta, where he tried to go straight with a job at a hotel. He last showed up in the public eye in 1990 when a biker—unaware of his identity—beat him severely with his own artificial leg.

  An alliance of major independents kept the Outlaws out of Toronto until the summer of 1984, when the local drug supply dried up. Outlaws leaned heavily on local dealers and suppliers to keep any drugs from getting into the hands of area bikers. The siege broke in September when Robert “Pumpkin” Marsh convinced his fellow Iron Hogs to patch over and become the Outlaws Toronto chapter. “They were a bunch of idiots,” said Harris. “But it got the Outlaws into Toronto.” And it also helped form a new anti-Hells Angels alliance, including the Outlaws, the Para-Dice Riders, the Vagabonds and even the Satan’s Choice, minus Guindon.

  By 1986, when they patched over the Holocaust motocycle gang based in London (formerly the Queensmen), the Outlaws had become the dominant biker gang in Ontario, with other chapters in Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, St. Catharines, Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie and Kingston. The Kingston chapter was especially successful, as it was very close to the U.S. border and even closer to Canada’s largest prison population, an excellent market for drugs. Their success frustrated the Hells Angels, who were established in Quebec, Nova Scotia and British Columbia, but were hungry for a chance at richer markets. They were forced to audition clubs that the Outlaws had passed over, like Sudbury’s Coffin Wheelers, Kitchener’s Henchmen and until they fell apart, Stadnick’s own old gang, the Wild Ones of Hamilton.

  When Guindon was finally released from prison in 1991, he returned to Oshawa and resumed command of what remained of Satan’s Choice. Stadnick, now president of the Hells Angels, showed up almost immediately. He met with Guindon repeatedly, taking him to Toronto’s most expensive restaurants and the area’s most prominent strip bars. They were always joined by a squad of burly bodyguards, as much to show the power of the Hells Angels as for protection. Guindon loved the free food, booze and entertainment, and he never turned down a meeting with Stadnick. But he always deferred giving him a firm answer on whether the Satan’s Choice would ever patch over to the Hells Angels. What Stadnick didn’t know was that Guindon had no intention of ever patching over. As fiercely xenophobic as the original Hells Angels, he didn’t want his club, which he considered a Canadian institution, to become a franchise of an American super-gang. He played Stadnick, not just for the free nights out, but because friendly relations and the potential to patch over made sure the Hells Angels wouldn’t enforce a hostile takeover.

  When Stadnick’s patience finally wore thin, he decided to show Guindon who was boss. With 150 Hells Angels and associates behind him, Stadnick rode from Montreal to the Satan’s Choice’s old haunts in Wasaga Beach on June 18, 1993. Many independent clubs were invited to the party, but Satan’s Choice was not. The OPP stopped the procession twice, but found no reason to detain any of them. One officer paid the Hells Angels a huge compliment by telling The Toronto Star: “ . . . you can expect a pretty violent summer this year.” At the party, Stadnick met with lots of bikers but spent most of his time in the Alliston Hotel (he rented every room) with the Loners.

  The man he met with was Frank Lenti, the Loners’ president. Even by Canadian biker standards, Lenti was a strange guy. Vain, constantly preening and prone to violent temper tantrums, he had a habit of giving up on projects when things didn’t go exactly the way he wanted. Originally a member of the Rebels, a decidedly racist North Toronto gang with a Confederate flag emblem, he got bored with their hierarchy, took some friends and formed his own gang. The original Loners carved out a small niche for themselves in Woodbridge, Lenti’s hometown just north of Toronto. Since the Rebels had incorporated the Confederate flag into their logo, the Loners steered well clear of the Rebels.

  Things were working out well until the other Loners caught their president stealing from club funds. Rather than face his accusers, Lenti flew to Italy until tempers cooled. While he was gone, the rudderless Loners fell apart. When he returned in 1981, Lenti joined the Toronto chapter of Satan’s Choice. He had a rough time there, too. His me-first attitude and penchant for whining didn’t endear him to the guys at the top, and Lenti grew more and more alienated from the rest of the club. In 1984, he collected some other malcontents and formed a new gang, again called the Loners. Although they managed to terrorize a few blocks of Woodbridge, they made little impact and most other bikers called them “the Losers.” From all reports, Lenti’s meeting with Stadnick did not go well. Lenti, an Italian, tried to impress the Hells Angels president with his connections to the mafia. Stadnick, who had actual ties to the mafia from the days when the Wild Ones were blowing up bakeries in Hamilton, and more recently from Montreal, wasn’t impressed.

  But expansion into Ontario would have to wait. The biggest drug bust in Winnipeg history went down on September 16, 1993, and it caused a crisis on the streets. The cops confiscated $18 million worth of heroin and cocaine after raiding 70 houses, including the Los Brovos clubhouse. Sixteen people were arrested on drug and money laundering charges, but none were bikers. The busts created a very enviable situation for the Hells Angels. The police took a huge amount of drugs and a number of drug dealers off the streets, while leaving the desperate drug users and eager bikers behind. Days later, police spotted Stadnick in Thunder Bay, a city not far from the Manitoba border, where he met with members of Satan’s Choice, spending at least 90 minutes alone with Kitchener president Andre Wateel, before flying to Winnipeg the next day. The drug shortage in Winnipeg seemed to disappear overnight. As always, Stadnick frustrated police, who believed he was involved in illegal drug operations, but couldn’t find a scrap of evidence to prove it. “He was extremely careful,” said Harris. “He always insulated himself.”

  Although Stadnick was a highly visible character in his outlandish outfits and with his troop of giant bodyguards, he conducted business in stealth mode. Police recorded many hours of Stadnick engaging in personal conversations with other bikers and underworld personalities, but nothing close to incriminating (even in code) ever emerged. Instead, Stadnick and whoever he was doing business with would leave the bugged area and talk in places like busy street corners, abandoned alleys, front lawns and even parks, where he was confident the police couldn’t eavesdrop.

  Despite his success in Winnipeg, Stadnick was frustrated by his inability to move the Hells Angels into Ontario. It had become Outlaws territory under the forceful leadership of Parente, who shot at Hells Angels on sight. Satan’s Choice, which still had a solid network and quality leaders like Wateel, represented a perfect opportunity to create a serious rivalry, but Stadnick eventually realized that they would never become Hells Angels as long as Guindon was in charge. And, after meeting with Lenti, he assessed the remaining nonaligned clubs as unworthy of the colors. Unable or unwilling to recruit Ontario bikers, Stadnick decided to import his own.

  His plan was to send Quebec bikers loyal to the Hells Angels into Ontario to set up puppet gangs and drug operations there. He agonized over who he would appoint as their leader, but finally decided on Dany “Danny Boy” Kane. Unlike so many of the other bikers, who seemed slow-witted if not entirely stupid, Kane impressed
Stadnick with his intelligence, ambition and gregarious personality. The president also noticed that, despite a lack of effective English-language skills, Kane had quickly and smoothly aligned himself with Stadnick and his East Coast lieutenant, David “Wolf ” Carroll, president of the Halifax Chapter, formerly the 13th Tribe. Kane had a lot going for him, including a history of courage, resourcefulness and loyalty.

  An unplanned pregnancy in 1988 had led to Kane getting a job alongside his girlfriend’s father at the Tissues et Fibres d’Amoco plant in industrial St. Jean on the South Shore. But the mind-numbing tedium of operating a thread-making machine all day, every day of his life depressed him. In an effort to alleviate his frustration, he bought a Harley. It was a 1946 Knucklehead model, 23 years older than he was, and he lovingly parked it in what he planned would become the baby’s room. His girlfriend, Josée, liked the bike, but wasn’t sure they could afford it. But the rumbling bike and the leather jacket emboldened Kane to the point where he told his boss he just couldn’t take the thread machine any longer and quit. With a girlfriend and newborn son at home, Kane needed money. His own family was in no position to help him and asking Josée’s parents, who had two other grandchildren from their two other unmarried teenage daughters, was out of the question. So when Josée’s old friend Pat Lambert offered Kane a job, he jumped at the chance.

  Lambert was a member of a notable Hells Angels puppet club called the Condors. Little known outside the South Shore, the Condors were well respected by the Hells Angels and other gangs. Unlike the Evil Ones, who operated in the area just to the west of them and always seemed to be in trouble with the police, the Outlaws or the Hells Angels, the Condors were quiet and efficient. Although police in the area called them small-timers who were nothing to worry about, the Condors actually dominated the regional drug trade right under their noses. Lambert was one of their best dealers and a rising star. He offered to pay Kane $700 a week to deliver drugs to area bars and pick up the cash they owed Lambert. The pay was more than three times what Kane made at the thread factory, and he could set his own hours.