The Flying Bandit

by Robert Knuckle

  Another concern that MacCharles had was getting Galvan to confess to all the robberies he had committed. The inspector knew from Mel Robertson’s research that Galvan was a bigger catch than anybody thought he was. Although MacCharles wasn’t sure how big, he was determined to find out.

  He had a number of strategy sessions with Snider and Smith. They all knew that Galvan was extremely bright and devious, but from their first interviews with him, they also saw that Galvan had a very big ego. He enjoyed the notoriety of being an important criminal and wanted to be acknowledged as the biggest and best at his trade. They sensed they could play to his ego to get him to tell about all his accomplishments, his robberies. They were particularly interested in getting him to admit to the Birks holdup in Vancouver.

  MacCharles assigned Snider to do the interrogating. He would also handle all Galvan’s day-to-day demands, the negotiations about his sentencing, and the criminal involvement of any other parties. Smith, noted for his meticulous paperwork, was assigned to record Galvan’s statements, coordinate them with the original robbery reports from various cities, and prepare the court briefs.

  It soon became clear that the process of dealing with Galvan would be long and complex. To their surprise, it began rather abruptly on Monday, June 15.

  Galvan readily confessed to robbing the two banks in London and Winnipeg. He figured that the police had solid evidence against him in these two holdups so there was little to lose by admitting his guilt. However, to Snider and Smith’s surprise, he also confessed to the three holdups at the Toronto Dominion Bank on George Street in Peterborough.

  Smith, realizing that the Peterborough police had charged another man, Robert Sobel, with one of these robberies, called Peterborough to advise them of Galvan’s confession. They agreed to send a detective to Pembroke for confirmation.

  In that same June 15 session Galvan also admitted to robbing the Montreal Trust and Birks Jewellers in Sudbury in 1985. To Smith and Snider, Galvan’s confessions to seven robberies in one day seemed like a most favourable beginning.

  Then, near the end of the session, he made a curious comment to Snider. With fire in his eyes he said, “Your buddy, Angelo the Rat, is going to get it tonight.”

  Snider was taken aback but didn’t let on.

  “What?” he said.

  “Your buddy Angelo is going to get it tonight. Aren’t you going to do anything to save him?”

  Snider assumed Galvan was referring to the person that Galvan believed had turned him in. Although George was concerned about Galvan’s threat, he had no idea whom he was talking about. He had never heard of an Angelo in the Ottawa underworld.

  Snider didn’t react and went on with his paper work. He realized if he showed any interest in this Angelo or gave any indication that he knew what Galvan was talking about it would confirm Galvan’s suspicion that this was the man who, in fact, had turned Galvan in.

  A few minutes later Galvan asked to use the washroom. As soon as he was led out of the room Snider called Heyerhoff in Ottawa and related the story of Galvan’s threat to him. Heyerhoff had never heard of an underworld Angelo either. He and OPP Corporal Bill Paterson started contacting their informants who might be able to help them locate the mysterious Angelo.

  A “friendly” named Louie told them there was an ex-Ottawa Rough Rider named Angelo, a friend of Tommy Craig, who was a doorman at an Ottawa strip club.

  Heyerhoff searched the club on the police computer and came up with the name of an Angelo Garlatti who Heyerhoff remembered as a local football player and a sometime professional player with the Ottawa Rough Riders. Garlatti was also listed in the computer as having been charged with assault. Taking Garlatti’s address from the computer, Heyerhoff and Paterson went out to visit him at his house.

  When they arrived Garlatti was not pleased to see the police at his door. With his Rottweiler at his side he stood there glaring at them, naked to the waist, with sweat glistening off the bulging muscles of his mammoth torso.

  “What do you guys want?” he asked.

  “It’s about Tommy Craig and you,” Paterson said.

  Garlatti’s eyes darted back and forth between the two policemen.

  “We think you might be in trouble,” Heyerhoff told him. “We think you should talk to us.”

  Both policemen immediately detected a concerned look on Garlatti’s face.

  “I don’t want to talk in the house,” Garlatti said. “Can we go out to your car?”

  In the cruiser they explained to Garlatti that Robert Whiteman had been arrested for multiple counts of armed robbery. Heyerhoff told him, “They’re fingering you as the rat who turned him in. You’re in big-time trouble with Whiteman and Tommy. It looks like they want to do you in.”

  As they explained the situation it was apparent that Garlatti was very worried. He shook his head repeatedly and, at one point, he started to tremble. Although Garlatti said little, he showed signs of knowing too much about Whiteman’s criminal activities. Heyerhoff began to suspect Garlatti might even be implicated with Galvan in some of the robberies. However, more than anything, Angelo seemed stunned that he was suspected of being a rat.

  Heyerhoff and Paterson made it clear that they were there to help him. Garlatti thanked them and said he wanted to think everything over before he said any more.

  “That’s fine,” said Heyerhoff, “but if you’ve got some place to go tonight, we suggest that you get your wife and get the hell out of here. They might be sending some people over right now.”

  The police waited while Garlatti went into the house and told his wife about the situation. Once he explained it all to her, they packed their bags, grabbed the dog, and raced away to a relative’s house where Garlatti was sure they couldn’t be found.

  The next day Snider and Heyerhoff had a five-hour meeting with Garlatti at a Kanata Hotel. They put the case against him in very simple terms.

  “You’re caught in the middle,” Snider told him. “They think you’re a rat, and they want to kill you. If you don’t cooperate with us, we can’t help you.”

  Garlatti decided to tell them everything he knew and gave them a blow-by-blow account of the aborted Vancouver Birks robbery. The police were particularly interested to hear of Gilbert Galvan’s phone call to Tommy Craig after the Vancouver holdup was terminated. It offered the possibility of being able to charge Tommy with conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

  Two days later Heyerhoff and Paterson stood guard as Garlatti used a rental truck to move all his goods and furniture from his row house in south Ottawa to a secret destination in southern Ontario.

  Garlatti’s sudden flight from the city provided the police with an inadvertent boon because it confirmed the suspicions of Galvan and Craig that Garlatti was indeed the rat who had turned Galvan in to the police. That took the heat off Pete Bond, who was not identified as the real rat until more than two years later.

  In the meantime, Ed Arnold, the managing editor of the Peterborough Examiner, somehow found out that the OPP had a suspect in custody in Pembroke who had confessed to the Peterborough bank robberies. He also heard that the man in custody in Pembroke might prove to be a very big international story, possibly the Birks Bandit.

  The OPP had tried to keep the news media unaware of the significance of Galvan’s arrest. Because they weren’t exactly sure how many robberies Galvan had committed, they didn’t want the media meddling in their investigation and interfering with their negotiations with Galvan. The police believed that making the escapades of Robert Whiteman/Gilbert Galvan a high profile news story would only blow things out of proportion and destroy the rapport that Smith and Snider were attempting to establish with him. The fewer people who knew about Galvan, the better.

  When Arnold called the Pembroke OPP detachment and began asking Shawn Smith questions about the capture of Robert Whiteman, Smith was concerned.

  “Holy shit,” Smith said, “how did you find out about this?”

  “That’s not the iss
ue, Detective Smith,” Arnold replied. “I understand this guy might be the Birks Bandit.”

  “Oh,” Smith explained, “it’s far too early to say something like that. I wouldn’t say ... “

  “Or he might be the biggest bank robber the country’s ever seen,” Arnold probed.

  “Now, Mr. Arnold,” Smith continued, “I think you’re getting a bit carried away with this. As of right now, we don’t know exactly what he’s done. It’s going to take some time. When we find out, we’ll certainly let you know.”

  “I think I know now. I think there’s a big story here.”

  Now Smith’s tone was serious.

  “Mr. Arnold, we don’t want a story about this guy in the paper. Not yet. The publicity could hurt our investigation. I’m going to be honest with you. We think we’ve got something very important here but we’re just in the preliminary stages. We’re trying to bargain with him for a guilty plea and we’ve got a man who’s trying to weigh his options. A big story on him right now could blow things wide open. We need your cooperation on this.”

  It was obvious to Arnold that this was extremely important to the detective.

  “If I back off, will you keep me posted along the way?”

  “I’ll have my supervisor get back to you on that,” Smith advised.

  Ten minutes later, Lyle MacCharles was on the phone to Arnold. He went over much of the same ground as Smith had done. Arnold listened and didn’t argue. In the end, he asked the same question of MacCharles that he had put to Shawn Smith.

  “If I agree not to write anything now, will your people keep me posted along the way?”

  “I think we could do that,” said Inspector MacCharles.

  “You promise they won’t give the story to anyone else?”

  “You have my word on that.”

  “When the dust settles, can you get me the first interview with Whiteman?”

  “I think we can arrange that,” MacCharles assured him.

  “OK,” Arnold said, “we got a deal.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Arnold,” MacCharles said. “Goodbye.”

  When Lyle MacCharles hung up the phone he was relieved. He knew they had averted a major fiasco by keeping Galvan’s exploits out of the papers.

  Independent of Arnold’s telephone investigation, the Peterborough detective who visited Pembroke determined that Galvan, not Sobel, was guilty of the George Street robbery. Consequently, at Sobel’s preliminary hearing in Peterborough, the Crown Attorney dropped the bank robbery charge against him and he was set free.

  Although Galvan was not immediately aware of the recent events involving either Angelo Garlatti or Ed Arnold, for some reason his confessions to Smith and Snider began to slow down. In an interrogation session on June 18, he admitted to robbing the Montreal Trust in Sudbury twice in 1986 and gave accurate, detailed statements to support his claim. But after these two admissions, Galvan abruptly stopped talking altogether. He became truculent and silent and would admit to nothing. He told Smith, Snider and MacCharles he would give no more statements until he was assured of the total sentence he would receive for his robberies. Now the real sparring match began.

  Galvan was prepared to plead guilty to all the robberies he had committed in Canada provided he got a sentence no longer than fifteen years, with no recovery, no roll overs. No recovery meant he didn’t have to give back any of the cash or jewellery that he’d stolen. No roll overs meant he didn’t have to name any of his accomplices or the fence to whom he sold his goods. A fifteen-year sentence could make him eligible for parole in five years. He told Snider that in a Canadian jail, he could do that standing on his head.

  The Crown Attorney in Pembroke wanted a much longer sentence imposed for Galvan’s one-man crime spree. Considering the number and severity of Galvan’s crimes, the Crown pushed for a sentence of thirty years.

  MacCharles, Smith and Snider were concerned by the fact that Galvan and the Crown were such a long way apart. Because they were opposed to fighting a series of prolonged trials across the country they wanted Galvan to plead guilty to all of the armed robberies he had committed. In an attempt to get him to plead, Snider had to play both ends against the middle. He had to get the Crown to come down, and Galvan to come up.

  MacCharles felt that twenty years was the right sentence. He was convinced that was all Galvan would get in other jurisdictions, especially in Ottawa where sentences were constantly inappropriately low.

  Snider told the Crown: “You’ve got to come down or we’ll take the case to Ottawa. He’s done a lot of the robberies there, so it can be heard there.”

  On the other side, Snider assured Galvan: “If you don’t agree to twenty years, we are quite prepared to take you all across the country from one shit house jail to another.”

  Galvan remained adamant about receiving a maximum sentence of fifteen years. He insisted he would settle for nothing more. When Smith or Snider said they couldn’t do any better than twenty years, Galvan told them, “No fucking way. It’s fifteen years or nothing. If you don’t believe me, you can go fuel up the plane and we start flying all over the fucking country right now. And I’m serious!”

  Snider was adamant about twenty years. He said to him, “I can tell you right now, they’re not going to sit still for a fifteen-year sentence, so if you’re going to hold out for that, we ARE going to be boarding a plane, a lot of planes to a lot of places. Shit, man, you’ll end up doing two years dead time in the county jails.”

  “I don’t give a fuck. I’m telling you guys right now, I am not going to cop a plea for a twenty-year bit, and if you think I am, you’re dreaming. Now go and tell that to your fucking Crown counsel or whatever the fuck he’s called.”

  The negotiations on his sentence dragged on for weeks. The Crown also balked at Galvan’s demand for no recovery. For a reduced sentence of twenty years they wanted to recover as much stolen property as they could.

  MacCharles himself had trouble accepting twenty years for Galvan with no roll overs. He was hoping that Galvan would give up some of the other major players in Galvan’s game, notably Tommy Craig. If MacCharles could get Galvan to give them Craig, he was prepared to recommend the Crown reduce his sentence even further than twenty years.

  Galvan wouldn’t budge on any of these issues. He was adamantly opposed to giving in on his demands for no recovery, no roll overs. Every time the detectives tried to talk to Galvan about these matters he threatened to terminate their discussions.

  There was, however, one issue to which the two parties did agree. If Galvan could get the sentence he wanted with the Crown he was prepared to have all the charges from the various jurisdictions across Canada waived to the Pembroke Court. MacCharles was pleased about that possibility because it meant the police wouldn’t have to escort him to courts from Vancouver to Halifax.

  He told his detectives, “I want to make sure we can clear all these charges in Pembroke. If we have to run him across this country from city to city, we’ll be the ones that get life.”

  From Galvan’s perspective, he was happy to have everything heard in Pembroke. It would allow him to remain near Janice and his daughter and the few friends he had in Canada, like Tommy Craig and Pete Bond. Also, by staying in Pembroke he would be close at hand for the birth of his second child which was due to occur in early October. Moreover, he wouldn’t have to put up with the demeaning experience of being flown across the country in shackles and handcuffs only to be locked up in a series of county buckets that were, by reputation, the oldest, most decrepit prisons in the land. What was worse, once he got there, he wouldn’t know a soul in those communities. He’d have no visitors, few telephone privileges and little contact with the outside world. The dank old Pembroke Jail was bad enough but at least here he had a few loved ones nearby who came to visit him regularly.

  Janice came almost every day. During their visits they began to renew their relationship that had been so badly damaged. Although they were separated by glass in the visiting roo
m and could not touch each other, their meetings took on an intimacy they had long since lost. They were getting to know each other all over again.

  Occasionally, the police would let Janice visit with Galvan at the detachment building. This was much more comfortable for both of them. Smith and Snider would clear an office and let them visit privately with a heavy police guard outside the doors and windows. Sometimes Janice would bring Laura with her to the OPP station and Galvan would spend much of his time hugging and kissing his little girl. Snider told MacCharles, “It would break your heart to see him with his kid.”

  Tommy Craig and Pete Bond came to visit Gilbert at the jail every week. Each time they came into Pembroke a police cruiser would pick up Craig’s Chrysler 5th Avenue at the turnoff from Highway 17 and informally escort them into town. The police would also provide a return escort out of town when the Fat Man and his side-kick left the city.

  When Galvan was arrested, Tommy had deposited $500 in his canteen fund at the jail. After that initial contribution Craig made intermittent donations so that Galvan could afford to buy some goodies from the canteen. Tommy wanted to be good to “Robert” because if Galvan ever decided to roll, Tommy knew he was going to jail too.

  After prolonged sentencing negotiations a deal was finally hammered out whereby Galvan would plead guilty to all the robberies for which he was responsible in exchange for a sentence of twenty years. Galvan wasn’t thrilled about the deal but he had slowly come to realize it was the best he was going to get.

  The more he thought about the twenty-year sentence, it didn’t seem too bad. In all likelihood he’d be out in under seven years. He calculated that such a sentence would cost him about six weeks for every robbery he’d done in Canada. In the United States, they would have put him away for life.

  Once the deal was finalized Galvan began, once again, to provide details of the specific robberies he had committed. Each holdup required a full statement of particulars. Snider asked most of the questions while Smith recorded Galvan’s answers.

  Galvan was clever; he never gave them too much at once. He knew that as long as he possessed information they wanted, they would probably give in to a few of his demands. He would admit to a few robberies then stop with a promise that there was more to come. While the police waited, he bartered for little favours – a few packages of cigarettes, some good coffee, a phone call to Janice. It wasn’t so much that he needed those concessions, it was more that he needed to feel that he was dictating the terms. He always tried to be in control of the situation; no progress could take place unless he wanted it to.