Biker Trials, The

by Paul Cherry

  Boucher was never charged with the arson but the police were now seeing how much influence the Hells Angel had, and the degree of Boucher’s arrogance. Shortly afterward, Boucher was transferred, on July 14, 1995, to a prison in Cowansville where he finished out the final two weeks of his sentence.

  While Boucher spent five months behind bars causing mischief and allegedly terrorizing prison officials, his network of drug dealers was in trouble. Boucher had apparently developed such a good reputation among Montreal’s drug suppliers that the Rockers could purchase drugs on credit using his good name. But by May 1995, only a matter of weeks into Boucher’s sentence, the Rockers were experiencing serious shortages in cocaine and hashish, Kane told the RCMP. Rival gang, the Rock Machine, appeared to gather steam and began taking over some of the territory the Rockers had controlled since 1992. Kane said Montreal’s Gay Village in particular had become a hotly contested area. According to Kane, Paul (Fon Fon) Fontaine, a Rocker, was growing frustrated with the lack of supply and complained about having to pay $35,000 cash up front for a kilogram of cocaine, something he’d never had to do when Boucher was around. By June, the Rockers had developed a conspiracy theory that the Mafia was behind their shortages and were grumbling that it appeared the Mob would only deal with Boucher.

  That same summer Steinert began causing serious problems for the Hells Angels. According to Kane, Steinert controlled a bar on Montreal’s Crescent Street, a popular destination for thirsty tourists and young Montrealers. Steinert had a run-in with the bouncer of the bar beneath his and ignored the consequences. Kane said Steinert waited until closing time and then he beat the man severely. The problem was that the bouncer worked for another Hells Angel. This huge mistake only seemed to make Steinert more cocky. He told Kane that he was preparing to sell drugs in Winnipeg whether Stadnick and the other Hells Angels liked it or not.

  By July 25, Boucher was out of prison. Steinert’s apparent supporter in the Hells Angels was a free man again, but things were about to change.

  A Rude Awakening

  On August 9, 1995, something happened that woke up most Quebecers to the fact a war among biker gangs was going on in their streets. The wake-up call came in the form of a bomb that went off on Adam Street in Montreal, not far from the Olympic Stadium. The blast instantly killed 26-year-old Marc Dubé as he sat in his Jeep waiting for a friend. Eleven-year-old Daniel Desrochers was playing with a friend nearby and was struck in the head by a piece of the Jeep that had been propelled by the explosion. The boy suffered severe brain damage and died days later. His death would spark a widespread public outcry for the federal government to do something that would help the police take on the Hells Angels and the Alliance and put an end to their increasingly violent war.

  Dubé had ties to drug dealers but one theory that eventually emerged was that the bomb was much more likely intended for Normand Tremblay, a member of the Alliance who had a SUV similar to Dubé’s. In fact, in the days leading up to the bombing, Tremblay had sold Dubé the wheels from his sports utility vehicle. Shortly after Dubé and Daniel Desrochers died, Tremblay was himself arrested for an attempted murder and for being in possession of explosive materials. He decided to become a police informant. His sworn statements would later end up in the Hells Angels’ hands.

  What was largely ignored by the media in the aftermath of Desrochers’s death is that Tremblay managed to quietly plead guilty to being part of the 1994 conspiracy to kill Boucher with the truck bomb. The guilty plea came in January 1997, more than two years after the 11 year old was killed, but it provided a clear motive for the Hells Angels to have been behind the botched bombing that ended the boy’s life. Nearly ten years after Daniel’s death, his mother Josée Anne Desrochers died of pneumonia in a hospital over the 2005 Easter weekend. Despite a brave campaign in which she publicly criticized the biker gangs and pushed for tougher anti-gang legislation, Desrochers’ mother never saw his killers charged with the crime.

  More than a week after Daniel Desrochers died, Kane told the RCMP about Steinert’s odd behavior both before and after the explosion. He said that in the days leading up to it, Steinert had ordered three bomb kits from a man with ties to the Hells Angels. Kane claimed the Hells Angels had been buying explosives from the man for months. According to Kane, Steinert was very eager for the kits and wanted them right away. He told Kane that things were about to “rock and roll.” But after the death of an innocent boy, Steinert never spoke of the bomb kits again. Kane said Steinert started asking other gang members what they thought should happen to the person responsible for Desrochers’ death. When they replied the culprit should be liquidated, Steinert grew more quiet. Kane said that in general the Hells Angels condemned the bomb because a child had been killed and the tragedy placed heavier police surveillance on them.

  The gang’s underlings had been warned before. In an earlier briefing to the RCMP more than two weeks prior to the bomb that killed Desrochers, Kane said that David (Wolf) Carroll warned the Rockers and other people associated with the Hells Angels about using bombs. Earlier that summer, on July 14, a bomb planted at a house in a small town north of Montreal had nearly killed two children. The police later found small quantities of drugs like cocaine in the house and said they believed the actual target was the homeowner’s brother, a man with ties to the Alliance.

  Daniel Desrochers’ death would bring a more intense police focus on the biker war. Several members of both the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine were placed under constant police surveillance. A few months after his stint for carrying a firearm Boucher found himself under arrest again. He had been overheard on a police wiretap counseling Steven (Bull) Bertrand, a friend and fellow drug trafficker, on how to solve a problem with a baseball bat. Boucher’s bail hearing on October 27,1995, would reveal just how far he had come as a Hells Angel. Because of Desrochers’ death and the fact the police quickly attributed it to the biker war, the bail hearing, even though it was for a relatively minor crime not related to the bombing, was widely covered by the media.

  Sgt. Guy Ouellette, a longtime veteran investigator with the Sûreté du Québec, testified on the Crown’s behalf in an attempt to have Boucher held on the minor charge. Ouellette had several years under his belt investigating the Hells Angels, and on September 6, 1994, he was made part of a multidisciplinary squad within the Sûreté that focused on the biker gangs. On October 5, 1995, he was part of a fusion of investigators from the Sûreté, the Montreal Urban Community Police and the RCMP. The special squad, dubbed Carcajou or Wolverine, was a response to the public outcry after Desrochers’ death.

  Part of Ouellette’s role in the squad was to be prepared for such court hearings. He possessed a computer-like memory with the extraordinary ability to instantly recall the tiniest detail about a biker. Ouellette was asked to describe what the Hells Angels in Montreal were involved in at that point. “They have several sectors of activity,” he said. “Everything that is economically profitable, that is to say drugs, trafficking in all its forms, importation in terms of drugs, prostitution, strippers in licensed establishments, money laundering, every activity where they could make money.”

  Boucher’s lawyer Leo-Rene Maranda was opposed to this depiction. He acknowledged that Boucher was “a soldier,” but questioned whether he should be blamed for all of the army’s crimes. The judge ignored the objection and Ouellette was asked where the Hells Angels ranked in terms of drugs in Quebec. “They are on top of the pyramid when it comes to importation. They control dealing on the streets. They control the dealers inside bars,” Ouellette testified, adding it was already clear to police that the Hells Angels were eliminating drug dealers in eastern Montreal and using murder, bombs and assault to get the job done.

  With the war only about a year old, the police already estimated that between 25 and 30 homicides could be attributed to the conflict. Ouellette pointed out that when the war started, the Hells Angels had four chapters in Quebec. “Since the beginning of March 1995 a fif
th chapter was formed and was called Nomads. According to the information we have, Mr. Boucher is the president of the Nomads, the Hells Angels,” Ouellette said. “It is a chapter like the ten others that we have in Canada. But particularly, according to the information that we have, the Nomads do not have to observe the territorial limits of distribution, dealing of drugs or control over criminal activities. They can exercise their activities all over the province as well as in other provinces in Canada. What we are observing right now is that it is happeningThe information that we have in our possession at this stage is that the war going on now originated from the Nomads, originated from individuals who, in March [1995], regrouped under the name of the Nomads.”

  Ouellette also brought up the trouble Boucher caused while serving his most recent sentence. He said Boucher had actually asked to not be taken to the Bordeaux detention centre because he found it too violent at the time and had specifically requested the transfer to Sorel. Ouellette revealed that besides the fire at Quesnel’s home, an assistant-warden’s home had also been the target of a recent arson fire.

  Then he began detailing the evidence the cops had on Boucher in the case he was charged in. Ouellette bluntly described Steven (Bull) Bertrand as a man who was close to Boucher and operating a drug trafficking network for him. It was on September 23, 1995, around 3 a.m. that Bertrand’s problems began. Bertrand was in a bar on Saint Laurent Blvd., discussing who had the right to sell drugs there with a few men. During the discussion, one of the men punched Bertrand in the face. He fell to the ground and two other thugs proceeded to kick him. In the hours that followed, Bertrand made several calls and paged Boucher twice. Boucher called him back at 5:33 p.m. that same day. Bertrand said he had been beaten badly and was sporting a black eye.

  “Mr. Boucher said to not let it end there, to take revenge,” Ouellette testified adding that Boucher told Bertrand to use a baseball bat to solve his problem. But then Bertrand advised Boucher that during his flurry of phone calls he had learned one of his assailants was friendly with members of the Hells Angels’ chapter in Trois Rivières. Three days later, the police listened in as Boucher and Bertrand had another conversation. Boucher had done some asking around and determined that Bertrand had been given the green light to get revenge — but he added that a prospect in the Trois Rivières chapter named Mario Brouillette had advised that Bertrand let it go.

  This was something for Bertrand to consider but Boucher advised him that he shouldn’t accept what had happened to him at all. Boucher told Bertrand that if he wanted to be respected he had to take care of it. At one point in the conversation, Boucher told Bertrand “Don’t patch that,” meaning he shouldn’t patch it up and forget about the beating he had received. By this point, the police knew about Boucher’s home on a large real estate lot on Marie Victorin Street in Contrecouer, complete with a horse stable. His son Francis lived next door in a house mortgaged, according to a police affidavit filed during the Project Rush investigation, by the head of a Bank of Montreal branch who was under investigation for fraud at the time. The police were also investigating whether the same bank manager had whipped up a phony mortgage for René Charlebois, a member of the Nomads chapter. Months before Operation Springtime 2001 was carried out, the bank manager was charged with fraud amounting to several million dollars between 1996 and 1999, all of it related to mortgaging houses through his Bank of Montreal branch. As soon as he got out of prison for his scuba diving expedition in 1993, Bordeleau moved into a Contrecoeur house near Boucher’s.

  “Mr. Boucher is the head, or the instigator of the present biker war in Quebec. He is the godfather of an affiliated group that is called the Rockers of Montreal,” Ouellette said during the bail hearing. Maranda decided to challenge Ouellette on this statement and asked him what he had personally witnessed about the Hells Angels or Maurice Boucher. He asked him what he knew about the biker war and what he knew of Boucher’s implication in it. Maranda was an experienced and crafty lawyer. He likely knew he was about to open a floodgate, even if it might hurt his client’s chances at bail. Ouellette revealed that Boucher was under investigation for several of the murders and bombings that had taken place in the war at that point. Ouellette said that, in particular, Boucher was suspected of having a contract out on Yvon (Mon Mon) Roy, a member of the Alliance.

  When it came time for the defense to make its arguments, a used car dealer testified that Boucher worked for him, selling cars on a commission basis. The car dealer said he had known Boucher for two years. He said that Boucher worked mostly on the road and had made $70,000 in the past twelve months selling new and used cars. If it were true, it would have meant Boucher was a remarkable car salesman, considering he had spent five months of that year in prison. Boucher ended up making bail. As part of the conditions of his bail, he was forbidden to associate with anyone related to the Hells Angels. But other people appeared on the list who were not members of the gang, including Vito Rizzuto, the reputed head of the Mafia in Montreal. Also on the list was Gaetan Rivet, a former Sûreté du Québec officer who left the provincial police force and was on a very public campaign to try to discredit it during the 1990s. He would later be convicted of loan-sharking. Robert Savard, one of Montreal’s more notorious loan sharks, was also on the list of people Boucher could not associate with.

  By now, however, Boucher was already being more careful about who he was seen with. Kane told the RCMP that Boucher had selected André Chouinard, a member of the Rockers, as his right-hand man and drug courier. Kane said Chouinard was chosen because he was clean-cut and didn’t yet have a criminal record. On January 31, 1996, Boucher pleaded guilty to the charge of counseling Bertrand to commit bodily harm and paid a $2000 fine.

  Almost two weeks earlier his son Francis was arrested while carrying a .38-calibre Smith & Wesson revolver for which he did not have a permit. A few months later Mom’s son would be acquitted on the weapons charge but plead guilty to lying to a police officer while he was in the Laurentians on September 9, 1995, and in doing so violating a probationary sentence he had received in 1994 for the break-in. He was fined a total of $250. Although he wouldn’t become a member of the Rockers for another few years, sometime in early 1995, Boucher’s son was, according to what Kane told the RCMP, granted a territory on which he could deal drugs for the gang. It was one of the first indications that Mom Boucher wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.

  At some point in his life Francis Boucher had the word “warrior” tattooed onto his left pectoral, but to the other members of the Rockers he was known as Le Fils — French for “the son.” Like his dad, he claimed to sell cars on his tax returns, pretending to earn more than $80,000 a year legitimately. In reality, the dealership where Francis Boucher claimed to work listed its business address at 2101 Bennett, the Nomads chapter’s hangout. The police checked with the provincial car registration bureau and found that no cars were ever registered to the company. Mom Boucher had also set himself up in various registered companies while he operated as a Hells Angel. One was Les Produits Recycle Action which listed him as an administrator. It was the same company Denis Houle claimed to work for when he was before the parole board in 1994. During the years that Boucher was involved with the biker war he declared making a salary off commissions of no more than $53,000 annually. He was married to Diane Leblanc, Francis’s mother, and lived with her on his farm in Contrecoeur. Meanwhile, the police noticed that he frequently visited his girlfriend Louise Mongeau at a house in Boucherville, a suburb of Montreal. In 1995, Mongeau was charged with possession of enough hashish to be considered a dealer.

  Plans to Expand

  By 1996, Boucher was apparently tiring of the war, and, according to informants who testified in court later, was plotting to kill as many members of the Rock Machine as possible in one fell swoop. Boucher now realized the police were constantly monitoring him. To counter this he took to holding meetings with gang members at the Montreal courthouse. Doing so would give the appearance his under
lings or fellow Hells Angels weren’t violating any court orders by associating with known criminals. Kane said the Hells Angels’ leader was also doing business by coded faxes only and keeping a small circle of insiders who knew the intimate details of his drug trafficking. Boucher also kept up his early morning rituals, holding meetings before 9:30 a.m. at a brasserie in Montreal’s east end.

  By January 1996, the Hells Angels’ plans for expansion across Canada appeared to be in full gear. Kane told the RCMP that Steinert and his drug-dealing partner Donald Magnussen had just shipped off a large quantity of drugs to Thunder Bay. The shipment contained 69 pounds of marijuana, 200 ecstasy pills and a few pounds of hashish. According to Kane, the delivery man was an employee from a stripper agency Steinert ran. But Kane added that Steinert was no longer the carefree Hells Angel he had been before 11-year-old Daniel Desrochers was killed. He was becoming increasingly worried about being deported back to the U.S. He talked of moving to Brazil or even Mexico where, according to Kane, Boucher had told him he could become a millionaire within a year working for the Quebec Hells Angels. But Kane said other Hells Angels were losing their faith in Steinert and his sidekick Magnussen. David (Wolf) Carroll in particular believed Magnussen to be a police informant, and he disliked Steinert’s reckless methods.

  Kane was also having his share of problems. In February 1996, Rocker Daniel Lanthier confronted Kane with a statement he had once given to the police in writing. The statement had nothing to do with Kane’s work as an informant but it caused enough alarm that he was ordered to hand over his patches as a striker in the Rockers. Lanthier informed him the Hells Angels could not tolerate someone who talked to the cops, especially someone who put things in writing. But Kane was allowed to stick with the gang, and within two weeks learned that Boucher had his hands on a confidential police intelligence report. It was over a year old and had been shelved by the investigators who were using it. But Kane said Boucher called a meeting during which he highlighted the fact that Robert Johnson, a man with ties to the Rockers, was considered a suspect in a murder where there had been no witnesses, except the killer and the victim.