Biker Trials, The

by Paul Cherry

  Stadnick already had drug dealers working for him in Winnipeg and the thinking was that the Rockers should set up shop there officially. Four years later, in 1999, the Hells Angels chose instead to patchover an established gang called Los Bravos. On July 21,2000, the police watched as Stadnick arrived at the Los Bravos hangout in Winnipeg with a big, white bag. Several biker members also headed inside. When they came out, the Los Bravos members were sporting leather jackets with patches on their backs that made it clear they were now prospects in the Hells Angels. The next day, Stadnick was seen partying at a Winnipeg strip bar with members of the Satan’s Choice from Ontario.

  Inside his house, the police found something they figured could be used as evidence of gangsterism against Stadnick. Ironically, it came in the form of a Valentine from his ten-year-old niece who wrote to her Uncle Wally, “Are you still the leader of the Hells Angels?” and suggested Stadnick was spending way too much time in Quebec. She added, “I hope you can move the club to Canada and out of Quebec.” Above a phone in his house was a sticker that read, “Be careful what you say over this phone”.

  Despite being part of the Nomads chapter based in Montreal, Ontario was home to Stadnick. He initially was a member of a Hamilton-based gang called the Red Devils until he became a prospect in the Hells Angels’ Montreal chapter in 1985. Roughly a decade later, he was a founding member of the Nomads chapter.

  Alain Dubois — Like Father, Like Son

  By comparison to other members of the gang, Alain Dubois’ role in the Hells Angels’ drug network appeared insignificant. But he faced many of the same charges Stadnick did in Operation Springtime 2001.

  Very few people had ever been granted the status of full-patch Rocker in the way Dubois had. It was a testament to his abilities as a drug dealer in the western sections of Montreal which the Hells Angels were intent on conquering. The Nomads chapter imposed Dubois’ instant membership on the Rockers on August 24,1999. He, along with Pierre Laurin, Stéphane Jarry and Gaetan Matte, were welcomed into the gang at a Verdun pizza restaurant that day. But Dubois did not take well to being a Rocker. On top of running his business he was expected to be at the beck and call of his superiors in the Nomads chapter. Dubois had come to the gang with pedigree in Montreal’s drug trafficking world. He was the son of Jean-Guy Dubois, a man who was part of a gang of brothers who once controlled several rackets like loan-sharking and prostitution in Montreal’s west end.

  When the police came knocking at Alain Dubois’ home in Chateauguay, he was home. He was handcuffed and taken away while his wife prepared their children for school. Learning that he was being charged along with the Hells Angels must have come as somewhat of a surprise to Dubois since he had quit the Rockers several months before. But he still had some of their paraphernalia lying around. There were T-shirts with phrases like “Support 81,” the Hells Angels’ code for HA, using numbers that match the letters’ alphabetical order. Hidden in a bag in Dubois’ garage was a Ceska pistol and a revolver. The police also seized a bulletproof vest and a canister of pepper spray.

  Dubois had managed to quit the gang “in good standing” after only eight months in April 2000, but now he was charged with being a participant in their war. Dubois’ father’s gang was already known for being involved in smuggling large quantities of hashish. Ironically, Jean-Guy Dubois and his brothers had already fought a similar war for control of Montreal’s west end in the 1970s. Jean-Guy Dubois would spend many years behind bars while his son Alain grew up and followed in his footsteps. That Alain would end up doing things like guard duty while members of the Nomads chapter worked out in a gym, appeared to be insulting.

  During one particular Rockers “messe” or Mass, as the Rockers and Hells Angels in Quebec referred to their monthly meetings, Dubois let his frustrations show. The police were secretly videotaping the meeting on October 12,1999. After the meeting ended, Dubois stayed behind to discuss a marijuana deal. As the videotape recorded everything, Pierre Provencher, a leader in the Rockers, informed Dubois and Matte that they would have to start taking over new territory for the gang while one of its members was in prison. During the conversation Dubois lost his cool and said that in the future he wanted everything laid out more clearly. He then stated that when he joined the gang he was promised Chateauguay, the city where he lived, as his private turf. Now, he said, Provencher was telling him someone from the Jokers, a Hells Angels’ puppet gang, was thinking of moving in.

  “I have all of that, Chateauguay,” Dubois said in his deep voice. It was one of the few times the Rockers were recorded discussing business in such an obvious way.

  He was displaying the same temper that had sometimes compromised him during his earlier years as a criminal. On December 28,1984, he and a cousin robbed a Canadian Tire store in Lasalle, a Montreal suburb. The crime was a relatively minor one and Dubois ended up only receiving a sentence of two years’ probation. But, because of his temper, he also managed to get some prison time out of it. While his cousin was on trial for the robbery, Dubois had shown up for a pretrial hearing and listened to a police officer testify. During a break in the hearing, on March 27, 1985, he walked up to the investigator in the courthouse corridor and made a veiled threat, saying, “You’re doing okay with the police, be careful of that.” He later made a more overt threat to the same investigator, saying, “inside [the courthouse] everything is okay. Outside it is not the same.”

  Later that same year, on June 12, he approached the same investigator at the courthouse, again during a break in the court case. The investigator was using a public phone when Dubois grabbed it out of his hand and said: “You’re a liar. You swore on the bible. It’s not even true. You’re too often with the police. Watch yourself. The world is small and we might meet one day on a sidewalk.” So, while he only received a probationary sentence in the robbery, Dubois was also ordered to serve 90 days in a provincial detention center because of his inability to control himself at the courthouse.

  Dubois’ father Jean-Guy, the third-eldest of nine brothers, was himself behind bars when his son was jailed for threatening a cop. On June 2,1977, Jean-Guy Dubois had been sentenced to life in prison for beating up a man and then tossing him into the Lachine canal. The man drowned in the canal, and the beating was found to have contributed to the drowning. Two Montreal police constables investigating a stolen car parked near the canal had seen Dubois and an accomplice dump the body in the canal. When he was arrested, Dubois claimed he had been urinating in the canal and did not know the man who was in the canal near him.

  By July 1991, Jean-Guy Dubois had been paroled for the Lachine canal homicide, but within a matter of months he was back behind bars for conspiring to traffic 100 kilograms of hashish. While preparing for parole the second time, in 1993, Jean-Guy Dubois told a psychologist that he had grown up amid misery in the St-Henri district. “Only his close family seems to bring him stability and a source of pride,” the psychologist wrote in a report to the board.

  During that second federal prison term, Dubois appeared to be a changed man. He was polite to the personnel and had become the penitentiary ombudsman, busy helping other inmates get parole. He would later tell the parole board in 1994 that, at the age of 60, he was finding prison life very tough. A psychiatrist concurred and informed the board that it seemed to have a devastating effect on the man. Little did Dubois know that in a matter of years he would sit in a courtroom and watch as his son was sent to a penitentiary.

  4

  The Hits

  Pierre (Ti-Bum) Beauchamp

  It was December 20, 1996, four shop- She Hits ping days before Christmas, and Pierre (Ti-Bum) Beauchamp had to find a parking space in one of the busiest sections of downtown Montreal. Despite the busy shopping period, he managed to find a spot near the corner of Sainte-Catherine Street West and Metcalfe Street. There he sat and waited, watching the many shoppers walk by, and apparently growing impatient as he tried to page someone three times. Inside his Ford Explorer, he had with hi
m $60,000.

  The past two months had not been pleasant for Beauchamp. The 46-year-old was a drug dealer who dealt with members of the Rock Machine in southwest Montreal. Beauchamp had learned the Hells Angels had put out a contract on him. But he didn’t react the way a member of the Rock Machine would have, especially at that point in the biker war, which would have been to seek revenge. Instead, Beauchamp went to the police and informed them of the threat on his life. He also told his brother. Word of Beauchamp’s concern got out, and he managed to arrange a meeting with Maurice (Mom) Boucher at a restaurant in Longueuil. What actually came of the meeting is not known.

  But now, Beauchamp was sitting in his Explorer with $60,000 in cash, almost half of it in marked bills. An RCMP undercover cop had used the marked bills to buy drugs on December 18,twodays earlier. Where the drug money was destined to go is unknown, but the number Beauchamp paged three times belonged to Michel Sylvestre, Boucher’s former brother-in-law and a close associate of the Hells Angels.

  From left to right: Bruno Lefebvre, Pierre Provencher and Gregory Wooley.

  In less than a year, Sylvestre would be among the first six Quebecers ever to be charged with violating federal anti-gang legislation. The arrests followed a lengthy RCMP investigation that uncovered a plot to smuggle 600 kilograms of cocaine and a conspiracy that saw several million dollars in contraband cigarettes shipped to the U.S. only to be smuggled back into Canada and sold under the table — allegedly to maintain product recognition after the federal government had placed higher taxes on cigarettes. A few of the men pleaded guilty to being part of the smuggling conspiracies, but Sylvestre saw the charges against him withdrawn.

  As Beauchamp sat waiting for Sylvestre to answer his page, someone walked up to the driver’s side window of his Explorer and fired several shots. One bullet struck and killed Beauchamp. The shooter was spotted running for a Dodge Caravan parked nearby with a getaway driver waiting inside. The minivan sped off down Metcalfe Street and was eventually found abandoned near the entrance of the Bonaventure métro station, part of Montreal’s elaborate subway system. The Caravan had been stolen a few days earlier as had the new licence plate affixed to the back. The trick would be used in several Hells Angels’ hits — drivers often don’t notice their licence plate is missing, so placing a stolen plate on a stolen vehicle buys some time when the police run a random check.

  All that was found inside the Caravan was the screwdriver used to start it. An employee of the métro station found a gun and a hat inside the Bonaventure station hours later. The gun turned out to be the one used to shoot Beauchamp, and inside the hat the police found DNA that they would later match to Gregory Wooley, who was just 24 years old at the time of the murder and yet to have any status in the Rockers. About four weeks after Beauchamp’s slaying, Wooley was named a hangaround in the Hells Angels’ underling gang. Stéphane Sirois, a man who later turned against the Rockers and worked as an undercover agent for the police, testified that Wooley walked into a bar where the gang hung out only a few hours after Beauchamp was killed and bragged that he had “got one.” From their conversation that night, Sirois also learned that René Charlebois helped out on the hit and that Boucher had given Wooley strict orders to leave the money inside Beauchamp’s Ford Explorer because he didn’t want the hit to look like a drug deal gone wrong.

  Beauchamp’s murder would be among the 23 charges filed in connection with Project Rush. All 42 of the Hells Angels or Rockers named in the indictment were accused of conspiring to kill members of the Alliance, the Dark Circle, the Rock Machine or the Bandidos between January 15,1995, and March 27, 2001. They were also accused of drug trafficking and conspiring to traffic drugs during that period. Gangsterism charges were attached to the conspiracy and drug trafficking charges. For example, all of those charged were accused of participating in a gang, knowing that its members had committed criminal acts within the five previous years. Several of the 42 charged were also accused of conspiring on two occasions to commit the mass murder of Rock Machine members. Both attempts involved large quantities of explosives that never went off but could have easily killed innocent people if they had.

  When it came down to the Beauchamp’s murder and 12 others like it, the Crown singled out Hells Angels or Rockers who were active in the gang and not in jail when the homicides were committed. Prosecutors would later argue that the 13 murders shared a pattern — all the victims had ties to the Alliance and after they were killed, the weapons and vehicles used in most cases were either dumped or destroyed by fire.

  “Each of these victims presented an obstacle to the complete objective that was favored by each and every [gang] member who adhered to the values and adhered equally to the plan that was previously established, that is to say to become the sole organization able to control and sell drugs in the territory of Montreal,” said Crown prosecutor André Vincent when he made his opening remarks to the jury on October 21, 2002, during one of the mega-trials to come out of Project Rush. “You won’t see a witness come here and say, ’I heard a bawling out between the victim and his assailant.’ In every case you will see people who will tell you, ’The assailant headed directly [toward the victim], without saying a word, shot in his direction and left immediately.’ That is what I call the characteristics of a settling of accounts. It is not about someone squabbling with another, saying ’you took my parking space.’ There were no words exchanged And I would even go further,” Vincent said. “In hearing the evidence you will learn how in almost every case the victim did not even see his assailant.”

  Wooley was tried twice for the murder of Beauchamp after his case was separated from the rest of the group arrested in Project Rush. Both times he was acquitted of first-degree murder by a jury despite a seemingly solid case against him. The Crown had DNA evidence and testimony from Stéphane Sirois who said he heard Wooley brag that he “got one” after Beauchamp was killed.

  But the defense created enough doubt in the minds of the jurors when it revealed there was a hole in the chain of possession of the DNA evidence. The Montreal police were unable to identify where the evidence had been stored for a period of time, allowing for the possibility that the hair found in the tuque was planted.

  Wooley, who had already developed a reputation for being lucky when it came to court cases, was able to plead guilty to lesser charges. On June 27, 2005 he was sentenced to 13 years for his role in the biker-gang war. He admitted to conspiring to kill rival gang members, drug trafficking and participating in gang activity. Because of the time he spent behind bars awaiting the outcome of his case, he is eligible for parole in 2007.

  Marc Belhumeur

  Marc Belhumeur likely didn’t see the man who came to shoot him. Belhumeur, a former prospect in the Rock Machine, was talking on a pay phone inside the Le Chalutier brasserie in Montreal’s east end when a masked man opened fire on him. At around the same time Beauchamp had learned the Hells Angels had a contract out on his head, Belhumeur, who was out on bail on drug trafficking charges, began to notice he was being followed. He too assumed his days were numbered and he asked that his life insurance be increased. He also started telling his relatives what kind of funeral he’d like. One sign that the Hells Angels were after him came while the Sûreté du Québec was executing a search warrant at the Hells Angels’ bunker in Trois Rivières — they noticed Belhumeur’s photo on a bulletin board.

  A little over a month after the Beauchamp murder, around 1 p.m. on January 24, 1997, Belhumeur was shot with a 9-mm Smith & Wesson firearm. He dropped the phone and tried to flee but was gunned down, on the day of his 25th birthday, near the entrance to the brasserie’s kitchen. The shooter fled out the back door, as if he already knew the layout of the bar very well. It was a sign of a well-planned hit. The shooter left no fingerprints, but Sirois would later testify that René Charlebois boasted of carrying out the perfect hit in killing Belhumeur.

  Yvon (Mon Mon) Roy

  A few months after Belhumeur’s murder, Yvon (M
on Mon) Roy, another member of the Alliance, had been cleared of charges involving the plot to kill Maurice (Mom) Boucher. According to Harold Pelletier, the hit man who had turned informant, Roy had attended the meeting where the plot to kill Boucher with a truck bomb had been hatched, but there was no proof that he took action after the meeting was held. Of course, that didn’t take Roy off the Hells Angels’ hit list. He was well known as a dealer for the Pelletier Clan and was apparently doing business in Montreal’s contested east end.

  More than a year after being cleared in the murder conspiracy, Roy was shot to death in front of his home in Repentigny. The 57-year-old drug dealer was mowing his lawn at around 10 a.m. on July 30,1998, when two gunmen opened fire on him, emptying their weapons, a .38-calibre revolver and a Cobray automatic pistol equipped with a silencer. Roy was struck in the head, neck, left arm and forearm. After he fell to the ground one of the gunmen dropped the Cobray near his driveway. Stunned neighbors watched as the two gunmen fled in a purple Chevrolet Cavalier. The revolver was tossed out the car’s window.

  As the police investigated the murder, they tried to track down the getaway car. They soon learned that a Cavalier fitting the description had been rented by someone using a false name the day before the shooting. After doing a little digging, investigators learned the car had been rented by a man named Stéphane (Archie) Hilareguy. Two months after the Roy murder, on October 1, 1998, Hilareguy (who with his red curly hair actually did resemble Archie, the comic book character he was nicknamed after) was made a striker in the Rockers. Hilareguy never returned the Cavalier, but the police learned that he and René Charlebois paid the rental company compensation for the lost vehicle. Thanks to the evidence linking the Rockers to the hit on Roy, his murder was one of the 13 included among the Project Rush charges.