by Paul Cherry
Not everyone outside the Hells Angels in Project Ocean was as careful as Lacoursiere and Bonin in prison. Tony Capozzi, a man with alleged ties to Montreal’s Mafia and a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces, had delivered more than $210,000 to the Nomads Bank using a silver briefcase, making four trips between November 2 and December 14, 2000. Capozzi’s money was accounted for in the “independents” column of the Nomads chapter’s computerized ledger, but police were unable to determine how much money he brought on five other occasions, between December 21, 2000, and January 30, 2001, after it became more difficult for the police to sneak in to the apartments used by the gang. What they did learn was that Capozzi was able to buy drugs for the same price as any member of the Hells Angels.
When the police searched his home in Ile Bizard they found weapons, including a .38-calibre firearm that was later determined to be part of a shipment of 30 firearms that had been smuggled into Canada illegally and had already been linked to a biker gang. The police also found paperwork that suggested Capozzi controlled a small network that sold 39 kilos of cocaine in six months. They found a laminated card showing all the telephone numbers of the Syndicate, a Rockers affiliate gang. Capozzi was 34 when he was arrested along with everyone else on March 28,2001, a few months before his scheduled wedding. And while he was serving his six-year sentence related to Project Ocean, Capozzi was hit with more bad news: the Quebec government had seized his luxury home, claiming Capozzi owed them $550,000 in unpaid taxes.
Capozzi was also turned down for parole in November 2004 because he was caught serving contraband food, or “hearty meals” as the National Parole Board phrased it, to two other inmates, both with drug trafficking convictions.
One of the more interesting motives for being a courier for a gang as notorious as the Hells Angels can be seen in the case of Claude Joannette. He was a founding member of the Dark Circle and had been convicted of plotting to kill members of the Hells Angels in 1996. As a way to erase his role in the 1996 murder plot, he agreed to deliver their drug money. While serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence for couriering, Joannette disassociated himself from gang members and asked to be separated from them while behind bars. Because of this, he was granted early parole by November 2003.
Éric Bouffard was one of the full-patch Hells Angels arrested in Project Ocean. He would later be mentioned in a scandal that took on great importance to the average Quebecer. It came after the Journal de Montréal published a photo of Montreal Canadiens goaltender José Theodore partying at the bunker belonging to the South chapter of the Hells Angels. The photo was seized at Bouffard’s home when he was arrested on March 28, 2001. The police also learned Bouffard had the hockey star’s cell phone number. The story came out on the heels of the arrests of several members of Theodore’s family who were operating a loan-sharking ring.
Meanwhile, Bouffard had been a member of the South chapter since 1998. While the police were monitoring the apartments used in the Nomads Bank, they saw him make two deposits totaling roughly $1 million.
While serving his three-year sentence Bouffard used the time to complete a college degree in social sciences, but he maintained his allegiance to the Hells Angels.
“I don’t see why I should be blamed for all the crimes of the Hells Angels,” Bouffard told the parole board on August 21, 2003. “Eventually I plan on leaving the group, but that moment hasn’t come yet. I want to do my sentence as a Hells Angel.” Because of this devotion, the National Parole Board decided to hold Bouffard until he served the full two-thirds of his sentence. But his statutory release was revoked in April 2004. He had been spotted months earlier on day parole at the same South chapter bunker where Theodore had partied with the gang.
Someone else who had no intention of leaving the Hells Angels was Daniel Gagné, the son of Yves (Flag) Gagné, a longtime member of the Trois Rivières chapter. At the age of 22, Daniel Gagné took one for his dad’s team and pleaded guilty in Project Ocean on October 29, 2001, and was handed a three-year sentence. At the time, the police considered him a mere striker in the Rowdy Crew, a Hells Angels’ underling gang. He had made two deliveries to the Nomads Bank worth around $400,000 total. While in prison he turned down a transfer to a minimum security penitentiary because he wanted to hang out with the Hells Angels in medium security. According to the police, his loyalty and pedigree were rewarded because, when he had reached the point of statutory release and was let go, he was immediately made a prospect in the Hells Angels’ Trois Rivières chapter.
Marc-André Hotte, a full-patch member of the Hells Angels’ Trois Rivières chapter, surrendered himselfto the police 14 months after Project Ocean was carried out. He quickly pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than four years in prison. When he arrived at his penitentiary, other members of the gang welcomed him into their wing. They even cleaned up his cell and helped him carry the personal effects he was allowed to have with him.
When he was up for parole in April 2004, Hotte told the commissioners that he was only interested in the Hells Angels as a motorcycle club. They didn’t buy it. His request was rejected because of his obvious devotion to the outlaw biker gang. Other Hells Angels were also finding out that the parole board had apparently decided to take a hard line with them. If they were still members of the Hells Angels and maintained their ties to the gang while behind bars, they would have to wait until their statutory release date.
Dean Moore, a longtime Hells Angel, received a six-year sentence thanks to Project Ocean. Until December 2004, he was considered a model inmate, helping to run a suicide-prevention program and becoming president of an inmates’ committee. During the biker war, the police were told by Dany Kane that Moore seemed to show no interest in what Boucher and the other members of the Nomads chapter wanted to accomplish. But according to police intelligence, Moore had also been Godfather to the Evil Ones, a Hells Angels’ underling gang.
A couple of weeks before Christmas 2004,Moore,a member of the South chapter, was turned down for parole. To add to his woes, Project Ocean had also made Moore a lightning rod for the provincial taxman. Moore was stuck with an $80,000 bill for taxes on his undeclared revenue.
Another member of the South chapter taken out of commission by Project Ocean was Bertrand Joyal. He claimed to like the motorcycle riding aspect of the Hells Angels. At the age of 48,he told the parole board in September 2004 that if he got out he’d go back to managing a motorcycle store or work on a farm. Again, the parole board could not get past the fact that, like the others, Joyal remained loyal to his gang. He was turned down for parole. He was only released after serving two-thirds of his six-year sentence. On June 8,2005, the parole board could only place restrictions on him that forbade him from associating with his gang, or other known criminals, for the remaining two years of his sentence. He was also ordered to supply his parole officer with a budget and a record of expenses on a monthly basis.
Jean-Paul Ramsay, a longtime member of the Hells Angels’ Montreal chapter, arrested in Project Ocean.
Despite being a Hells Angel for more than a decade, Jean-Paul Ramsay had never done serious prison time until he ended up as one of the people nabbed in Project Ocean. The longtime member of the Montreal chapter had managed to operate pretty much under the radar until he was noticed making several cash deliveries for an account labeled “Nath.” He was given a five-year sentence. While behind bars, Ramsay tried to use the time well and enrolled in school courses. He was considered an excellent student, but snitches in his penitentiary also revealed that he was the head of a drug trafficking ring that operated from May to October 2003.
Ramsay was immediately placed in isolation and sent to a maximum security penitentiary. When it came time for his statutory release on March 10, 2005, the National Parole Board chose instead to keep him in. This is something reserved for the worst federal inmates — only five percent are held after the two-thirds mark of their term. In its explanation for keeping him behind bars, the board declared he was a high r
isk to sell drugs while still serving his sentence.
It was an indication that many of the Hells Angels in Quebec saw drug trafficking as a way of life.
The Actual Dollars and Cents
Luc Landry, a police investigator and a financial analyst for the Sûreté du Québec, was given the task of sorting out how much money the Hells Angels pocketed from their drug trafficking. While testifying during the trial of Walter (Nurget) Stadnick and Donald (Pup) Stockford, both members of the Nomads chapter, originally from Ontario, he submitted his analysis of the chapter’s accounting.
Landry detailed the chapter’s $18 million in sales between November 10 and December 19, 2000. During that period, the Hells Angels moved 1,916 kilograms of cocaine for a profit of more than $8 million. They were averaging $4,530 profit on every kilo sold. When it came to hashish, the chapter was not doing too badly either. They moved 838 kilograms of hash and made more than $680,000 profit.
6
Santa Claus aka Gerald Matticks
If there is one thing to emerge from Project Ocean that might define Gerald Matticks, it was the contents of a folder found on his desk of the butcher shop and meat warehouse he owned on the South Shore. The police were monitoring him as he conducted high-level drug deals with Maurice (Mom) Boucher and other Hells Angels, and based on their investigation, they obtained a warrant to search Matticks’ office above the butcher shop. Matticks had long been known as a member of the West End Gang, a group of criminals, mostly of Irish descent, who emerged from a poverty-stricken area of western Montreal to become influential thieves and drug traffickers.
Besides his personal items, like the negatives of photos of him celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day, the police noticed a folder that contained only two pieces of paper. One was a letter from the Bandidos politely asking Matticks if he wanted to switch sides and supply them, instead of the Hells Angels, with drugs. The document was evidence of Matticks’ notoriety in Quebec as a drug trafficker. But in the same folder was a document concerning the details of an Easter party for children. Matticks’ meat company was sponsoring it. The documents were indicative of Matticks’ dual nature. On the one hand, he was a cunning smuggler who had collected photos of police investigators he believed were tailing him; on the other, he was a generous person to the communities where he lived, and especially kind to children.
L’Affaire Matticks
Gerald Matticks was considered “the door” to the Port of Montreal.
In 1995, he had beaten the system when charges that he was involved in one of the largest seizures of hashish ever in Quebec, were stayed. Matticks and his brother Richard as well as five other men, were arrested in connection with 26.5 tons of hashish that had been seized in containers at the Port of Montreal. But according to investigators, a shipping document collected during the Sûreté du Québec investigation had gone missing, and it was replaced by a copy faxed by Customs Canada to the Sûreté du Québec’s offices. A judge determined that what the Sûreté had done was the equivalent of planting evidence. The question remained — had the bill of lading ever actually been seized? The charges were stayed, causing a genuine scandal. “L’Affaire Matticks” became a household phrase in Montreal and leant the West End Gang notoriety. The scandal also opened the door to a probe of the Sûreté du Québec and how it had managed its criminal investigations during the 1990s. The probe was headed by Lawrence Poitras, a former chief justice of the Quebec Superior Court. When the Poitras Commission ended two years after it began, the 1,700-page report depicted the Sûreté du Québec as a backward police force that routinely broke the law during its investigations. The report contained the blunt statement: “A crisis of values has shaken the Sûreté du Québec from the beginning of this decade.”
Sidestepping the charges he faced over the hashish seizure merely added to the lore surrounding Gerry Matticks, the youngest of 14 children who emerged from the poverty of Montreal’s Goose Village and, for appearance’s sake, lived the life of a gentleman farmer on the South Shore. In 1971, Matticks, along with some of his siblings, had been charged with attempted murder, but they managed to beat the case. In 1977, the police searched his home in St-Hubert and found a small stash of stolen jewelry including 28 women’s gold rings and three pairs of earrings. All told, the jewelry was worth nearly $5,000, and it had been stolen from a store during an armed robbery on Montreal’s Chabanel Street. But again, Matticks managed to get an acquittal.
One of the few times Matticks was ever sentenced to jail time came in 1990, when he was caught as part of a ring that stole trucks, repainted them and resold them. The police monitored members of the ring while they stole the trucks using a tow truck licensed to Matticks. He served only 24 weekends as his punishment. But a different image of Matticks emerged after his Project Ocean case was brought to court, and he would eventually be sentenced to 12 years in prison.
During Matticks’ bail hearing, a parade of honest citizens, including a priest, testified that he was a generous man who deserved some leniency. “Did he come to church every Sunday? No. Did he help out people? Yes. Did he practice his faith? Yes,” said Father Marc Mignault. Mignault, the parish priest of a church in Saint-Bruno, testified at Matticks’ bail hearing on July 3, 2001. Mignault said that while Matticks certainly was not a churchgoer, he was a decent man with a charitable heart. The priest said he had come to know Matticks from conversations they would have at a restaurant the West End gang member owned.
Mignault said Matticks donated frozen turkeys for Christmas baskets, and once gave enough turkeys to fill an 18-foot freezer. Matticks also donated toys to the church, and, through a trucking company he owned, he would supply cases of food that had been claimed as damaged in insurance claims. Mignault said that when the presbytery roof was leaking, the church had hired four different roofers to fix the complicated problem without any success. “One day when talking to Gerry, he said, ’I’ll send someone over. I had a similar problem at home. This guy is excellent. He’ll fix it.’ He came over. He fixed it. I asked [Gerry] for the bill three times and he said it was lost in the mail.”
Even before Mignault testified, others had told Judge Gilbert Morier that Matticks was an honorable businessman and the equivalent of Santa Claus. Max Freid, a 61-year-old livestock broker from Côte St-Luc, an affluent Montreal suburb, said he had known Matticks for 20 years. They had done business together through a company Matticks owned called G.M. Livestock, and he considered him a friend. Freid dealt in up to $25 million a year in cattle. “I know Mr. Matticks but I don’t know what the case is about,” Freid said, adding that, despite this, he was willing to make a $50,000 deposit to secure Matticks’ bail. “To me, I always did business with him and he was honorable.” Testifying after Freid was Jean Lepine, a 63-year-old plumber from Greenfield Park who immersed himself in charitable work.
“I call him my Santa Claus,” Lepine said of Matticks whom he had known for 20 years. “I knew Mr. Matticks for the good things he has done. I am someone who has done charity work for 30 years. I am surrounded by people like Mr. Matticks and when I need donations, Mr. Matticks is very accessible.” Lepine told the story of a Christmas float that Matticks had arranged for a Christmas parade for 15 years. The float was very generous with gifts to children. Matticks would ride on the 45-foot float, accompanied by Santa Claus, distributing gifts and ornaments to poor children.
Lepine had also told of how, during the January 1998 ice storm that damaged Quebec’s hydro system so badly thousands of homes went without electricity for weeks, Matticks opened his restaurant and helped out by offering 2,200 free meals to people. During that trying time for many, especially on the South Shore, Matticks had given out free wood to families, Lepine said, pounding his hand on the witness stand to emphasize his point. “He was very flexible. He did not consider the cost,” Lepine said. Matticks’ lawyer also produced an affidavit from Steven Olynyk, the former mayor of Greenfield Park and a retired police officer. It described how, on one Christmas, Matticks
had donated 100 food baskets to the poor.
But from that bail hearing, another image of Matticks emerged, one that came from the police who saw how Matticks had made the fortune that allowed him to be so generous. Some of the most important members of the Hells Angels were going out of their way to meet with Matticks while they were under investigation in Project Rush. Investigators in the Sûreté du Québec were elated when they learned Maurice (Mom) Boucher and other members of the Nomads chapter had started showing up at Matticks’ butcher shop and meat warehouse in St-Hubert.
One of the first meetings between Mom and Matticks was on May 25,1999. The police were tailing Boucher and his chauffeur Guy Lepage, a former police officer who left the Montreal Urban Community Police in shame and later joined the Rockers. The two ended up at Viandes 3-1. It was a building Matticks co-owned with one of his sons. On the outside of the building was a large shamrock, proof that Matticks was proud of his Irish heritage. A plainclothes cop followed Lepage and Boucher inside, posing as a customer, and noticed they were not at the service counter. But he did notice a stairway that led to an office. Lepage and Boucher spent about 30 minutes in the office. On December 2,1999, Lepage and Boucher returned to Viandes 3-1 and again stayed for about 30 minutes.
Months later, it appeared that Boucher had delegated the Hells Angels’ meetings with Matticks to other members of his gang. At the time, the Quebec Court of Appeal was considering the possibility of a new trial for the murders of two prison guards, which meant Boucher would certainly be held in custody until he was brought before a jury again. One of the first indications that other Hells Angels had taken over for Boucher’s dealings with Matticks came from police informant Dany Kane. He told his controllers that in May 2000, a meeting had been held between Michel Rose, Normand Robitaille, André Chouinard and Guillaume Serra at an exotic restaurant in Boucherville. Kane said he stood watch at the restaurant along with Dany St-Pierre. After the meeting the Hells Angels went to Matticks’ butcher shop. Boucher was not there, and six months later, in October, he was arrested for the new trial.
