by Paul Cherry
On November 30, 2000, Mayrand met with Wegers in Peace Arch Park while the police watched from a distance. Mayrand had two bodyguards with him, Rick Ciarnello and John Bryce. Wegers also had bodyguards. The two gang leaders talked for a while, with Mayrand appearing to do most of the talking. Wegers listened with no expression on his face. The meeting ended without incident. Judging by what happened almost immediately afterward, it appears that Mayrand let Wegers know that the Hells Angels were going to respond to the fact the Rock Machine was to be patched over by the Bandidos in Quebec and Ontario.
Within days of the meeting with Wegers, it was apparent Mayrand was helping to lead the push to create new Hells Angels’ chapters in Ontario. On December 7, 2000, Mayrand and Mathieu were recorded in a phone conversation discussing an order of some 100 new Hells Angels’ patches. By December 12, that number had increased to 160, apparently thanks to Donald (Pup) Stockford. Mayrand was recorded talking to Jacques Emond, a longtime member of the Sherbrooke chapter, informing him of the good news. Emond had once lived in British Columbia and apparently still had ties there.
“So it’s going to happen in eight days?” Emond said of the eventual patch-over party to be held in Sorel.
“That’s it.”
“Okay.”
“Is that all right?”
“So, I’ll alert the west.”
“You’re going to alert the west and your chapter,” Mayrand told Emond before saying goodbye. Giauque pointed to the calls as proof of Mayrand’s importance in the Hells Angels.
“The defense might tell you that Mr. Mayrand only joined the Nomads on January 12, 2000, that his actions before that date prove nothing and that they were meetings between friends and that is all. I believe it is impossible to believe this. Could you really believe that Richard Mayrand had been a member of the Hells Angels’ Montreal [chapter] for more than 15 years without having anything more than an amicable relationship with them? It is impossible,” she said.
When Giauque talked about Sylvain Moreau, she mentioned how his passport showed he had traveled to Barbados on November 4, 2000, and to Cancun in February 2001. Giauque said it was not bad for a guy who claimed to make $511 net for two weeks and $10,915 net annual income for 1999.
Closing Arguments
“All of the manifest acts committed with the goal of eliminating the competition by the co-accused named in the indictment are opposable to each of the accused,” Giauque said as she began to wrap up her arguments. Even the objects seized at their homes, which might have seemed somewhat banal at first, could be considered as important.
“We submit that the different objects found are manifestly proof of an agreement between the co-conspirators and can serve as evidence on all three charges. All of these objects can be considered as manifest acts against the accused because they were used in the pursuit of the common goal. Think of the patches on different clothes, the laminated cards [with each member’s phone numbers listed on them], the plaques, the trophies, the greeting cards, the photos of friends and of enemies but also the map, the weapons, the money found and the money found in the Nomads Bank. All of those objects had one utility: to assure the cohesion of the gang, its visibility and its supremacy.”
The prosecutor also explained the importance of the boring videos the jury had watched of gang members standing in front of restaurants and hotels obviously doing guard duty.
“They showed the importance of the gang and the hierarchy. Think of the watch. Think of the way the Nomads accepted that the Rockers were doing their watch. It was their due,” she said. “If there is one [type of] evidence that should be considered as the pursuit of a common goal it is the Masses. In looking at them, you realize immediately that they were only held to assure the proper function of the gang and its diverse activities. There is no other reason for its existence. Presence was obligatory and they were held in secret. Any absence had to be justified. It is impossible to think that we can take part in a Mass by chance. We pass by and see a closed door, we open it and sit right down. It’s impossible to think that happened.”
The wiretaps the jury listened to also opened a door to life in the Nomads chapter and the Rockers. The calls gang members made from prisons in particular were revealing.
“Even in prison they were combating their enemies. Even if they were detained, the situation did not change. You know that in the case of André Couture and Sylvain Moreau, they continued to pay their ten percent while they were detained,” Giauque said. “Prison changed nothing when it came to business. Just because they were detained, that didn’t mean they couldn’t continue to take part in their gang activities and were still part of the gang. To the contrary, everyone took care of them.”
The prosecutor then explained the gangsterism charge the jury was going to have to decide on. “I would submit to you that the evidence demonstrated that all of the members of the gang regularly committed criminal acts punishable by a sentence of five years or more, and that [they did so] with the knowledge of all of them. So, all of them knew that the other members were trafficking in prohibited substances,” she said.
“I will repeat again that being part of the Hells Angels is not a crime in itself. But we have surely proven to you that the organization is a gang in the sense of the Criminal Code, and that it is a criminal organization. A criminal organization does not exist on its own. It is the members who compose it that commit the crimes.”
When the defense lawyers took their turn, the main theme that ran through their final arguments was that the Crown had presented very little direct incriminating evidence against their clients. Perhaps the most impressive final arguments from the defense side came from Lucie Joncas, the lawyer who represented Sebastien Beauchamp, who said it would take a “contortionist from the Cirque du Soleil” to perform the “intellectual gymnastics” required to convict her client. In an attempt to destroy the credibility of one of the most damaging witnesses against Beau-champ, Joncas portrayed informant Serge Boutin as a man still fuming over an insult made towards his wife.
“If there was one [informant] who wanted to bury my client, it was [Boutin],” Joncas said. She referred the jury to a wiretapped conversation from October 7,2000, before Boutin had become an informant and was still facing a possible first-degree murder trial in Claude De Serres’ death. Boutin was upset because a not yet full-patch member of the Rockers had insulted his wife at a Rockers’ party. At the time, Beauchamp was just days away from becoming a full-patch Rocker. Boutin said two or three friends informed him of what was said while he was behind bars. Provencher tried to keep things cool, apparently aware of how potentially explosive the situation was.
“He didn’t know she was my wife?” Boutin asked during the conversation.
“You know him, him there,” Provencher replied.
“But even if he didn’t know it was my wife. You know, even if he didn’t know it was my wife.”
“That’s it.”
“You can’t ...you have to pay attention to what you say.”
“Yes. Yes.”
“To anybody’s wife.”
“There are times, you know, when you get unglued.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“There are times when you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Hmmm. Hmmm.”
“You know, there are times when you drunk, when you don’t even remember what you did.”
“Ah yes.”
“So, you know, the next morning he apologized and everything.”
Joncas argued that the apology wasn’t enough, and that when Boutin testified Beauchamp sold drugs for the Hells Angels on Saint Denis Street, he was doing it to get back for the slight to his wife. The proof of that, Joncas said, was in another wiretapped conversation, taped a week later in which Boutin talked to another Rocker and called Beauchamp a nut. He also said he would look into what had happened if he ever got out of prison.
Lawyer Jean-Pierre Sharpe pointed to the most damaging direct evide
nce against his client Bruno Lefebvre and tried to downplay it. Before his arrest, Lefebvre owned a house in Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac that he was preparing to sell for $435,ooo.He had made a $50,000 cash down payment when buying the house for $2OO,OOO, despite claiming to earn only $370 a week. Sharpe suggested this should not be taken as a sign Lefebvre was a drug dealer. “Some people make a living that way,” Sharpe said, alluding to the real-estate deal. “Donald Trump does it. Should we charge Donald Trump with conspiracy for that?”
Guy Quirion, the lawyer who represented Éric (Pif) Fournier, tried to convince the jury that the accused were victims of police planting evidence. He pointed to inconsistencies in how evidence seized at one Hells Angels’ home was recorded and accused the police of planting one of the incriminating photo albums containing pictures of most of the members of the Alliance.
Ronald (Popo) Paulin’s lawyer, Lise Rochefort, tried to get on the jury’s good side by suggesting that everyone involved in the lengthy trial should be given a T-shirt with the phrase “I survived Gouin” written on it, a reference to their time spent in the specially built courthouse in northern Montreal. Rochefort likened her client to a kid who badly wanted to be part of a hockey team but couldn’t skate.
“That kid is willing to do menial tasks like fill water bottles and carry pucks but is not part of the team,” she said. She pointed out that the jury had heard a wiretapped conversation where one Rocker had said Paulin did nothing but arrange for T-shirts and plaques to be made for the gang.
After Judge Beliveau made his instructions to the jury, they were sequestered and left to assess all that they had heard and seen over the past year. It would take them 12 days to come up with verdicts.
The Verdicts
March 1, 2004, was a spectacular day weather-wise in Montreal. Instead of charging in like a lion, a bright sun ushered in March with a reminder that spring was on its way. In a park less than a kilometre away from the courthouse sat a payloader and other equipment being used to break up ice on the Riviére des Prairies which was overflowing as the weather got warmer that winter. As the trial neared its end, people making their way to the courthouse on Gouin Blvd. could see work crews pounding away at huge blocks of ice, hoping to prevent serious flooding in Laval across the river. The announcement that the jury had a verdict came early in the afternoon.
Because of the number of lawyers involved, there was a long delay between the time the jury informed Beliveau that they had verdicts and when they came out to deliver them. As he waited, Éric (Pif) Fournier paced in the enclosed prisoners’ dock, looking somewhat like a caged predator. His fellow Rocker André Couture paced as well. Richard (Dick) Mayrand appeared to be keeping his cool. He joked with his lawyer through a phone that connected the prisoners’ dock with the courtroom. Mayrand shrugged often during the conversation, as if resigned to whatever fate was about to befall him. After he hung up with his lawyer, Mayrand and Beauchamp shared a joke and laughed.
But as the wait grew longer a sense of tension filled the air. Beliveau felt it necessary to address the situation. He told everyone assembled in the courtroom that if they couldn’t take the pressure they should leave. He did not want any outburst reactions to the verdicts.
As the jury entered the courtroom, their eyes were fixed on anything but the accused. Beliveau thanked them for their work and the sacrifice they had made. He also publicly thanked their relatives for putting up with the incredibly long trial. Then juror number eight, a young man, was asked to read out the verdicts.
Following alphabetical order, Beauchamp’s verdicts were read first. Some people gasped as they heard the “not guilty” verdict on the first count against him. But Beauchamp had been behind bars for most of the time Project Rush was carried out, so those who had followed the trial closely were not surprised to hear he had been cleared of conspiring to murder members of the Alliance. But he was found guilty of drug trafficking and participating in the activities of a gang. Despite being convicted on the lesser counts, Beauchamp’ reaction was not difficult to read. He had a smile that stretched from ear to ear, and he shot a wink towards his lawyer Lucie Joncas that was plainly visible from the back of the courtroom.
All of the remaining eight gangsters were found guilty on all three counts. Luc (Bordel) Bordeleau appeared genuinely stunned as the foreman repeated “coupable” three times in his case. Mayrand raised his eyebrows and shook his head in apparent disgust. He then turned towards the section of the courtroom reserved for the audience and stared toward a friend, his face revealing little emotion. Alain Dubois appeared to be furious with the verdicts. His arms were folded tightly across his chest and his face turned crimson red. But he’d obviously expected to be convicted of something. He was the only accused out on bail in the case and had packed a gym bag full of clothes that day. After he was led into the prisoners’ dock to sit with his former gangmates, he fumed. One of the Rockers tried to make a joke out of it, but Dubois wanted nothing to do with it. He appeared to tell the others to shut up, or something to that effect. Paulin sat quietly, sometimes shaking his head in apparent disbelief. Before being arrested in Project Rush, the most serious thing Paulin had ever been convicted of was unemployment fraud and neglecting his dog by not feeding it. Now a jury had concluded he was a gangster.
Sentencing Those Who Went the Distance
All that was left to decide was how the convicted would be punished for their crimes. A few weeks after the verdict, the two sides debated what sentences were merited. Because they hadn’t plead guilty, like most of the others arrested in Project Rush, it was argued by Giauque that their sentences should be exemplary. Luc (Bordel) Bordeleau slapped his knee and laughed out loud when he heard Giauque say she was seeking a 29-year sentence for Richard (Dick) Mayrand. Bordeleau also laughed when she mentioned, during sentencing arguments of March 22, 2004, that she was seeking 24 years for him. Alain Dubois would be at the low end of the sentencing recommendations. But even though he had only been with the Rockers for a matter of months, Giauque was still asking for a 14-year term.
The sentence recommendations did not seem out of order considering that just two weeks earlier, two members of the Nomads chapter, André Chouinard (who left the Hells Angels just before Operation Springtime 2001 was carried out) and Michel Rose, had pleaded guilty to similar charges and received 20-year sentences. Unlike Mayrand, they had spared the province the cost of a lengthy trial. Other members, like Mathieu and Robitaille, had agreed to plead guilty in exchange for 20-year sentences.
Before the defense lawyers made their sentencing arguments, François Bordeleau made an odd request by seeking a publication ban on the identities of some of the people who might testify as to the good character of his client, Bruno Lefebvre. He said he had witnesses lined up who would testify only if their names wouldn’t be mentioned. For example, Bordeleau said, he had the owner of a golf course ready to come in and vouch for Lefebvre, but who did not want his business associated with the Hells Angels. Beliveau said he could understand why someone wouldn’t want to be associated with the Hells Angels, but rejected the request.
In Paulin’s case, one witness was willing to testify on his behalf. It was the owner of the Montreal embroidery shop where Paulin had ordered all of the Rockers T-shirts over the years. Paulin was so good for business, the owner had hired him as a part-time salesman in 2000, after Paulin decided to retire from the Rockers.
Witnesses portrayed Dubois as a loyal and loving hockey dad who gave a lot of his free time to the Chateauguay Hockey Association. He sometimes coached games and treated the kids to dinners. After his arrest, Dubois limited his work to being a volunteer for hockey tournaments, doing things like selecting the stars of games and serving as a goal judge.
“I don’t know one kid who doesn’t like him,” said one witness. Another witness said she’d known the Dubois family for years. “They have family values,” she said as Dubois’ father Jean-Guy, a convicted killer, looked on from the audience section of the
courtroom.
By April 8, 2004, Beliveau was ready to deliver his sentences. His 69-page judgement was the first real glimpse into what the Superior Court judge truly thought of the Crown’s case. He agreed with the Crown arguments that, at least in the cases of Bordeleau, Couture, Fournier, Lefebvre, Mayrand and Moreau, exemplary sentences were appropriate. He noted that it hadn’t been proven that Bordeleau and Fournier sold drugs for the network. But it had been proven that all members of the Rockers paid into the ten percent fund, so the pair had to have been doing something to earn their salaries. It had also been proven that Fournier had done “the watch” on several occasions, and that Bordeleau was an organizer of the guard duty. In doing so they played necessary roles in maintaining the gang’s turf.
In Dubois’ case, Beliveau took into consideration that he had apparently been a drug dealer for a long time. But he also felt that Dubois’ departure from the Rockers after only a few months reflected that he didn’t believe “in the values of the organization” It was a value system where Rockers knew that if they became Hells Angels they were joining a lifestyle. In his judgement, Beliveau quoted Sylvain Laplante acknowledging, during one of the Masses the police recorded, that life as a Hells Angel was “24 hours out of 24 hours.”
Beliveau rated Paulin’s involvement as “medium,” because while it was obvious he adhered to the gang’s values, there was little proof he participated in their more serious activities. Beliveau didn’t see any hope of rehabilitation except in the cases of Dubois and Paulin. He accepted the argument from Paulin’s defense lawyer that he was like the kid who didn’t have enough talent to make the local hockey team so he was willing to do any minor tasks to fit in and be accepted. But he noted that such an attitude in the context of the Hells Angels presented a real danger for society. He couldn’t look the other way on the fact that Paulin had held down regular jobs in his life and chose, well into his adult years, to become a member of the Rockers and remain there for six years, knowing full well what the gang did.
