Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle (66 page)

With the implications of Richard “Crow” Émond's assassination still sinking in, the Rock Machine murdered a second full-patch Hells Angel on December 16, 1996. Quebec City member Bruno Van Lerberghe was eating a plate of fries and gravy in Bar Rest-O-Broue II in Vanier when a gunman shot him in the face and fled on foot. In addition to taking down a second full-patch, Van Lerberghe's murder also extended the shooting war to Quebec City, which had until then escaped much of the violence Montreal had suffered. Before New Year's, three more men would be shot in the area, all of them with connections to biker gangs.

Even the Nomads weren't safe. The day after Van Lerberghe's murder, the elite bikers effectively lost a member for the first time. When Richard “Rick” Vallée was on trial for conspiracy to murder Robert Luduc, a Joker he felt wasn't working hard enough, few expected a conviction. The only major witness to give evidence against him was Serge Quesnel, and discrediting his testimony had become routine in Quebec. When he was acquitted, the Jokers in the audience applauded. But Vallée had one more matter to take care of before he could leave. On another floor of the same courthouse, Vallée participated in a hearing with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which was seeking his extradition so he could stand trial for the murder of one of their informants.

Back in 1993, Lee Carter was a bartender at a bowling alley in Champlain, N.Y., just south of the Canadian border. After Vallée approached the clean-cut young man about ferrying “a package” (the DEA said it was cocaine) from New York City to Montreal, Carter went to police. Vallée was arrested, but before he could stand trial, Carter's Porsche exploded and he was killed—parts of his car landed on the roof of the bowling alley and his right leg was found under another car 30 feet away. It's a fact well known to Hells Angels that U.S. penalties are usually much harsher than Canadian ones and that prosecutors were often more effective in convincing juries of bikers' guilt. Although they didn't ask for the death penalty, which would have jeopardized the extradition order, the DEA had a strong case. Vallée knew he would likely go to an American prison for life. He was taken away in handcuffs to await another hearing. Before it came, Vallée was sent to a hospital for surgery on an abscess in his jaw. When a guard took him to the shower, he was confronted by a man who put a gun to his head. Vallée and his accomplice tied and gagged the guard and Vallée went home, packed his bags and flew to Costa Rica with a passport bearing the name Guy Turner.

Although civic governments had been begging for strong anti-gang laws, none had been passed. When a strip club manager in Lac-Saint-Charles happened upon a bomb at the bar's front door on New Year's Day, it was clear that the war had moved to the Quebec City area. When he heard that a real estate agent had shown a nearby mansion to some bikers, Richard Blondin took action. The mayor of Saint-Nicolas, the suburb where the Hells Angels had their clubhouse, he drafted a bill that would outlaw the fortification of buildings. Although it wouldn't apply to existing buildings, he hoped that it would prevent the Hells Angels from acquiring any more buildings for puppet clubs or having any other clubs move in.

Two weeks later, Quebec public security minister, Robert Perrault, who replaced Ménard after the Desrosiers incident, started a task force of SQ and local police to help identify bars and other establishments connected with the Hells Angels or Rock Machine.

By the end of January, the Groupe Régional d'Intervention sur le Crime Organisé (GRICO) had closed down two biker bars in Quebec City. But no amount of lobbying by Perrault would get the federal government to pass the anti-gang law that police forces in Quebec wanted. Their plan was to make membership in what the government identified as a gang illegal and allow police to arrest a member of an organization like the Hells Angels and worry about specific charges later. That would be far different from the usually successful Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law in the U.S., which had failed twice when used against the Hells Angels, and would almost certainly contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Instead, they got Bill C-95, which instituted minimum sentences for crimes committed “for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with” a criminal organization and which also says: “Every one who . . . participates in or substantially contributes to the activities of a criminal organization knowing that any or all of the members of the organization engage in or have, within the preceding five years, engaged in the commission of a series of indictable offenses . . . of which the maximum punishment is imprisonment for five years or more . . . is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years.”

In effect, if the federal government can prove that a person is part of a group in which the member knows its members have committed crimes in the last five years, he or she is liable to imprisonment. That passage struck a chord with the leadership of the Hells Angels. After a suggestion one police officer said came directly from Stadnick, eight members who had no convictions over the last five years split off and formed a new chapter with a name reminiscent of the old Sorel vs. Laval days: Hells Angels Montreal South.

But while police were getting more legal power, they were losing manpower. After Carol Daigle and Louis-Jacques Deschênes were arrested for plotting to kill Nomad Normand “Biff ” Hamel, the Montreal police pulled out of Carcajou. “Those were the top guys in the Dark Circle. With them gone, they must have thought that was the end of the Alliance,” said an SQ officer who was sure Montreal's pull-out doomed the task force. “It was like they declared the Hells Angels the winners and then went home.”

But the bombs kept on coming. On March 11, 1997, a man crashed a Jeep Cherokee into the Quebec City Hells Angels clubhouse in Saint-Nicolas, jumped out and then triggered a remote-controlled bomb. The blast was huge, knocking off the front door of the heavily fortified building and shattering windows for blocks. When a newspaper ran a picture of a month-old baby in a crib full of broken glass, public outrage boiled over into action. On March 16, a group of over 600 Saint-Nicolas residents held a protest outside the Hells Angels clubhouse. While members inside videotaped the protest's ringleaders, angered citizens gave speeches, sang songs and chanted slogans about how much they wanted the bikers to leave. When Blondin, long a foe of the bikers, arrived to give a speech, the crowd fell silent. He threw away his notes, looked at the clubhouse and said: “allez” (“go away”). It worked. On March 24, the clubhouse went up for sale. The Hells Angels planned to move to a quieter neighborhood.

After four bombs went off in ten days in Montreal, it was obvious that the war was raging again. Unable to get any more help from Ottawa, municipalities took their own initiative. The city of Montreal closed the clubhouses of the Rockers and the Rock Machine over little-used safety regulations. Their huge metal doors and bullet-proof glass prevented escape or rescue in the event of a fire. Although both clubs quickly made the necessary renovations and moved back in, their buildings were far less secure. Chicoutimi, a city largely untouched by the biker war, responded to the founding of a local puppet club (Satan's Guard) by passing a law that would allow the seizure of loud motorcycles. The Satan's Guard moved to nearby Jonquière, taking Autoroute 70, just outside the Chicoutimi line, when they rode out of town.

Still enraged over the Boyko murder, Stadnick took action. Although Kane told the RCMP that Carroll had hired Tousignant to murder Magnussen, it's hard to believe Stadnick wasn't actually behind it. Not only had Magnussen compromised Stadnick's years of work in Winnipeg—potentially putting his very life in danger—he'd turned his back on his old friend and teamed up with Stadnick's biggest rival, Steinert. Magnussen's death would go a long way toward cooling tempers out west and would also weaken Steinert's position considerably. When Tousignant did nothing for months, Stadnick, Stockford and Carroll met with Kane and offered him $10,000 for the job. Magnussen was a friend of his (which is probably why he was chosen), but Kane knew it was unwise for someone in his position to say no to a Nomad, let alone three of them, so he accepted.

Although Kane was a murderer, he didn't like the thought of killing his friend, no matter how much it would help his career; and he was frightened of what Steinert would do if he found out. So Kane went to the RCMP and told them about the plot. The police sent two of their most convincing men to Magnussen's house. On two occasions, the officers spoke to him about how much danger he was in (without mentioning names) and offered him police protection if he'd turn informant.

Magnussen refused, later saying he laughed at the cops and threw them out of the house (a claim the police denied). Kane had no choice. He was preparing himself to murder Magnussen when Boucher found out about the plot and called an emergency meeting of the Nomads. He pointed out to the three conspirators that it was unthinkable under club rules for a prospect to kill a full-patch member and that, if they wanted Magnussen dead, one of them would have to do it. He suggested that Stadnick, who had the most to gain by Magnussen's elimination, should be the one.

Before anyone could strike, Magnussen got himself into deeper trouble. Drunk and stoned, Magnussen got into a shouting match with a young man who'd made fun of him in a bar in downtown Montreal. Never much of a debater, the huge Magnussen resorted to his fists and boots, beating the young man nearly to death. It was another very bad decision. The victim turned out to be Leonardo Rizzuto, son of Montreal mafia boss Vito Rizzuto. The small-time drug dealer and enforcer from Thunder Bay had made yet another powerful enemy in Montreal.

Freed from the task of killing Magnussen, Kane accepted another contract from Carroll. Paul Wilson, Carroll's friend in Halifax, had called him to complain about a man who had been their common friend. Robert MacFarlane was one of the richest men in Halifax. He'd started one of the East Coast's first cellular phone companies and, some say, sold cocaine as his primary business. Despite a waterfront house, a yacht and a beautiful young wife, MacFarlane grew bored and started consuming massive amounts of drugs and alcohol. And, like so many men, he became violent when he was drunk. A large, strong man with a decided mean streak, MacFarlane threw his weight around in local bars—often getting into fights or stiffing on his bill—and nobody had the courage to stop him. He'd decided to terrorize Wilson's Reflections bar and had been arrested for threatening to set fire to the establishment and, later, for sexually assaulting a waitress. Wilson wanted him stopped and Carroll, who was anxious to reassert the club in Halifax, wanted him dead. MacFarlane was not just a jerk; he was also a fairly successful drug dealer, exactly the kind that had cowed the local bikers into submission.

For $25,000 Kane agreed to the job. He took along Simard, who had relocated to Montreal and become Kane's driver and secret lover. Fitting the profile of drug runners—Quebec plates on a nondescript car driven at exactly the speed limit by two men with goatees and leather jackets—they were stopped by RCMP officers on the Trans-Canada Highway just outside Fredericton, New Brunswick. When Kane objected to a search, the police had no cause to hold them and let them go. Kane later joked that he'd saved the officers' lives because Simard, who had a handgun tucked under his belt, had always longed to kill a cop.

Kane and Simard tailed MacFarlane for three days before they finally found him alone. When they saw his black Jeep Grand Cherokee speed by, they followed in their rented white Buick. MacFarlane led them down St. Margaret's Bay Road out of town and into the Lakeside Industrial Park on the shore of Ragged Lake. Kane and Simard drove past as they noticed another car pull in and park beside MacFarlane's Jeep. It was Claude Blanchard, an old friend of the intended victim's, who'd arrived to look at the car collection MacFarlane kept in a warehouse. When Blanchard and his dog, Jazz, got out of the car, MacFarlane was complaining about being followed by some cops in a white car. As if on cue, Kane and Simard pulled up.

MacFarlane told Blanchard to wait while he dealt with them, but he followed because Jazz had already run over to greet the visitors. After MacFarlane asked them “what the fuck they wanted,” Simard rolled down the driver's window, pointed a revolver at him and pulled the trigger. Click. Nothing. Jazz and Blanchard took off and MacFarlane tried to get back to his car, about 100 feet away. After three more pulls, the hammer found a cartridge and Simard shot MacFarlane in the chest. As MacFarlane dropped and staggered to get up, Simard got out of the car to get a better shot. Frustrated with the still jamming .38, he pulled a 9mm out of the waistband of the rain pants he had over his jeans. The gun caught on the snap and the pants were around Simard's ankles when he pumped another shot into MacFarlane, who went down again. After he struggled out of his pants, Simard walked over to where MacFarlane's body lay and put two more bullets into his neck. Kane got out of the car, walked over to MacFarlane's body and fired two shots. They were just for show. Forensic officers later found the bullets from Kane's gun deeply embedded in the mud beside MacFarlane's head.