Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle (73 page)

The surprising turn of events didn't discourage Stadnick. Quite the opposite. The sudden success of his old rivals on his home turf pushed him back to the old drawing board. A desire to get even, to reverse the fortunes of both clubs, led him to a plan more ambitious than any in biker history.

He almost didn't get a chance. While Stadnick was far from the household name that Boucher had become, his successes around the country had led police to believe that he was the real power and intelligence behind the Hells Angels in Canada. It was an astute conclusion. Boucher, for all his bravado and tactical ability, was little more than a soldier (though a flamboyant one) whose task was to subdue Quebec to make it safe for Nomads operations. While he was risking his life and freedom on the frontlines in Montreal, Stadnick was flying first-class around the country spending thousands on parties so the club could make millions in drug sales. After much conversation, biker cops around the country came to a unanimous decision—getting Stadnick would cripple, if not stop, the Hells Angels.

The operation was in its infancy when the Hells Angels held their 22nd anniversary party in Sherbrooke on December 4, 1999. Although officers were under express orders not to stay in the same hotels as bikers, Guy Ouellette, the SQ's biker expert and media mouthpiece, and his good friend Rick Perrault checked into the Hôtel Delta right in front of at least two dozen bikers. If it was a power move, it failed. Every biker in Quebec knew who Ouellette was. His face showed up on every TV report about bikers and his name was in every newspaper article.

As he and Perrault ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant, two members of the local Hells Angels puppet gang, the Scorpions, broke into their room and made off with a laptop. Thinking it was Ouellette's, they were pleased, but when they found out what they really had, they were ecstatic. Perrault was not only the OPP's top biker intelligence officer at their Kingston base, but he also served as translator between Ontario and Quebec police forces. “Pretty well everything they told us and we told them went through Perrault,” said Sgt. Pacey. With the information from Perrault's computer, the Scorpions delivered almost everything every cop in Canada knew about every biker in the country. For years, the contents of Perrault's Dell would come back to haunt the police. In raid after raid, pictures of, and vital information relating to, members and associates of the Rock Machine, Outlaws and other rival groups that had come from Perrault's computer turned up.

The single most important folder on Perrault's desktop was simply called “Operation.” Inside were detailed plans for a joint RCMP-OPP-SQ operation to bring down Stadnick. Not only did the files contain everything the police knew about Stadnick from observation and informants, but it detailed police tactics and strategy. With all of their cards showing, the police got out of the game—at least temporarily. The operation to arrest Stadnick was called off. “We didn't have a lot of choice,” said Pacey. When the information reached him, Stadnick knew where all the bugs were, whose phone was tapped and, sometimes, who the rats were.

None of the informants were identified by name in the files. But the Nomads worked long and hard to figure out who they were by putting together dates and places. One meeting in particular struck a note in the memory of Normand Robitaille. From the information in one informant's file, he triangulated the date, the place and the discussion and came up with a name—Claude De Serres. A small-time dealer who worked for Serge “Pasha” Boutin in the gay village, De Serres had decided to go straight and serve as an informer for the SQ.

On February 21, 2000, Robitaille called Boutin, who was vacationing in the Dominican Republic, and told him what he thought. Boutin understood. He cut his trip short, returned to snowy Montreal and called De Serres. The two were old friends and De Serres was a top producer, so he readily accepted when Boutin invited him up to his chalet in the Laurentians for a weekend of skiing and partying. Both men had ulterior motives. Sure that Boutin would say something incriminating, De Serres arrived at the chalet with a recording device taped to his back. Police followed him up into the mountains but lost him in a snowstorm. When they finally arrived, they found his body by the side of a gravel road, partially obscured by a snow bank. It still had the recorder attached. When the police played the tape, they heard a man (not Boutin) ask De Serres, “Why do you work for the police?” De Serres didn't get a chance to tell them why. The last sounds the police heard on the tape were the four shots that ended his life.

After De Serres's death, Carcajou officers met with Kane and told him to quit the Rockers and get out of town. Information from Perrault's laptop could easily pinpoint him as an informant and the De Serres incident showed exactly how the Hells Angels handled rats. Kane scoffed. Not only was he hanging around with his biker friends but he was actually recorded joking with some Nomads that De Serres was “one informant who wouldn't be able to testify.” When he showed up on March 10, some officers reported they were sure Kane was ready to give up. Quite the opposite—he was there to deal. Up to this point, Kane had been an informant. He gave information that the police could use to uncover Hells Angels activities, but not use in court. Now he was willing to take the next step. He offered to testify against his brothers if his conditions were met.

When the negotiations were finished, Kane had hammered out quite a deal. Police offered to defend him under a system similar to the FBI's Witness Protection Program, give him $1.75 million in three installments, another $63,000 up front as a signing bonus, $2,000 a week for living expenses, $3,000 in legal fees, $1,500 for a handgun he said he needed to serve as a bodyguard, $1,500 to take care of his suspended driver's license, $1,000 for a wedding present for a Nomad and $600 for two new suits. In exchange, he wrote a confession detailing all of his crimes and promised to testify. It took ten pages for Kane to recount everything he'd done and when he was finished, he asked the police for more money.

He may have switched sides officially, but he didn't stop working for the Hells Angels. Three weeks after he signed his confession, Kane, who was still trying to prove himself by acting as a gofer for the Nomads, was driving “Wolf ” Carroll to a license bureau in Montreal. Carroll was, as usual, complaining about how things were going for him in Halifax. In particular, he was talking about Kirk Mersereau. Kirk was the brother of Randy Mersereau, a former Hells Angel who had left the club to strike out on his own. Not only had Randy weakened and insulted the Hells Angels by leaving and becoming one of their competitors on the streets of Halifax, but rumor had it that he had been talking with the Bandidos about starting a local chapter. There was no way the Hells Angels, in particular the Nomads, could allow him to survive if they were to achieve their national agenda.

And Carroll admitted there was a great deal of pressure “from above” to solidify the Hells Angels' standing on the East Coast. When they learned that Randy was attempting to contract out the murders of Carroll, Boucher and Mike McCrea, president of the Halifax Chapter while Carroll was in Montreal, he became their top priority. Kane told his RCMP handlers that Carroll called him with a plan to kill or intimidate their allies into submission, and then send the Jokers and Scorpions into Halifax to reclaim the city for the Hells Angels.

On the next day, September 23, 1999, a bomb blasted through Mersereau's car dealership in Truro, Nova Scotia. Windows were shattered and seven employees were injured. Randy Mersereau stumbled out into the street with blood on his head and torn clothes, but he was not seriously hurt. Kane told the police that McCrea was behind the bombing, but no arrests were made. He also told them that Randy Mersereau didn't have long to live. About a month later, Kane and Carroll got into Kane's car and got on the road to Halifax. As Kane turned off Route 132 to Route 185 in Rivière-du-Loup, he saw police lights in his rearview mirror. Officially, the SQ officer stopped him for speeding, but he was actually a tipped-off Carcajou officer attempting to prevent a murder in Halifax. Carroll was surprised when Kane allowed the cop to search the car. When he found Kane's .38 and Carroll's Mac-10, the bikers were put under arrest, cuffed and put in jail until members of the Trois-Rivières chapter could post bail.

It didn't matter. As soon as he got back to Montreal, Carroll got on the phone. Someone—maybe Carroll, maybe someone on his behalf—put together a local team in Halifax to take Randy Mersereau out. Although his body was never found, nobody ever saw Randy Mersereau again after October 31, 1999. His car was found, with the keys still inside, on the shoulder of Highway 102, just outside Truro. The police had no leads and the crime was never solved, although Kane later reported that Randy Mersereau had been killed by Hells Angels associates and had been buried in a forest near the highway. Kane didn't give very many details, but he did point out that there were many people other than Carroll who wanted to see the Mersereaus dead.

Boucher didn't care about the Mersereaus or the state of the club outside the Montreal urban community. With the Rock Machine subdued and the police and courts proven impotent against him, Boucher wanted to enjoy his spoils and rub it in their faces. In April 2000, Boucher and nine of his most intimidating Hells Angels and Rockers drove up to Anjou in the East End to have coffee. They took some seats at the Au Bon Pain in the Place Versailles shopping center. In full colors, Boucher and his men enjoyed their coffee and pastries in seats normally reserved for the homicide and anti-gang officers of the Montreal police, who had an office on the fourth floor of the mall.

At first, officers joked that having him downstairs just made it easier to watch him, but when he kept doing it every morning for a week, it became apparent to the police that Boucher was making a public show of his power. Commander Bouchard, the top officer at the station and the toughest cop in Montreal, was almost certainly the primary target of Boucher's psychological assault. Bouchard had an idea: he'd bug the tables at Au Bon Pain. But Boucher had anticipated that move and frequently brought his lawyer along. It's against the law in Canada to record lawyer-client conversations. Advised of this by his lawyers, Bouchard instead sent 20 cops to watch the bikers. His plan was to irritate them enough to utter a threat and then arrest them all. The charges wouldn't stick, but it would piss Boucher off. Nothing happened. The next day, he sent down 30 cops. That was enough. Boucher and his men left, but they'd come back from time to time.

A week later, on April 17, Nomad Normand “Biff” Hamel drove his wife and son to their pediatrician's office in Montreal. Formerly Boucher's right-hand man, Hamel had been sent to Laval to act as godfather of the Death Riders puppet gang after Scott Steinert was killed. He wasn't any luckier. As he got out of his Mercedes in the doctor's parking lot, he saw two masked men approaching. That was all the warning he needed. He ran as fast as he could, while his wife and son retreated back into the car. He didn't make it out of the lot; he was killed by two gunshot wounds to the head. The first Nomad and the third full-patch Hells Angel to be killed in the war, Hamel became front-page news throughout Montreal. Many commentators assumed that the Rock Machine had assassinated him and that the war was back on. But if they had taken the time to drive past any of the clubhouses in the area, they would have noticed that no flags were at half-staff. The Hells Angels were not grieving. With Hamel out of the way, the Death Riders were quickly reorganized as the Hells Angels Montreal North, under the supervision of full-patch Sorel members Stéphane “Fesses” Plouffe and Benoît Frenette.

Boucher had other tasks on his agenda besides irritating cops and restaffing Laval. A friend of his got into debt with the wrong guy. André “Dédé” Desjardins was a former construction union chief from the Olympic era who had a reputation as a man who would use any resources at his disposal to get his way. “He was a tough guy. But at the same time you have to remember labor relations back then were tough as well,” said Henri Masse, president of the Quebec Federation of Labour. “During strikes, employers would use thugs and dogs and other means.”

After leaving union politics, police say Desjardins turned very successfully to loan sharking. After quickly amassing a fortune reported to be more than $25 million, he moved to the Dominican Republic and was so entrenched there that police said that no construction happened in the country without Desjardins getting a cut. But he still did plenty of business in Montreal and when Boucher asked for a breakfast meeting, they agreed on Shawn's in the East End on April 25. Boucher asked Desjardins to forgive his friend's debt. Desjardins said “no way.” With interest, the friend was now in for $400,000 and that was just too much for him to get away with. Boucher didn't offer money; he didn't offer any reasons for Desjardins to relent other than the fact that Boucher and his men were running the show in Montreal now.

It didn't impress Desjardins, who had been around a lot longer than Boucher and had some powerful friends of his own. Unable to reach any sort of agreement, Desjardins asked if they could continue their discussion later. Boucher suggested the same place, same time on the following day. On the morning of April 26, Desjardins and a burly friend were sitting at the best table in Shawn's as waitresses in bikinis poured coffee. Just after 9:15 a.m., Desjardins' cell phone rang. Rather than speak inside the restaurant, Desjardins walked out to the parking lot. As he opened the door to his Cadillac SUV, he was shot 11 times by a masked assailant, who left a silencer-equipped handgun at the scene and fled into a waiting van. Police consulted traffic cameras in the area, but found no leads.

Twenty minutes after the murder, the police recorded a call from a tapped Montreal phone to the Dominican. The only words spoken (in French) were “Okay, go ahead.” At 10:30 a.m., someone broke into Desjardins' condo in Puerto Plata and stole the contents of his safe. With Desjardins out of the picture,
Journal de Montreal
reporter Michel Auger wrote that criminals would have to go to the Hells Angels for their loan-sharking and money-laundering needs.