Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle (21 page)

Particularly hard hit were the Nomads. All of them — except for Maurice “Mom” Boucher, who was already behind bars awaiting a second trial for masterminding the 1997 murders of two prison guards and David “Wolf” Carroll, who miraculously escaped and has not been conclusively seen since — were arrested. Stadnick was taken down by the Jamaican military the day after everyone else. He and his wife were vacationing in Ocho Rios. The police checked flight records and he was spotted by an RCMP officer stationed in Kingston. Some have speculated that he knew what was coming and was fleeing, but he would have, I'm sure, been smart enough to cover his tracks better: spending a month in a Jamaican prison with a communal toilet bucket was hardly part of a cunning escape plan. Either way, the Nomads, his brilliant strategic gambit, effectively ceased to exist. At least for the time being.

Called Operation Printemps (and often referred to by its English translation “Operation Springtime” in the media, although the cops involved generally hate it), it was the culmination of work that armed police with evidence culled from dozens of informants and more than 266,000 different taped and incriminating conversations. Obviously, that magnitude of evidence couldn't have been put together overnight. The initial groundwork for Operation Printemps was put down in 1998, long before the massive patch-over in Ontario. As a result, the only Ontario Hells Angels arrested were Stadnick and his right-hand man Donald “Pup” Stockford, another Nomad. The others were left at large because they weren't Hells Angels when the operation began. In fact, some Hells Angels were charged with crimes committed against Paul “Sasquatch” Porter when he was with the Rock Machine. At that time of the arrests, he found himself rather ironically serving as president of the Kingston- and then later Ottawa-based Ontario Nomads, and one of the country's ranking Hells Angels.

The trials of the dozens of bikers arrested in Operation Printemps began April 19, 2002. With the bombings from the Hells Angels-Rock Machine wars still fresh in the minds of Montrealers, a new, $16.5 million courthouse was constructed. To prevent escape attempts or outside help for the accused, a secure underground passageway was built linking the new courthouse and Bordeaux jail where the accused were being held. Boucher — regarded by many as public enemy No. 1 — was being held separately in his own wing at Tanguay women's prison. The extra expense was considered a small price to pay to keep him from communicating with the other Hells Angels.

While evidence was being heard in the first of the Printemps trials, a verdict came down in Boucher's. He was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for ordering the hits on two prison guards on May 6, 2002. Informants Stephane “Godasse” Gagné and Stéphane Sirois claimed that Boucher's plan was to kill enough prison guards, cops, prosecutors and judges in Quebec to intimidate the others into not arresting, prosecuting or finding bikers guilty. It was the kind of terror plan that had worked wonders for cocaine cartels in Colombia and Mexico. Boucher was sentenced to life with no chance at parole for 25 years.

It could hardly be overstated how profound an effect the verdict and sentence in Boucher's case had among law enforcement prosecutors and, in effect, the entire law-abiding population of Quebec. While just two years earlier, a government official admitted that “they [the bikers] kill with impunity,” the mighty Boucher had finally gone down — albeit on the province's second attempt to convict him of the same crime. Unless there was a widespread and massive case of amnesia in 2027, he was certain to die behind bars.

Exempt from what were now being known as “the megatrials” were Stadnick and Stockford. They had rather wisely invoked their right to a trial in English. That posed a problem for the Quebec legal system, which had largely been swept clean of English speakers. And they had another weapon at their disposal. They hired Canada's two most famous trial lawyers — Edward Greenspan and Alan D. Gold — to represent them. Fellow Nomad Michel Rose was so impressed that he opted to be tried in English with Stadnick and Stockford. Not a native anglophone, Rose just barely passed an English test that allowed him to be tried in his chosen language.

The Quebec justice department scrambled to find qualified English-speaking staff. For a judge, they settled on Jerry Zigman, an old-school Montrealer who stayed on when the harsh anti-English laws that came down led his contemporaries to flee to other provinces and was rapidly reaching the end of his career. And they lucked out when it came to finding a prosecutor.

Not only was their deputy chief prosecutor, Randall Richmond, completely fluent in both official languages, but he was a top-notch investigator and debater who had done outstanding work for organizations like the UN in places like the former Yugoslavia. He recalled with a laugh that he had studied Greenspan's work extensively while he was in law school. And, as luck would have it, he just happened to be from Hamilton.

Gagné and Stéphane Sirois — the Rockers-turned-informants who were doing so much damage in the trials of the other bikers — could do little aside from establish the fact that Stadnick, Stockford and Rose were Nomads and that Stadnick was the Hells Angels' primary recruiter and negotiator. The real damage came from Dany Kane, even though he had killed himself in August 2000, and Sandra Craig, the wife of a drug dealer killed by the Hells Angels. Kane had stolen the Nomads' encoded financial records and Craig had translated them. The primary exhibit showed that the Nomads had handled $111,503,361 in an eight-and-a-half-month span, of which $10,158,110 went through an account Craig identified as belonging to Stadnick and Stockford.

Richmond had them dead to rights on the drug-trafficking charges, but could not get murder or conspiracy to commit murder charges to stick. He had tried a novel approach. There was plenty of forensic and verbal evidence around the murders of 13 Rock Machine members and associates, but none of it could be linked directly to Stadnick. But since he had convinced Zigman that Stadnick was in charge of the entire operation, his argument was that Stadnick was just as guilty as the men who actually pulled the triggers and set off the bombs. “Just as a general is liable for any war crimes his men commit,” he told me. “We were convinced Stadnick knew about the murders and did nothing to stop them.” It didn't stick. They were acquitted of the murder charges.

Even so, Stadnick and Stockford both received 20-year terms, minus time served. Rose plea bargained to a lesser sentence.

While the Outlaws would have liked to take advantage of the disarray Operation Printemps had put Hells Angels into, they had problems of their own. In the late '90s, before Hells Angels had established themselves in their province, the consensus among Ontario police forces was that the Outlaws, as the province's dominant outlaw biker gang, were also a primary threat to public security. By the end of the decade, the police were hitting them hard, arresting them for everything they could in search of a big score.

The peace between the bikers did not hold for long. The Coates brothers in London — bolstered by drug money and the confidence that they represented the future of bikers in the area — decided they'd take things into their own hands. Without the diplomatic Stadnick to stand in their way, the London Hells Angels issued an ultimatum to the local Outlaws: give up your patch or die.

Their point was made at the end of June 2001, when the small Outlaws clubhouse in Woodstock, not far from London, was completely destroyed by an unsolved arson. A week later, the police stopped a car about 100 yards from the Hells Angels clubhouse at 732 York Street, about two blocks from the Beef Baron, the Outlaws-controlled strip joint. The driver was a well-known Outlaw. He was wearing body armor and had a pipe bomb in the car.

The local Hells Angels were taking on other jobs as well. In July, just after the foiled bombing, Hells Angels prospect Douglas “Plug” Johnstone sauntered into a car dealership and demanded a private meeting with the owner, Gerry Smith. Noticing the Hells Angels patch on his denim vest, Smith agreed. Johnstone told Smith that his former partner wanted the $70,000 that Smith owed him. Smith was surprised. The former partner had taken him to court over the $70,000, and a judge had ruled that Smith owed him nothing. To back that up, Smith showed Johnstone photocopies of the ruling.

Johnstone laughed. “I don't care what they say,” he told him. “All I know is that you're going to have to pay me the money.” Smith refused and asked him to leave. He did.

But he returned later that week with Jimmy Coates. Both men were wearing their patches. Coates and Johnstone played good cop/bad cop with Smith, with the politely pleasant Coates claiming to have his hands tied. He really needed to collect the $70,000. Again Smith refused. The men left without incident.

The third time they arrived, it was much less pleasant. Coates asked for the money. Smith refused a third time. Coates shrugged. “We know where you live,” he said calmly. “We know you have a wife. We know you have a daughter.” He advised Smith to think about what he said then they both left.

Smith waited until the two big men had left, then he went out and looked to see if they were still out front. Convinced they weren't, he went back into his office and called the police. The police secretly bugged all of Smith's phones, his office and his home. A week passed. Smith was at home with his wife and daughter. Suddenly, they heard a tremendous banging at the front door. It was like the house was going to come down. Smith's wife hid behind a sofa. Smith looked outside; Coates and Johnston — both in colors — were on his front porch with another, also very large and tough-looking, man.

Knowing they would not leave, Smith let them in. The third man introduced himself. He was Thomas Walkinshaw. He said it was his job to collect the $70,000 and that he really “didn't want to see anyone get hurt.”

That was enough for the police, they arrested all three men as they exited the home with what they thought was $70,000 in ill-gotten cash.

A few minutes after midnight on what had just become January 7, 2002, four young men gathered outside a house at 434 Egerton Avenue. They were members of a new gang set up by John Coates. Called the Jackals, they were a typical puppet gang. They all wanted to be Hells Angels, but the full-patches didn't think they were ready, so they had to prove themselves in their own gang before they could become prospects. The members of the Jackals earned their spurs by doing whatever Hells Angels told them to. And that night, they were told to pay an armed visit to Thomas Hughes, president of the London Outlaws, at 434 Egerton. The Jackals were there, they said, because of another Outlaw, 26-year-old Marcus Cornelisse. Their beef was with him, they said. All they wanted was for him to come out and talk with them. The Outlaws answered with a gunshot.

A Jackal named Eric Davignon was hit in the gut. What happened next was a nearly comical few seconds of bikers on both sides firing wildly, hitting nothing of importance and running for their lives. It ended with the Jackals retreating to their car, peeling away in a cloud of rubber smoke and the Outlaws firing at the back of their car in full view of their neighbors. One of them, an earwitness, told the local paper: “I was just going to bed when I heard this ‘pop, pop!' Then I heard tires squealing, then ‘bang, bang, bang!' ”

When police showed up, they arrested Hughes and Cornelisse on four counts of attempted murder. After they searched the house, they added charges related to the guns, ammunition and explosives they found.

About 10 hours later, Walkinshaw, Johnstone and Jimmy Coates had their first day in court to answer their charges of extortion and belonging to a criminal organization. Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Maguire argued that the trio didn't need to bring any weapons with them to terrorize Smith and his family because the patches on their backs — and the name and reputation they represented — were more than enough. “The weapon of choice was a Hells Angel,” she said in her final summation. “The weapon that was held to Mr. Smith's head, his wife's head, his daughter's head, was the Hells Angels.” They all pleaded guilty to lesser charges and were sentenced to three years. The criminal organization charges were dropped as part of the deal.

It was evident that a war was on. Not in all of Ontario yet, but it had certainly started in London. So when the annual custom motorcycle show came around in February 2002, the police and media showed up in droves. Before the show, the local newspaper asked its organizer — former Para-Dice Rider and now full-patch Toronto Hells Angel Larry Pooler — if he was concerned that the floor of his show would become a battlefield. He laughed and said that sort of thing only happened in Quebec because, well, Quebeckers are a naturally combative people. “Their whole society is corrupt and vicious and violent,” he said. “It always has been, since the 1600s — that's nothing new.” He also pointed out that the police and media pile on bikers because they are an easier target than the people he believed were really behind all of society's problems. “If I was black or wore a turban, my pockets would be lined with gold from civil suits,” he said. “But I'm just a poor white-trash biker.”