Biker Trials, The (12 page)

This time around, Boucher wasn't given the choice of paying a fine on the weapons conviction. He was sentenced to six months in prison and three years probation. The sentence would set off an interesting chain of events Boucher would later regret.

Boucher didn't know it yet but he was about to reestablish a contact during this prison sentence. On March 27, 1995, Boucher was transferred from a Montreal detention center to one in Sorel. As a now eight-year veteran of the Hells Angels, a gang that maintained a bunker in Sorel, Boucher had considerable influence over the other Sorel inmates. As a demonstration of that power, Boucher began ordering other inmates to do his bidding. One of those inmates would turn out to be Stéphane (Godasse) Gagné, a drug dealer Boucher already knew and a man he would regret ever meeting. Tony Jalbert had set up the previous introduction. Years later, Gagné would testify against the Hells Angels and more significantly, against Boucher.

Gagné would testify that he first met Boucher during the summer of 1993, shortly after being robbed by the Rockers of 15 or 20 quarter-grams of cocaine. He had been running a drug den in Montreal's east end. Boucher was impressed with Gagné and agreed to let him buy cocaine from him. Part of the deal involved cash up front. Another part was transacted “sur la bras,” an expression used in Quebec's underworld meaning the dealer could purchase on credit.

Shortly afterward, Gagné was caught trying to sell drugs to a double agent and was sent to the Bordeaux detention center where Jean (Le Français) Duquaire, Michel Boyer and Stéphane Morgan tried to determine which side of the war he was on.
Duquaire placed a photo of Boucher on the floor and told Gagné to urinate on it. Gagné refused and was beaten for it. Shortly after the incident, Gagné was transferred to the detention center in Sorel where he got to know Boucher a little better. They would talk during Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Gagné requested a transfer to the same wing as Boucher but was refused. But they often ate together. At one meal, Boucher complained about the fact they were being served shepherd's pie two or three times a week. Boucher said he and other inmates were fed up with it and that something had to be done. Gagné took this to mean he had to take care of the problem, so he tried to organize a protest in which other inmates would refuse to eat shepherd's pie. One inmate scoffed at the plan so Gagné arranged to have him beaten in his sleep.

Jean Dubé, a man who eventually turned informant on members of the Rockers, told the police that in July 1995, Boucher's wing of the Sorel prison was denied access to leisure activities. Dubé said Boucher asked him to vandalize the pool in retaliation. Instead of doing the job himself, Dubé contracted it out, but he was still rewarded with a carton of cigarettes for arranging to have someone damage the pool's tiles with a razor blade.

But the most chilling tale to come out of Boucher's eventful stay at Sorel came from Nicole Quesnel, the detention center's warden. Her house was set on fire on June 9, 1995. She would later tell the police she was certain it was set ablaze on orders from Mom Boucher. In the weeks leading up to the arson, Boucher had made seven requests for temporary leaves. She turned him down every time because he was a Hells Angel and because he refused to change his ways while behind bars. Four days before the fire was set, Quesnel had turned Boucher down again. Days after the fire, when Boucher was refused leave yet again, he made a remark that suggested he wanted her to know he was behind the torching of her home.

Boucher was never charged with the arson but the police were now seeing how much influence the Hells Angel had, and the degree of Boucher's arrogance. Shortly afterward, Boucher was transferred, on July 14, 1995, to a prison in Cowansville where he finished out the final two weeks of his sentence.

While Boucher spent five months behind bars causing mischief and allegedly terrorizing prison officials, his network of drug dealers was in trouble. Boucher had apparently developed such a good reputation among Montreal's drug suppliers that the Rockers could purchase drugs on credit using his good name. But by May 1995, only a matter of weeks into Boucher's sentence, the Rockers were experiencing serious shortages in cocaine and hashish, Kane told the
RCMP
. Rival gang, the Rock Machine, appeared to gather steam and began taking over some of the territory the Rockers had controlled since 1992. Kane said Montreal's Gay Village in particular had become a hotly contested area. According to Kane, Paul (Fon Fon) Fontaine, a Rocker, was growing frustrated with the lack of supply and complained about having to pay $35,000 cash up front for a kilogram of cocaine, something he'd never had to do when Boucher was around. By June, the Rockers had developed a conspiracy theory that the Mafia was behind their shortages and were grumbling that it appeared the Mob would only deal with Boucher.

That same summer Steinert began causing serious problems for the Hells Angels. According to Kane, Steinert controlled a bar on Montreal's Crescent Street, a popular destination for thirsty tourists and young Montrealers. Steinert had a run-in with the bouncer of the bar beneath his and ignored the consequences. Kane said Steinert waited until closing time and then he beat the man severely. The problem was that the bouncer worked for another Hells Angel. This huge mistake only seemed to make Steinert more cocky. He told Kane that he was preparing to sell drugs in Winnipeg whether Stadnick and the other Hells Angels liked it or not.

By July 25, Boucher was out of prison. Steinert's apparent supporter in the Hells Angels was a free man again, but things were about to change.

On August 9, 1995, something happened that woke up most Quebecers to the fact a war among biker gangs was going on in their streets. The wake-up call came in the form of a bomb that went off on Adam Street in Montreal, not far from the Olympic Stadium. The blast instantly killed 26-year-old Marc Dubé as he sat in his Jeep waiting for a friend. Eleven-year-old Daniel Desrochers was playing with a friend nearby and was struck in the head by a piece of the Jeep that had been propelled by the explosion. The boy suffered severe brain damage and died days later. His death would spark a widespread public outcry for the federal government to do something that would help the police take on the Hells Angels and the Alliance and put an end to their increasingly violent war.

Dubé had ties to drug dealers but one theory that eventually emerged was that the bomb was much more likely intended for Normand Tremblay, a member of the Alliance who had a
SUV
similar to Dubé's. In fact, in the days leading up to the bombing, Tremblay had sold Dubé the wheels from his sports utility vehicle. Shortly after Dubé and Daniel Desrochers died, Tremblay was himself arrested for an attempted murder and for being in possession of explosive materials. He decided to become a police informant. His sworn statements would later end up in the Hells Angels' hands.

What was largely ignored by the media in the aftermath of Desrochers's death is that Tremblay managed to quietly plead guilty to being part of the 1994 conspiracy to kill Boucher with the truck bomb. The guilty plea came in January 1997, more than two years after the 11 year old was killed, but it provided a clear
motive for the Hells Angels to have been behind the botched bombing that ended the boy's life. Nearly ten years after Daniel's death, his mother Josée Anne Desrochers died of pneumonia in a hospital over the 2005 Easter weekend. Despite a brave campaign in which she publicly criticized the biker gangs and pushed for tougher anti-gang legislation, Desrochers' mother never saw his killers charged with the crime.

More than a week after Daniel Desrochers died, Kane told the
RCMP
about Steinert's odd behavior both before and after the explosion. He said that in the days leading up to it, Steinert had ordered three bomb kits from a man with ties to the Hells Angels. Kane claimed the Hells Angels had been buying explosives from the man for months. According to Kane, Steinert was very eager for the kits and wanted them right away. He told Kane that things were about to “rock and roll.” But after the death of an innocent boy, Steinert never spoke of the bomb kits again. Kane said Steinert started asking other gang members what they thought should happen to the person responsible for Desrochers' death. When they replied the culprit should be liquidated, Steinert grew more quiet. Kane said that in general the Hells Angels condemned the bomb because a child had been killed and the tragedy placed heavier police surveillance on them.

The gang's underlings had been warned before. In an earlier briefing to the
RCMP
more than two weeks prior to the bomb that killed Desrochers, Kane said that David (Wolf) Carroll warned the Rockers and other people associated with the Hells Angels about using bombs. Earlier that summer, on July 14, a bomb planted at a house in a small town north of Montreal had nearly killed two children. The police later found small quantities of drugs like cocaine in the house and said they believed the actual target was the homeowner's brother, a man with ties to the Alliance.

Daniel Desrochers' death would bring a more intense police focus on the biker war. Several members of both the Hells Angels
and the Rock Machine were placed under constant police surveillance. A few months after his stint for carrying a firearm Boucher found himself under arrest again. He had been overheard on a police wiretap counseling Steven (Bull) Bertrand, a friend and fellow drug trafficker, on how to solve a problem with a baseball bat. Boucher's bail hearing on October 27,1995, would reveal just how far he had come as a Hells Angel. Because of Desrochers' death and the fact the police quickly attributed it to the biker war, the bail hearing, even though it was for a relatively minor crime not related to the bombing, was widely covered by the media.

Sgt. Guy Ouellette, a longtime veteran investigator with the Sûreté du Québec, testified on the Crown's behalf in an attempt to have Boucher held on the minor charge. Ouellette had several years under his belt investigating the Hells Angels, and on September 6, 1994, he was made part of a multidisciplinary squad within the Sûreté that focused on the biker gangs. On October 5, 1995, he was part of a fusion of investigators from the Sûreté, the Montreal Urban Community Police and the
RCMP.
The special squad, dubbed Carcajou or Wolverine, was a response to the public outcry after Desrochers' death.

Part of Ouellette's role in the squad was to be prepared for such court hearings. He possessed a computer-like memory with the extraordinary ability to instantly recall the tiniest detail about a biker. Ouellette was asked to describe what the Hells Angels in Montreal were involved in at that point. “They have several sectors of activity,” he said. “Everything that is economically profitable, that is to say drugs, trafficking in all its forms, importation in terms of drugs, prostitution, strippers in licensed establishments, money laundering, every activity where they could make money.”

Boucher's lawyer Leo-Rene Maranda was opposed to this depiction. He acknowledged that Boucher was “a soldier,” but questioned whether he should be blamed for all of the army's
crimes. The judge ignored the objection and Ouellette was asked where the Hells Angels ranked in terms of drugs in Quebec. “They are on top of the pyramid when it comes to importation. They control dealing on the streets. They control the dealers inside bars,” Ouellette testified, adding it was already clear to police that the Hells Angels were eliminating drug dealers in eastern Montreal and using murder, bombs and assault to get the job done.

With the war only about a year old, the police already estimated that between 25 and 30 homicides could be attributed to the conflict. Ouellette pointed out that when the war started, the Hells Angels had four chapters in Quebec. “Since the beginning of March 1995 a fifth chapter was formed and was called
Nomads. According to the information we have, Mr. Boucher is the president of the Nomads, the Hells Angels,” Ouellette said. “It is a chapter like the ten others that we have in Canada. But particularly, according to the information that we have, the Nomads do not have to observe the territorial limits of distribution, dealing of drugs or control over criminal activities. They can exercise their activities all over the province as well as in other provinces in Canada. What we are observing right now is that it is happening The information that we have in our possession at this stage is that the war going on now originated from the Nomads, originated from individuals who, in March [1995], regrouped under the name of the Nomads.”

Ouellette also brought up the trouble Boucher caused while serving his most recent sentence. He said Boucher had actually asked to not be taken to the Bordeaux detention centre because he found it too violent at the time and had specifically requested the transfer to Sorel. Ouellette revealed that besides the fire at Quesnel's home, an assistant-warden's home had also been the target of a recent arson fire.

Then he began detailing the evidence the cops had on Boucher in the case he was charged in. Ouellette bluntly described Steven
(Bull) Bertrand as a man who was close to Boucher and operating a drug trafficking network for him. It was on September 23, 1995, around 3 a.m. that Bertrand's problems began. Bertrand was in a bar on Saint Laurent Blvd., discussing who had the right to sell drugs there with a few men. During the discussion, one of the men punched Bertrand in the face. He fell to the ground and two other thugs proceeded to kick him. In the hours that followed, Bertrand made several calls and paged Boucher twice. Boucher called him back at 5:33 p.m. that same day. Bertrand said he had been beaten badly and was sporting a black eye.

“Mr. Boucher said to not let it end there, to take revenge,” Ouellette testified adding that Boucher told Bertrand to use a baseball bat to solve his problem. But then Bertrand advised Boucher that during his flurry of phone calls he had learned one of his assailants was friendly with members of the Hells Angels' chapter in Trois Rivières. Three days later, the police listened in as Boucher and Bertrand had another conversation. Boucher had done some asking around and determined that Bertrand had been given the green light to get revenge — but he added that a prospect in the Trois Rivières chapter named Mario Brouillette had advised that Bertrand let it go.