Wrong Side of the Law (21 page)

When Caron began to talk, information about the Canadian connection eventually reached the office of United States Attorney General Robert Kennedy. He personally called his counterpart in Ottawa to ensure that Caron’s family would be protected. Kennedy also told Canadian officials that the Americans wanted Lucien Rivard.

RCMP officers arrested Rivard on June 19, 1964. As they led him to the car that would take him to Bordeaux Jail, Rivard called to Marie, “Don’t worry. I won’t be gone long.”

Pierre Lamontagne, a Montreal lawyer and prosecutor who specialized in narcotics cases, was retained by the United States Department of Justice as its representative in the extradition process. Above all, the Americans wanted Lamontagne to make sure Rivard was not granted bail. They had no doubt that if Rivard got out of jail, he’d disappear. Rivard hired as
his
representative Raymond Daoust, who was considered to be one of the best criminal lawyers in Quebec.

While Daoust worked on getting him a bail hearing, Rivard had to put up with the inconvenience of being lodged in Bordeaux. He spent hours reading legal texts, concentrating on points of law concerning bail. Later investigations would reveal that Rivard bribed guards to allow him the use of a telephone. For twenty-five dollars he could make two calls a day. Rivard phoned Marie daily. He didn’t say who else he called, but even though regulations allowed visits from family members only, Rivard had two visits from a known Montreal gangster. For one hundred dollars a week, Rivard’s cell door would be left open until 11:00 p.m. The regulatory lockup time was 4:30 p.m.

In fact, Rivard was one of about forty inmates with the status of “VIP.” He could roam the corridors freely and watch hockey games on the television in the psychiatric wing. He gambled for high stakes in dice games. Rivard had an electric hot plate in his cell so he could fry eggs and boil water for instant coffee if he got hungry between scheduled mealtimes. His hard cot was cushioned with two mattresses. Months later, when Bordeaux came under severe criticism for being a “Queen Elizabeth Hotel” for criminals, guards explained to the press, under the promise of anonymity, that the VIP system had been in place for a long time and wasn’t their fault. They said that “big shots” like Rivard who had money and power could stir up a “bingo” (riot) if their privileges were hindered. They could even arrange for the transfer of any guard who threatened to upset the system. For those reasons, the guards said, they tolerated an arrangement that they didn’t necessarily condone. Nonetheless, they admitted that some of the guards, who were notoriously underpaid, supplemented their meagre incomes by selling goof balls and liquor to inmates.

As a Bordeaux VIP, Rivard wasn’t exactly suffering behind bars in a tiny cell. But he was certainly afraid of being extradited to the United States and he might have decided to explore alternative options in case Daoust wasn’t successful. There would be evidence that Marie, who insisted that her husband was being framed by Roger Beauchemin because Rivard had fired him from a job at the resort, was also trying to help arrange bail. She allegedly approached influential people and borrowed large sums of money that could go toward a bail bond — or a bribe.

The Rivard case exploded into a national scandal on Monday, November 23, when Erik Nielsen, the Progessive Conservative MP for the Yukon, dropped a bombshell in Parliament. Nielsen, a former Crown prosecutor in Whitehorse, stood up in the House of Commons and charged that Raymond Denis, a former aide to René Tremblay, the immigration minister in Lester Pearson’s Liberal government, had offered Pierre Lamontagne $20,000 to “go easy” in his opposition to bail for Rivard. Nielsen further charged that Guy Lord, recently a special assistant to Justice Minister Guy Favreau, had tried to “coerce” Lamontagne into throwing the fight against Rivard’s bail by threatening to blacklist him from future government work. Nielsen told a stunned Parliament that the case involved people known to belong to “the international crime society known as the Mafia or Cosa Nostra.”

“The fact remains,” said Nielsen, “I can find no other way of putting it, that these tentacles of this international cartel dealing in narcotics extended into the very offices of two ministers of the federal government.”

Nielsen’s accusations resulted in a seven-month-long inquest headed by Quebec Supreme Court Chief Justice Frédéric Dorion. RCMP officers testified that Lamontagne had been in fear of his life when he reported the bribery attempt. He’d had threatening phone calls and said, “I may find myself at the bottom of the river.”

Raymond Daoust told the inquest that his client was “outraged” when he learned that illegal means had been used to clear the way for his bail. There was speculation that the bribe had not originated with Rivard, but with American gangsters who were worried about what he might say if he were extradited to the United States. Whether or not Rivard was behind the bribe, a Jekyll and Hyde image of him took shape during the inquest. In his appearances before Dorion, Rivard was joking and affable. He was allowed to kiss Marie, and, according to a Toronto
Star
reporter, “her eyes shone.”

But there was testimony from police officers that seemed to justify Lamontagne’s fear that Rivard’s “gang” would try to get rid of him. The police said at least two potential witnesses — men who were associates of Rivard — feared for their lives because of “Rivard and his boys.”

The “Rivard Affair” shook the Pearson government, but in the end didn’t topple it. Judge Dorion’s report had scathing words for the conduct of several members of the Liberal party. Raymond Denis was convicted of attempting to obstruct justice and sentenced to two years in prison. Guy Favreau, who had failed to take appropriate action following the bribe attempt, was obliged to resign in disgrace. He died a broken man two years later. For all its in-depth probing, the Dorion inquest left many mysteries unsolved. The man who might have been able to answer some disturbing questions about government officials and the “tentacles” of organized crime wasn’t talking. Lucien Rivard’s number-one concern was getting out of jail before the Americans could get their hands on him. South of the border, he faced a possible forty-year sentence.

While the political storm raged, legal counsel for Rivard and three other men — Charles Emil Groleau, Julien Gagnon, and Joseph Jones — served a writ of habeas corpus. On December 4, 1964, the men were taken to court for the hearing. Reporters and photographers were waiting in the courthouse corridor. The prisoners didn’t want their pictures taken. They snarled threats, lunged at reporters, punched and kicked photographers, and knocked cameras to the floor. Police got between the prisoners and the newsmen and ordered the latter out. Veterans of the press said they had not seen such a disturbance in the courthouse in many years.

The hearing was remanded to December 18. This time strict security measures were in place. Doors leading to the courtroom that were usually open were locked. Police officers shielded the prisoners from the press. The case was remanded again, but even though nothing dramatic happened, the name of the principal figure was still headline material. “Rivard Well Guarded at Montreal Hearing” reported the
Globe and Mail
.

Just how “well guarded” Rivard actually was would become the next big question in the Rivard Affair, and the focal point of yet another national scandal. The Dorion Inquest was still in progress when Rivard and Durocher made their sensational escape from Bordeaux Jail. Canadians woke up on the morning of March 3, 1965, to news that was more than stunning; it was an international embarrassment.

Rivard’s escape infuriated a lot of people, including American authorities who were already growing impatient with the time the Canadians were taking to get through the extradition process. “We’ll have to regroup now, and consider our position again,” said one exasperated American official. “Ricard [
sic
] was the key to breaking this ring. I hate to think of him on the loose and in a position to operate again … This is a heck of a way to guard an important prisoner. The whole case is becoming ludicrous.”

One of the Dorion inquiry lawyers, upon first hearing the news of the escape, said, “It’s got to be a joke organized by the press.” An editorial that appeared in the Toronto
Star
on March 3 lamented, “We hate to think what the escape of Lucien Rivard from Bordeaux Jail is going to do to Canada’s image in the United States … the affair must leave Washington wondering what sort of banana republic is sprouting to the north.”

People at all levels scurried to cover themselves and dodge any blame. Guards who were immediately suspended without pay pending an investigation complained they were being made scapegoats. “How am I going to feed my family?” asked guard Roland Larue, who spoke to the press in defiance of an order to keep quiet. “There was no payoff here, I’m sure of it. These two slugged a guard and made it over the fence. It doesn’t look like a set-up to me.”

In the House of Commons, Speaker Alan Macnaughton lost control of the proceedings as an outraged Opposition demanded Guy Favreau’s immediate resignation. Favreau replied that Bordeaux was a provincial jail, not a federal prison, and therefore not his responsibility. He later suggested to the press that Rivard had inside help. But Claude Wagner, the attorney general of Quebec, told reporters, “It was not a case of complicity, but rather stupidity in some cases.”

Suspicion fell on Marie Rivard as an accomplice. On the afternoon of Tuesday, March 2, she had gone to the jail and picked up a cheque for $2,000 — money Rivard had on deposit in his canteen account. The cheque was signed by Bordeaux’s assistant governor, Antonio Pilon. Marie cashed it within minutes of leaving the jail. Then, even though she was being kept under surveillance by Montreal police detectives, Marie managed to disappear for a while.

After the escape, police suspected that Marie had joined Rivard in his flight from the law. But Toronto
Star
journalist Alan Edmonds found her at the Rivards’ Montreal home. She’d been at the dentist, she said, and had a swollen face to prove it. When Edmonds asked what she’d done with the $2,000 she’d collected from the jail, Marie replied, “Ah, those reporters! They write all sorts of things, and they are not always true. Look, they say I am missing, that they are searching for me all last night. Why don’t they look? I am here at my house from 4:30 p.m. on. I hear on the television that he [Rivard] escapes. I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”

Marie’s actions were nonetheless seen as suspicious. It just seemed too coincidental that she had picked up a cheque that emptied Rivard’s canteen account the day before the escape and then cashed it. Could that have been travelling money he’d need once he got over the wall? Was that why Rivard told Jacques Bourgeois he didn’t need his money when the car-jacking victim tried to give him the cash in his wallet?

The breakout quickly brought the Montreal Police Department, the Quebec Provincial Police, and the RCMP into the search for the fugitives. They watched roads, bus, and train stations, and the Montreal airport. Because of some oversight in communications, no one thought to inform police in Toronto. Not until four hours after the escape did the RCMP in Toronto learn about it from a television newscast. The implication in the press was that if Rivard slipped out of Montreal and got to Toronto’s international airport, he could have boarded a plane and flown to anywhere in the world.

Rivard’s whereabouts was anybody’s guess. Some people believed he was still on Montreal Island, hiding out in some underworld lair. Others thought he was picked up by a small plane in a field outside the city. Reports of Rivard “sightings” started to pour into Montreal police headquarters from all over.

The FBI began its own search in the United States. Agents watched the border crossings and airports. They thought Rivard would try to get to Mexico or Switzerland where he was believed to have a lot of money in secret bank accounts. The Americans were concerned that if Rivard got his hands on that money, he would then flee to a country like the Philippines, with which they had no extradition agreement.

American officials were close-mouthed about what they were doing to track Rivard down. However, the Canadian press reported that the FBI had several “unofficial channels” it could put to work. These included personal contacts with foreign law-enforcement officers, tipsters in foreign countries, and the extensive net of the U.S. diplomatic machine. There was one point on which the Americans were clear: if Rivard should be arrested in a country that had extradition agreements with both Canada and the United States,
they
wanted him
first
! But before anyone could lay claim to the man the Americans were now calling a “criminal mastermind,” he had to be found.

Rivard knew very well that his escape would be a media headliner. He took advantage of this publicity by sending a letter, dated March 3, to Albert Tanguay, governor of Bordeaux Jail. The letter was in French, but an English translation was published in the Toronto
Star
and other newspapers.

Dear Sir:

A few words to let you know that it is not true that Andre Durocher and I stole $25 from one of your guards. I have never taken a cent from anyone poorer than myself. I had accumulated $460 during my 8 ½ months of detention and my companion Durocher had a similar amount. It would have given us pleasure to slip them (the guards) $25 because the poor devils receive a starvation salary.

It is also wrong to say that we used violence on them, because violence is strictly against my principles. Instead we were rather kind toward them, even lighting cigarets [
sic
] for them before we left, while making sure that their bonds were not too tight.

You always have been very good to everyone at Bordeaux. We sincerely regret all the trouble we are giving to everyone. You certainly did not deserve this, but I could see no other solution.

I see that I cannot obtain justice here. I am innocent. I have never seen or known the famous Michel Caron, being held in Texas.

Mr. Tanguay, never did any of your officers or guards help in our escape in any way whatsoever. It is regrettable, but I never had confidence in any of them, because it is known that they spend their time selling out one another to obtain a better position and salary. To summarize, don’t punish your men because of us. They may have erred through negligence, but certainly did not help us to escape.

I hope they returned to you the 12-guage shotgun, because we dropped it on a lawn at the corner of Poincare and Ed. Valois to take over the car of Mr. Bourgeois, whom we did not molest in any way.

If I am lucky, I will be far away by the time you receive this letter. The escape was decided on suddenly at 4 p.m. yesterday March 2 without any help from the outside or inside. Hoping that you will believe me and that this short letter will help to enlighten you. Once again, excuse us.

Respectfully Yours

L. Rivard