Five of them — Boucher, Robitaille, Houle (despite the fact that his nickname meant “Unreliable”), Chouinard and Rose — stayed in Montreal to administer what was called “The Table,” which oversaw the importation, allocation and distribution of drugs (particularly cocaine) to the other chapters. All drug sales involving the Hells Angels or their friends were controlled by The Table, except those undertaken by the Sherbrooke Chapter, which had negotiated a separate deal with the Nomads’ brass.
The primary task of the others was to recruit new business and maintain and protect the connections they had already established. Stadnick’s job was to oversee all operations outside Quebec.
It began paying dividends immediately. Through a friend of Boucher’s, they gained access to a supply of cocaine from the Italian Mafia the likes of which they had never seen before, courtesy of Guy LePage. LePage and Boucher were about the same age and grew up in the same neighbourhood, but didn’t meet each other until they were both adults. LePage had been a Montreal cop, but had resigned suddenly after a 10-year career when his best friend on the force was being investigated for fraud. Then he opened a disco. One of his frequent customers was Boucher. The biker plied LePage with gifts and nights out, wooing him to the Hells Angels’ side. Before long, LePage had established links with Colombian cartels and the Italian Mafia and the trickle of cocaine coming into Canada through the Hells Angels transformed into a cascade.
Quebec, especially, had higher quantities of premium coke than ever before. And the Nomads were getting rich. Because of this surplus of coke, the Nomads laid down a strict law that forbade anybody in their territory from selling cocaine for less than $50,000 a kilo. The penalty was death. Nobody was immune. The Nomads even killed their own, if they crossed the line. After many warnings about selling for too little in his Trois-Rivieres territory, Roy was a guest of honor at the Nomads’ fifth anniversary party. That was the last night he was ever seen alive.
But while the strict adherence to minimum pricing standards improved their bottom line in the short term, it also allowed the Rock Machine to stay profitable. By attracting customers with cheaper coke, the Rock Machine managed not just to stay afloat financially but to erode the Hells Angels’ customer base in Quebec and undermine street-level dealers’ faith in their dominance of the region.
The Nomads concept paid almost immediate dividends in the rest of the country as well. Stadnick had worked hard to make connections from coast to coast, and the massive profits associated with cocaine trafficking was a very big part of that.
His greatest success was Winnipeg, but it did not come easily or cheaply. For years, Stadnick wooed the two predominant gangs in the city — the Spartans and their hated enemies Los Brovos — while auditioning and grooming them for Hells Angels prospect status. He even started his own small gang there, the cops called them the Redliners, but they were not on the scale of the Demon Keepers. He was in the city so often — making it a third home after Hamilton and Montreal — that he maintained a girlfriend and even had a son, Damon, with her there.
Just after he anointed Los Brovos as the winner of the competition, he tried to strengthen the bond by inviting their former president and best-loved member, David Boyko, to a party hosted by the Halifax Chapter. Once there, a drunken Magnussen (who went with Stadnick, even though he worked primarily with Steinert by this time) punched Boyko and threatened his life over a drug debt Boyko confessed no knowledge of. When Boyko’s murdered body was found in nearby Dartmouth the next day, Stadnick had to go back to Winnipeg and report the news.
Not surprisingly, they weren’t happy. It set his plan back some months, but Los Brovos eventually became the Hells Angels Winnipeg Chapter. Not long after, the bodies of Magnussen and Steinert — who many believed was responsible for the death of 11-year-old Daniel Desrochers — were fished out of the St. Lawrence River. They had not been hidden. The forensics people determined that they had been tied to chairs and beaten to death with hammers.
And by 1998, according to a police officer I interviewed, Stadnick was supplying “virtually all the drugs in Winnipeg” and plenty more farther west.
At the same time he was recruiting out west, Stadnick was, rather naturally, trying to bring Ontario into the fold. That’s when he used the third method of taking over: getting existing clubs to become his allies and eventually his vassals. The hard part was picking which clubs to work with.
The first choice was an astute one. The Vagabonds — usually called the “Vags” — were large (70 members and prospects), active in the drug trade and located in more or less downtown Toronto. They were also publicity savvy. Every December they hung a festive “Season’s Greeting” banner on their Gerrard Street East headquarters (actually they still do) and were always careful to have themselves photographed in full colors at charitable events, many of which they sponsored.
Stadnick and Hells Angels first approached them in 1987. It was a good match. The Vags were happy to have access to the Quebeckers’ drugs and were impressed with the fabled Hells Angels patch. Hells Angels were overjoyed to find such a large and well-disciplined club in the heart of Toronto.
But, unlike many other clubs, the Vags did not immediately jump at the chance to become Hells Angels. Many of them were pretty happy just as they were. They made a few bucks here and there selling weed and hash and working as bouncers, but didn’t want to get into big-time organized crime, which they knew Hells Angels represented. And they generally thought cocaine was too dangerous — not just the penalties associated with trafficking it and the local competition it could potentially anger, but also the drug itself, devilishly addictive and horribly destructive.
But the majority did not speak for the whole club. Their president — a tall, skinny occasional plumber named Donald “Snorkel” Melanson — absolutely loved the idea. Not only did he want to get rich, but his greatest love was cocaine. Although many have reported he earned his nickname from the impressive size of his nose, it was actually because of its abilities, not its appearance. One of his friends (who was not a member of the Vagabonds) told a local reporter that he had personally seen Melanson use the snorkel to vacuum up a two-foot-long line of coke in one breath. That friend — who can only be identified as “Saul” because he’s in the RCMP’s witness protection program — discreetly joined Melanson in a deal with Hells Angels that resulted in a small pipeline of cocaine from Montreal to Toronto.
Meeting couriers in strip joints and bars on Yonge Street, well away from Vags territory, and never in colors, Melanson and Saul were fronted bags of coke. While they had agreed to sell it all, Melanson just couldn’t help himself. Saul did his best to get his share on the streets, but Melanson not only sucked the bulk of his up the snorkel, he also generously spread much of it among his friends, including many in the club (who never questioned where this bonanza came from). Weeks passed, and Melanson found himself in debt to Hells Angels to the tune of $80,000. The couriers stopped coming. Instead, some big guys — dressed like businessmen, not bikers — met him in a Yonge Street strip joint and demanded an explanation. He begged for leniency, for more time. He’d get the money. They told him they would see what they could do.
Melanson called in favors and got a second mortgage on his house. He managed to get together about $50,000. Saul did his best, too, and was able to scrape up about $20,000 for his old friend. He handed it over, and then — without telling Melanson — drove to the airport and boarded a plane for Florida until things cooled off. “I didn’t want to be in the middle of that mess,” he later said.
Melanson called his Hells Angels contact and told him he had their money. Great, the contact told him and arranged a meeting at Novotel, a business-oriented hotel at Yonge and Sheppard in the north end of the city.
On the following morning, September 3, a cleaning staffer knocked on the door to his room. No answer. Since there was no “do not disturb” sign hanging from the knob, she let herself in. The first thing she saw was Melanson lying face
down on the floor. He had two bullet holes in the back of his head.
Saul heard about it down south and rushed to get back to Toronto. He arrived in time for the funeral. It was a lavish affair at Melanson’s parents’ church in Markham, north of the city on Steeles Avenue, just west of Yonge Street. After the service, the hearse was followed by a procession of Harleys more than 200 strong. Their riders — who, as was their custom, wore full colors — included Lobos, Penetrators, American Breed, Scorpions and a large number of Outlaws, who were relishing the opportunity to say they had told the Vags what happens when you deal with the Hells Angels. No Hells Angels showed up, but the Montreal Chapter did send flowers.
The next day, Saul approached the police about becoming a paid informant. He told them everything he knew, but it was not enough to achieve a single arrest. It became increasingly obvious that there was a huge rift between the Vagabonds and Hells Angels, and they never really partied or worked together again. While the years have softened hard feelings — and Hells Angels have held out the olive branch at least twice since then — there is still tension between the two clubs. While Vagabonds will attend Hells Angels events as a group, individual Vags still steer well clear of them even though the two clubs are officially at peace.
Don’t feel too sorry for the Vagabonds, though. In 1991, Canada Post found itself desperate when its workers walked off the job. They had plenty of replacement workers, but the picket lines were militant and potentially violent. Without any other viable options, the federal government agency hired the Vagabonds en masse to protect their workers past the angry strikers and paid them a remarkable amount of money. Realizing that providing muscle was probably their best way of getting paid, they started hiring themselves out to either side during strikes, either protecting or intimidating replacement workers depending on who had hired them.
With the Vagabonds out of the picture, Stadnick’s Hells Angels started looking at other Southern Ontario-based gangs. They went to a familiar face. After Bernie Guindon had been released from prison, he reassumed leadership of what remained of the once-mighty Satan’s Choice.
The Choice’s Hamilton, St. Catharines, Sault Ste. Marie, Windsor, London, Ottawa and Kingston Chapters had opted to become Outlaws (giving that gang particular strength not just in hot drug-selling areas, but also vital border crossings). Kitchener, Thunder Bay and Guindon’s home chapter in Oshawa had stayed loyal. The Toronto Chapter had split, with a breakaway faction becoming the Outlaws Toronto Chapter and the rest maintaining a Satan’s Choice clubhouse in the city.
No longer the most powerful biker club in the province, the members of Satan’s Choice were still very proud. There were a lot of factors at play. On the pro side of an alliance with Hells Angels were a chance to get back at the much-hated Outlaws, a huge increase in wealth from the sale of cocaine and a bolstering of club power. On the con side of the debate were increased attention from law enforcement and the potential for Satan’s Choice to become mere vassals of a more powerful American-based club. Keep in mind that Guindon was fiercely nationalistic — almost to a mania — and had vehemently opposed previous alliance overtures from both the Outlaws and Hells Angels.
Stadnick was insistent and consistent. His visits to Ontario in his black Jaguar sedan with Quebec plates were no longer limited to Hamilton. He could been seen regularly in Oshawa (where he took Guindon and his men to strip joints) and Toronto (where he treated Guindon to gourmet dinners at tony restaurants). He was also a familiar sight in Kitchener, where he befriended local businessman and Satan’s Choice chapter president Andre Watteel. And he was even spotted in Thunder Bay, which was much closer to his interests in Winnipeg than it was to any other major city in Ontario.
It didn’t take long for the individual members of Satan’s Choice to see that a close association with Hells Angels had great benefits. Whatever his personal opinion was, Guindon made a King Solomon-like decision. The members of Satan’s Choice would be free to have any business or social dealing with Hells Angels they desired, but the club itself would have no official alliance and a patch-over was not in the offing. In response, Stadnick made it clear that he was also negotiating with other Ontario clubs, in particular the Toronto-based Para-Dice Riders and the Loners of nearby Woodbridge.
The increase in stature resulting from the deal with Stadnick allowed Satan’s Choice to do something it hadn’t done in a very long time — expand. Two new chapters popped up. One was in Sudbury, a hardscrabble mining city in Northern Ontario that was already getting virtually all of its drugs through Stadnick’s friend and fellow Nomad Richard “Rick” Vallée.
The other was in Hamilton. That was widely regarded as a deliberate slap in the face of Parente, who had become the country’s most influential Outlaw. “Oh, they hated Parente,” a police officer told me. “And they knew it would piss him off to have another club in what he considered to be his town.”
Chapter 8
The Rock Machine Targets Ontario
But the Outlaws had troubles of their own. Membership was down. The looming threat of the Hells Angels had put a dent in recruiting and even veteran members seemed to be less interested in staying with the club. After seeing what the Hells Angels were capable of in Quebec and knowing full well that they wanted Ontario, many Outlaws understandably felt nervous about the future of their club.
That tension turned to violence on the night of November 28, 1992. And the intended target appeared to be a familiar and valuable one. At about 2 a.m., Parente’s girlfriend — 38-year-old Linda Demaria — had just arrived at Parente’s house in Dundas, a nice, quiet suburb just west of Hamilton. She’d spent the night out having dinner and drinks with some friends in nearby Burlington. She was in the passenger seat of the second of two carloads of friends that pulled into Parente’s driveway. Just as she was climbing out of the car, she was shot once in the lower back and collapsed. The bullet entered just above her pelvis and exited through her abdomen.
She was rushed to nearby McMaster Medical Centre and quickly put into stable condition. Neither the people in the cars (some of whom were “known to police”) nor Parente could provide any eyewitness details. They were described by a police spokesman as “cooperative to a point.”
Despite the extensive use of metal detectors, the shell — believed to be from a 9-mm handgun — was never found, nor was the shooter’s location determined. “We can’t say: ‘was this a drive-by? Was someone hiding in the bushes?” the spokesman said, indicating they had found little useful evidence at all. With nothing in the way of physical evidence and not a useful word from any of the witnesses, the police admitted they had little chance of catching whoever was responsible, but they did indicate that they felt that Demaria was probably not the intended victim. “We still are unable to determine a motive,” said the spokesman. “Or even if the shooting was for someone other than the victim; or if it was, in fact, for the victim.” Considering the distance involved — since none of the revellers saw the shooter, it’s likely to have been quite a long shot — and the inherent inaccuracy of handguns over long distances, the target could well have been anyone in the large group.
But the potshot at Parente’s girlfriend, probably taken by a biker or Mafia functionary, was small-time compared to what the police did to Parente four years later. At 5 a.m. on the morning of April 29, 1996, more than 100 police officers from a half-dozen forces launched Operation Charlie, named after the skull on the Outlaws logo. They descended on the Outlaws’ St. Catharine’s clubhouse, four other locations in the Niagara peninsula and one apartment building on Hamilton Mountain.
After the Hamilton Police shut down the Birch Avenue clubhouse, Parente had moved his operations about 30 minutes east to St. Catharine’s. Because the clubhouse was heavily fortified, the cops attacked it with a front-end loader. They tore down the front wall. They arrested nine Outlaws, but the real prize was Parente. The cops surrounded his farmhouse on Sodom Road, just outside of Niagara Falls, and arrested him when h
e came out with his hands up. He was charged with two counts of trafficking cocaine and one of uttering a death threat. The papers at the time identified him as a former Outlaws national president and current St. Catharine’s Chapter president.
That night, the house of an Outlaws member burned to the ground. On the following day, a helicopter was seen to land on the nearby Port Colborne farm of an Outlaw and let off some passengers after dark. The police admitted they found both facts interesting, but had no answers for either.
Being in jail wasn’t Parente’s only problem. On July 10, 1996, a new inmate was brought into the Hamilton-Wentworth Correctional Centre from just outside Montreal, and within hours of his arrival, he attacked Parente with a makeshift knife fabricated from a toothbrush. The assailant surprised Parente and managed to stab him in the eyes and throat, but failed to do much damage before he was wrestled off him. Parente refused to cooperate with police when they questioned him, and also refused medical treatment.
Just as Operation Charlie was making the papers, the third incarnation of Satan’s Choice in Hamilton started to germinate in an East End gym. Bikers like gyms not only because they like to work out, but because they are great places to sell drugs and, in particular, steroids. A small-time Hamilton criminal we can only call Jimmy Rich because he’s also in witness protection told his two workout buddies that he had a connection who could make them all very wealthy. Rich’s weight-lifting buddies — Gary Noble and Ion Croitoru — quickly accepted.
Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle Page 12