But he didn’t impress the people who ran the WWF. He got fewer and fewer assignments and got none after a 1991 conviction for assault and cocaine trafficking sent him to prison for six months. When he emerged, he signed up with Middle Tennessee Wrestling, a much smaller organization, and wrestled under the name Taras Bulba, after the greatest hero in Cossack history. Before long, he moved up to Jim Cornette’s Smokey Mountain Wrestling, where he became a champion under the name Bruiser Bedlam. But it didn’t matter how well he did in the minor leagues, when he walked around the streets of Hamilton, when people asked him for his autograph, when they bought him a beer at the Running Pump, he was Johnny K-9.
By the time Cornette’s league ran out of money, Croitoru had assumed the Johnny K-9 personality outside the ring and even managed to get a bank account under that name. In the spring of 1996, he didn’t have a job but continued to lift weights daily just in case a wrestling promoter called. Before long, he found some workout partners. One of them, a man police will identify only by the pseudonym Jimmy Rich, suggested that he, K-9 and another friend, Gary Noble, ride up to Toronto and visit the Satan’s Choice clubhouse. The three weightlifters with shaved heads were welcomed warmly and given the opportunity to start a Satan’s Choice prospective chapter in Hamilton after a short initiation in which they were obliged to act as bartenders and security guards at the Toronto clubhouse. After they had proven their worth, Noble purchased an old restaurant at 269 Lottridge Ave., just north of Barton Street, for $40,000, to serve as a clubhouse.
The Outlaws, weakened by a series of arrests as the result of an informant turned by Harris, did nothing to oppose the new chapter. And Stadnick, who’d stopped wooing Satan’s Choice by that time and had switched his focus to the Para-Dice Riders, couldn’t stop it either. Although Stadnick always tried to maintain a polite relationship with Outlaws boss Mario “the Wop” Parente, both of them realized they were each other’s enemy and that Hamilton was, at least for the moment, Outlaws territory. Both Stadnick and Stockford were extra cautious when they were in their home town. Stockford told Kane once about hearing his doorbell ring one evening and looking out the window to see a guy on his porch with a pizza box. Since Stockford hadn’t ordered any pizza, he didn’t answer. Stadnick, of course, was a more valuable as well as a more visible target than Stockford, who Harris said almost never wore his colors in Ontario. The diminutive biker chief was walking down Main Street in Hamilton when a pickup truck stopped beside him. Before he could turn around to see who it was, there were a pair of large muscular arms around him. It wouldn’t be easy to kidnap Walter Stadnick, though, and the intended victim managed to get out of his assailant’s grasp and send him to the ground with a well-placed kick. Stadnick saw the metallic flash of a handgun as the passenger started getting out of the truck, and he started running, eventually getting to safety. He recognized both men as Outlaws.
Stadnick had other enemies as well. Steinert, who had repeatedly angered Stadnick with ambitions that often overlapped his own, started stomping on his turf. Under strict secrecy, Steinert began using Donald “Bam Bam” Magnussen, who had been Stadnick’s bodyguard and good friend, to distribute cocaine in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Although there’s no hard evidence that Stadnick or any of his allies knew what was going on, Steinert got into trouble at about the same time. Although he’d lived in Canada since he was eight, Steinert had never bothered to apply for Canadian citizenship. After repeated anonymous tips, the immigration department of Citizenship Canada started investigating Steinert and putting the wheels of deportation into motion.
Stadnick did receive some good news that summer. Near the end of June, the quiet town of Port Perry, Ontario, was overrun with hundreds of bikers and dozens of Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officers. The event was one of the biggest in biker history: the retirement of Bernie “the Frog” Guindon, the leading voice for Satan’s Choice since becoming president in 1965. Although bikers came from all over Canada, no Hells Angels or Para-Dice Riders were invited. That fact made police speculate that tensions were heating up and that a war was imminent. Stadnick, instead, saw opportunity. He was well aware that Guindon had built and then re-built the Satan’s Choice empire in Ontario. Despite numerous arrests and the loss of most of their chapters, including Hamilton, to the Outlaws while Guindon was in prison, Satan’s Choice had rebounded to become the No. 2 gang in Ontario, behind only their old brothers in the Outlaws. They had, according to police, an enviable cash flow from drug sales, prostitution, strippers and other businesses and no lack of manpower ready to move product or bust heads. No doubt Stadnick was intrigued by the prospect of patching over such an established and successful network and he had tried to achieve it through negotiating with Guindon over the years. But with Guindon now out of the way, Stadnick began to make plans for an eventual takeover.
So did Ontario’s police forces. With a mandate to bring down one biker gang every year until they were all gone, Guindon’s retirement brought their focus to Satan’s Choice (although at least one biker claimed that Guindon had been tipped off by an OPP officer that the raid was coming down and he’d be wise to leave the club immediately). On the morning of December 19, 1996, local police forces and the OPP, armed with warrants, raided every Satan’s Choice clubhouse and visited the homes of every member, prospect and known associate. Before Christmas, 109 of the 125 active Satan’s Choice members were under arrest. K-9, Noble, Rich and the two prospects they had gathered were all arrested in Hamilton.
What happened to them was typical of what most arrested bikers experienced. When bigger charges failed to stick due to lack of credible evidence or were plea-bargained out of significance, the Crown started nailing the bikers with proceeds of crime charges and confiscating their property. K-9, who claimed to have earned an average of $4,751 per year over the last eight years, had 48 items taken. At auction, his lot, including $7,802 in cash, two Harleys, a huge custom-built pink leather sofa and a six-foot-high laminated poster of James Dean, found a quick and anonymous taker. Like most other members of Satan’s Choice, K-9 was a lot poorer for the experience, but soon back on the streets.
The Hells Angels had their own problems. After being warned about his weight by his doctor and losing more than 70 pounds, on February 23, 1996, Robert “Ti-Maigre” Richard suffered a massive coronary and died. Just as important, however, was the fact that Carcajou had conducted a series of raids on Hells Angels’ interests in Quebec City. Starting with club associate Clément Allard, who was caught with $20 million in fake $20 bills on March 14, Carcajou raids led to 35 arrests and the confiscation of enough guns and drugs to put a serious dent in the gang’s bottom line.
A few days after Richard’s funeral, his former protégé, Steinert, exerted himself in a surprisingly public way—by getting himself a piece of Quebec history, Château Lavigueur. On the night of April 14, 1986, 18-year-old Yves Lavigueur answered the door of his run-down home in Lachine to meet a poorly dressed man who was yelling something at him in English. He slammed the door in the stranger’s face and forgot about the incident until the next day when the same man showed up again with a friend. Lavigueur was about to call the police when the stranger’s friend spoke to him in French, saying “Mr. Murphy has some important news for you.” Lavigueur let them inside and they sat on the family couch with Yves’ father, Jean-Guy.
Through his interpreter, William Murphy reminded Jean-Guy about how his lost wallet had been returned anonymously. Although he’d given back all of Lavigueur’s cash and identification, Murphy had kept a 6/49 lottery ticket he’d found inside. It hit. The winnings were $7.8 million. After the celebrations were over, Jean-Guy decided to split the tax-free windfall evenly with four relatives and Murphy, each receiving $1.3 million. It was a story that delighted the entire province, but soon went bad and drew even more interest. The family moved into a palatial home in the luxurious part of Ile-Jésus, just north of Laval, which the media quickly named Château Lavigueur (the Lavigueur Mansion). As soon as
they moved in, the hard-drinking, simple Lavigueurs started embarrassing themselves and the tabloids caught every bit of it. It played like a real-life version of The Beverly Hillbillies gone terribly wrong. When they finally ran out of money in 1995, the city put the house up for sale and the Lavigueurs retreated back to Lachine. So intense was the public interest that an admission fee of $25 to view the mansion was instituted to keep the curious out.
Two friends of the Death Riders who had been hurt in the Bar Le Harley explosion in September purchased the house. While they were working on renovations like bullet-proof windows and video cameras, a reporter asked Richard Turcot (the man whose name was on the deed) if he was an associate of the Hells Angels. He said “no” and refused to answer any more questions. When the fortification was complete, Steinert, whom the Hells Angels had sent north to control the Death Riders, moved into Château Lavigueur. The opulent setting did more than just serve as a palace for the man who considered himself king of Laval and as a place to conduct Death Riders business. When he found out that an old friend, Stéphane Chouinard, had come into some money and was interested in making some porn videos, Steinert offered him the use of Château Lavigueur—as long as the host could be one of the on-camera participants and get a cut of sales.
A lull in the violence in the summer of 1996 had Montrealers feeling pretty good about their city and about Carcajou. Some editorial writers were bleating that the war was over and some politicians were suggesting reducing Carcajou’s budget or even disbanding it altogether now that its mission had been accomplished. That feeling of calm was shattered on the morning of August 22 when three bombs exploded in the suburbs. The next day, the RCMP, following a Kane tip, made a frightening discovery. When Gagné got out of prison in April, he sent a message to Boucher that he was looking for work. Two days later, Gagné’s mother got him out of bed to tell him he had visitors. It was Boucher and his right-hand man Tousignant. They took him for a ride.
Just southwest of Maisonneuve-Hochelaga, in a neighborhood called Verdun, Boucher pointed out the Rock Machine’s headquarters. Then he put his fist in front of Gagné’s face. When he was sure Gagné was looking, he quickly extended his fingers, mimicking an explosion. No words, no sound effects. He asked Gagné if he understood. Gagné said he did. Boucher handed him $1,000 and Tousignant drove him home. After many frustrated attempts to get a clear shot at the clubhouse, Gagné finally got his hands on a stolen Hydro Quebec van, a vehicle so commonplace and anonymous it was almost below suspicion. He packed it with over 200 pounds of dynamite in five camping coolers, each with its own remote-controlled detonator. The day it was supposed to go off, the RCMP found it parked on one of the busiest streets of Verdun, not far from the Rock Machine clubhouse. Forensic tests indicated that the blast would have been powerful enough to have killed dozens in a shrapnel storm and even cause major structural damage to nearby buildings.
Although Kane’s information had prevented another potential Desrosiers situation, he was also committing crimes with impunity and costing the RCMP a lot of money. Since he was the only source the police had inside the Hells Angels, they were obliged to believe what he said. Still, many cops speculated that he was behind or at least involved in a number of crimes, including the bomb that killed Desrosiers. But if he denied it, there was little they could do.
When Roland Lebrasseur’s body was found on a deserted roadside in the South Shore community of Brossard, the police asked Kane what he knew about him. Kane told them that Lebrasseur had taken a job as a driver for Carroll’s escort agency. When he met more Hells Angels, he boasted that he knew how to make bombs. Since they knew he was a Canadian Armed Forces veteran, they let him hang around. But he never made any bombs; he didn’t actually know how. Instead, he started snorting tons of cocaine and racking up debts with the wrong people, particularly Carroll, who was chronically short of cash despite his high rank and numerous businesses. What Kane did not tell them was that, at a party in February, a drunk and stoned Lebrasseur had made a play for Patricia, Kane’s new girlfriend. When she rebuffed him, he told her about Josée and Kane’s three kids. Patricia not only told Kane it was over, she left the city. Kane also didn’t tell police that before the sun rose on the morning of March 3, he drove Lebrasseur out to an unlit field far from any houses and told him to get out of the car, put three holes in his head and chest, then drove home.
Although the RCMP was paying him $4,000 every two weeks and he was still earning for the Hells Angels, Kane told them that he needed something more. Begging like a spoiled teenager, Kane told them that all the important Hells Angels ran businesses and that it would increase his credibility if he had one too. After some discussion, the RCMP gave him $30,325 to start Rencontres Selectes, a gay dating magazine where men placed racy ads looking for partners. The bulk of the profits would come from larger ads for strip joints, phone sex lines and escort services, many of which were owned or at least influenced by Kane’s friends. After it succeeded, he told them, he could morph it into a gay club in Montreal and start making real money. A high-school dropout, Kane knew nothing about graphic design and even less about publishing, so his handlers at the RCMP came up with a business plan and even designed the first issue. He was playing them for fools. Kane did little meaningful work on the magazine and it folded after just three taxpayer-funded issues. He did, however, get what he’d wanted in the first place—access to gay men.
Aimé Simard was a sad and lonely young man from Quebec City who lived with his mother. Despite a habit of petty thefts and frauds, Simard studied police technology in college. After an instructor told him no police force would ever want an officer as short and fat as he was, Simard quit school and went back to his mother’s house. When charges for passing rubber checks and using fake identification started piling up, he fled to Hamilton, where his father had relatives. But there was little work there for a college dropout who didn’t speak English, so he returned once again to his mother’s house. Before long he landed in prison and ran afoul of a tough cocaine dealer. After he was freed, he went to the Quebec City police and offered to inform on the dealer. The police, many of whom knew that Simard had always wanted to be a cop, were surprised he didn’t ask for anything in return.
After word spread that Simard was an informant, he started carrying a handgun with him wherever he went. When his weight ballooned to 355 pounds, he convinced the provincial government to pay to have his stomach stapled. Determined to start life over again as a thinner man, Simard enrolled in nursing school. After a fellow student noticed and asked about the gun, Simard was arrested for possession of a restricted weapon and for pointing it at a classmate (a charge he denied). He received a sentence of 18 months. On a weekend pass he was issued just before a parole hearing, he decided to celebrate by going dancing. That night a passing cop happened to see him hiding his gun under the seat of his Jeep; Simard went back to prison to serve the rest of his term and a few months more. As soon as he got out, Simard moved back into his mother’s house under her two conditions—that he get a job and go back to school. While working as a night clerk at the Château Mont-Ste-Anne and studying criminology in the day (still holding out hope of being a cop, despite his record), he placed an ad in Recontres Selectes under the bisexual category. After a few phone conversations, Kane told him he’d be stopping by Quebec City on the way to Halifax. During a date that included sex in his mother’s bed, Simard recognized a tattoo on Kane’s arm that identified him as a Hells Angel.
Kane went to Halifax under the orders of Carroll, who was appalled at the mess his old chapter had become since he’d left. Without their leader, the Hells Angels in Halifax weren’t interested in anything but partying and had lost their grip on the prostitution and, particularly, drug markets. They had piled up massive debts with Carroll, and with other drug dealers who they had allowed to take over their territory. Kane was meeting up with Carroll’s old friend Paul Wilson, a well-known owner of several Halifax bars, to deal with the chapter and recrui
t a small army of tougher young men to take back the city.
While Stadnick was moving his chess pieces around the board in hopes of an Ontario takeover, things started to unravel a bit in Winnipeg. Although Stadnick had done a remarkable job with the Redliners, his puppet gang there, all the really experienced bikers in Winnipeg ran with Los Brovos or the Spartans, and the best of them were Los Brovos. While the Redliners looked good as bodyguards and threw a decent party, it was with the members of Los Brovos that Stadnick did his real business. He trusted them to sell Hells Angels drugs in Winnipeg and, in the spring of 1996, told Ernie Dew, their president, to prepare to become a prospective Hells Angels chapter.
In an effort to extend more goodwill and to demonstrate the brotherhood between chapters, Mike McCrea, who was running the Halifax chapter while Carroll was in Montreal, invited David Boyko, a former president of Los Brovos and still one of the most popular members, out east for a party. At first, Boyko didn’t want to go, but when McRea insisted, he agreed. He didn’t have a good time for long. One of the other guests at the party was Magnussen, and they didn’t get along. Drunk and stoned by the time Boyko arrived, Magnussen had gained his current boss’s brashness and pride, but had none of Steinert’s charm to temper it. Magnussen had lost a great deal of money in a bad drug deal in Winnipeg the previous year and blamed Los Brovos. He’d never liked Boyko and, since he was the first member of Los Brovos he’d seen in a long time, he took out his anger on him.
Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle Page 46