Unrepentant

by Peter Edwards

  Campbell liked the idea. He had tried to get the Angels into Ontario a decade earlier, when he and Guindon and others rode out to Sorel to make their pitch. In Campbell’s view, it helped that the Hells Angels still hadn’t made peace with the Outlaws.

  “Go for it,” Campbell told Stephenson. “It’s the biggest and best club in all of the world.”

  Not long after he got the call from Stephenson, Campbell too got a call from the Angels, along with his old Satan’s Choice mentor Bernie (The Frog) Guindon. They were both still part of the Choice brotherhood, even if they weren’t still members. Campbell and Guindon talked about it on the phone. Once, they had both been particularly against American-based clubs, but the world had changed and they didn’t want to be left behind. “It’s a club with charters anywhere in the world,” says Campbell. Guindon felt some obligation to accept an Angels patch. It would be a signal to others in smaller clubs that joining the Angels was the way of the future. “We had to follow,” says Guindon. “We had no other alternative in a sense. You are trying to keep your guys together.”

  There could be severe health risks if current Choice members simply blew off invitations to join the Angels. The president of a Winnipeg club who didn’t want to join the Angels had recently been murdered. There weren’t any convictions for the killing, but it was only natural to wonder if he was killed because he opposed assimilation.

  The move meant there would be no Satan’s Choice left from the club that had given Guindon so much pride. “It was sad, but like everything else, it’s progress,” Guindon says. “You think you’re moving in the right direction, but in a sense you’re not because you’re taking on somebody else’s battle.”

  In December 2000, Campbell was back inside the Hells Angels’ fortress-like bunker in Sorel, northeast of Montreal, this time standing with 167 other Ontario bikers. The Sorel charter was the first for the Angels in the country. It was here that they planted their flag when they moved into Canada in December 1977, building from the membership of the old Popeye club. Campbell had ridden there on a new blue Classic Harley for an event that would change his life.

  Eight industrial-strength sewing machines were hauled into the clubhouse to stitch the winged death head patches onto the new members’ vests. For Campbell, it was the chance to see the world, not prestige, that pulled him out of retirement. “The club was in every country. You can travel.”

  Bikers lined up and waited their turns to receive their vests with the bright new patches on the back. Each man’s name was tucked in a pocket of his vest. While most bikers gave black leather vests to the sewing crews, Campbell had handed in a denim one, a tip of the hat to his old Choice days, when denim was the style. All the new members were also given brass death head pins of a winged skull as a final touch. Campbell celebrated inside the clubhouse with whisky, then went outside to catch a ride in an Angels van back to his hotel. By mistake he stepped into the wrong van.

  “Hi, Lorne,” said a man inside. It was Guy Ouellette, Sûreté du Québec biker specialist.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” shouted a Hells Angel from outside the van.

  The Angel was hollering at Campbell, who didn’t yet realize he had entered a police surveillance van by mistake. The other SQ officers were as stunned as Campbell. He climbed back out of the police van and returned to the Angels’ fold for more partying.

  Soon, Campbell found himself overseeing the Road Warriors in eastern Ontario. They were an Angels support club built on the remnants of the Demon Keepers, which had been run in the mid-1990s by an enigmatic biker named Dany Kane. Kane’s life and death remained a source of mystery inside biker and police circles. He ran a gay singles magazine in Montreal in the late 1990s, which was secretly funded by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as part of his undercover work against the Hells Angels. Over six years, on and off as secret agent for the RCMP and the SQ, Kane helped justice officials gather information needed to charge some 120 Hells Angels with more than a dozen murders and an assortment of other crimes. He also helped dismantle a drug network that netted $1 billion a year as part of a $2-million deal with the police to rat on his friends. Along the way, he carried out at least two biker hits. Kane’s motivations weren’t just money. He had never been awarded an Angels patch and was apparently bitter that his bisexual lifestyle inhibited his promotion within biker ranks.

  Campbell and others wondered if Kane was behind the blast that accidentally killed eleven-year-old Montrealer Daniel Desrochers on tree-lined rue Adam in Montreal’s east end in 1995. For Campbell, it was impossible to swallow that a true club member could do something so sloppy and callous as to detonate a bomb near a school. Angels like Campbell also doubted whether Kane really died of suicide on August 6, 2000, as authorities stated. They’re not the only skeptics. Author Daniel Sanger asks in his excellent book Hell’s Witness why Kane’s family members were not allowed to see his body. It was also curious that samples from his body were destroyed before they could be tested by scientists hired by biker defence lawyers, who wanted to verify the cause of death.

  Some Angels speculated that Kane had been killed by police and not by his own hand. Others thought he hadn’t died at all, and was instead secretly relocated by authorities. Campbell says he was told by former Demon Keepers that they believed he received ten million dollars to move far away, after his death was faked: “They swear to me he ain’t dead.” Kane’s former clubmates can’t believe that he was suicidal. “He was not like that,” Campbell says.

  One of Campbell’s new contacts was a man heavily into the porn and adult sex toy business, who was trying to divine how to make money off the Internet. During one meeting, Campbell joked that he was having trouble finding a suitable penis enlarger. His contact gestured towards a woman, who disappeared into another room. “She brings two out. How do I say, ‘I was just joking’? I didn’t.” His new contacts also gave him a thousand Viagra pills to sell. Campbell declined the penis enlarger but took the Viagra, which he gave for free to his friends, spawning obvious jokes about hardened criminals.

  Campbell was set up with a stripper agency as well, a business he had tried to run back in the early 1980s. The dancers from Quebec were beautiful professionals, and Campbell was also provided with a business manager. The enterprise seemed like a slam dunk. Providing protection for them was certainly no problem. “We were Hells Angels. Nobody would fuck with us. That’s the protection.”

  The general business arrangement seemed simple. “They [dancers] would just pay us so much a week. They wouldn’t pay us by the lap dance. How would we know how many lap dances someone does? They had a place to stay at the storefront. We had beds for them.” However, the matter got more complicated when the manager sent from Quebec fell hard off the wagon and began drinking heavily and non-stop. Dancers weren’t getting to jobs and money intended for them was going for booze instead. Whenever Campbell dropped by to check on things, there seemed no end to the complaining. What Campbell had hoped would be a fun way to make money was now the source of a string of headaches. Strippers complained of rashes from dirty floors and that their colleagues were stealing their hair products and dance moves and favourite songs. “They’d say, ‘You stole my moves. That was my song.’ They’d fight over anything.” There also was plenty of strong competition in the ever-expanding pole-dance community. Campbell and Evelyn were still living in the Orillia area, and not eager to move down to eastern Ontario to referee stripper cat fights and double-check accounting. Within months, the business withered on the vine.

  Lorne Campbell at age 4.

  Lorne Campbell Sr.

  Grandparents, Matthew and Mary Campbell.

  Young Lorne with his surviving sisters, Loretta and Lyne.

  18 years old with daughter, Janice.

  Christmas with Elinor and Janice.

  Morning wake-up call, Satan’s Choice style.

  Outside the Oshawa clubhouse on SCMC’s tenth anniversary.

  Campbell and SCMC founder
, Bernie Guindon.

  Captured colours. The club dominated central Canada in the sixties and seventies.

  Campbell’s partner in debt collection, John Foote.

  Larry Vallentyne, 1980.

  Campbell was a feared man in the seventies, but even he had a soft spot—Janice, growing up.

  One of several Oshawa SCMC clubhouses.

  Hot dog race at SCMC field day.

  1980. Carrying the weight of the world.

  Vallentyne, at the clubhouse.

  With club mates at Collins Bay Penitentiary: (back) Larry Vallentyne, left, Jeff McLeod, second from left, and Gary Comeau, right; (front) Campbell and Rick Sauvé (centre).

  Campbell and Charmaine during a visit at Collins Bay Penitentiary.

  Painting by Ghost Rider Steven Haudenschild.

  Friends in tough places: (l. to r.) Ken Goobie, Rick Sauvé and Brian Beaucage at Collins Bay.

  Patching over the Loners to SCMC: “You’re not president any more. I am.”

  Balloon race at a field day.

  Leg wrestling with Hamilton Choice member and professional wrestler Johnny K-9.

  Jeff Peck of Los Bravos and Doug Hoyle of Satan’s Choice belly up to the bar during one of Campbell’s trips to Winnipeg.

  Meeting Ruben (Hurricane) Carter, whose Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted supported the cause of the Port Hope Eight.

  William (Mr. Bill) Lavoie gets his 25-year plaque from Satan’s Choice.

  Above: In the last days of Satan’s Choice, Campbell (second from l.) prepares to ride out with Bernie Guindon (second from r.) and friends.

  Left: Rocker Steve Earle with Evelyn and Campbell. His song “Justice in Ontario” has shared the story of the Port Hope Eight far and wide.

  Newly married, Campbell joins the Hells Angels and is soon president of the Sudbury chapter.

  Andre Watteel, president of the Kitchener Choice, joins the Angels with Campbell and 166 other Ontario bikers.

  Becoming a Hells Angel opens the world to Campbell. Partying with the Dutch Angels.

  Visiting the Paris clubhouse (third from l.), along with old friend from the Choice Tony Biancafore (second from r.).

  Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be bikers. Campbell and his mother.

  Olympian and Hells Angel Phil Boudreault with “Dad”—one of the few who ever called Campbell by that nickname.

  Campbell and Biancafore (left, top and bottom) meet Sonny Barger, the world’s most famous biker.

  On a Hells Angels World Run in France.

  CHAPTER 26

  World Run

  We’re apolitical. Hells Angels have always been that way. Once you get political, you’re going to lose.

  LORNE CAMPBELL

  Being a Hells Angel meant a chance for Campbell to get out of Canada occasionally and see the world, but there were limits. Club members were barred from entering the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The Angels had charters in dozens of other countries, though, where he was still free to visit. “In South Africa, it’s way different. It’s like the Wild West. I heard of a member who was met at the airport there by a guy with a gun on his back and an ammo belt.”

  In May 2001, Campbell visited Amsterdam for the first time. His plan was to carry on to Paris, Nice and then the Côte d’Azur on the French Riviera, site of a new Angels charter and a World Run that would draw some 1,500 international club members. First on his agenda was a stopover at the Amsterdam clubhouse. A Dutch member with a face full of stubble who looked a bit like the Ancient Mariner excitedly told him that they were about to be visited by a Canadian who had been involved in the “Conspiracy of Brothers” case. Campbell realized he meant the shooting of Bill Matiyek and the trials of the Port Hope Eight.

  “The guy’s going to be here,” the Angel told Campbell. “He’s here for the France thing in Côte d’Azur.”

  The case was recognized by outlaw bikers far beyond Canada’s borders as an example of extreme brotherhood. Bikers around the globe loved to hear how the Satan’s Choice members had refused to testify against each other, even with the looming threat of prison time, while the real shooter tried to take the rap.

  “It’s me,” Campbell said.

  “The guy’s going to be here,” the excited Angel repeated.

  Again, Campbell said that he was the guy from the case.

  This repeated itself a couple more times, until the Dutch biker finally caught on to what Campbell was telling him. “He just gave me a hug and we talked the rest of the afternoon.”

  During his Paris stopover, Campbell was in a van with the wife of a German charter president. She looked at the swastika tattoo on his arm and said something to her husband in German. Campbell asked for a translation and was told, “If you come to Germany with that tattoo or lightning bolts, your ass goes to jail.” He thought of how his father had fought overseas in World War II and how that sort of tattoo on Canadian bikers was meant just for shock value and not as a political statement. “That’s what bikers would do. Part of their facade. Freak out the citizenry.” It was at that point that he decided to cover the tattoo on his right forearm with psychedelic artwork.

  Campbell and fellow Simcoe County charter members Ian Watson and Tony Biancafiore tried to take a cab from Nice to the Côte d’Azur. The driver spoke no English and they spoke no French. All they could do was say “We’re looking for the clubhouse” repeatedly and hope it would somehow sink in. The confused cabbie mistakenly drove them to a country club before finally making it to the World Run site.

  The Côte d’Azur charter was less than a year old, but by the time Campbell arrived the clubhouse already had a 1.5-metre hole in the ground inside its outer wall from a bomb lobbed over it by an enemy. The crater notwithstanding, the walled compound was a pleasant spot, just a five-minute walk from the ocean.

  One day at the seashore, Campbell got chatting with three English Hells Angels, one of whom was the president of his charter. The Englishmen produced a packet of white powder, which Campbell assumed was cocaine.

  “Want to do a line?” one of them asked.

  The package had an odd glow in the Mediterranean sun.

  “Want to do some, Lorne?”

  “All right,” Campbell replied, then snorted about four centimetres of the powder.

  “Hey mate, where’s that package?” another of the Englishmen asked.

  “What do you mean? I did it all.”

  “Hey mate, that was for all of us!”

  Campbell’s nose felt as if someone had crawled up inside it with a blowtorch. The Englishmen were laughing. They had plenty more of the potent powder for themselves.

  “What was it?”

  “Crystal meth, mate.”

  “Holy fuck, no wonder it shines.”

  Campbell noted that the European Angels weren’t as immersed in criminality as their Canadian counterparts. “Those English guys work for a living. They’re tough individuals, very tough guys, but they’re not criminals. Most countries are not Hells Angels like we are here. You fuck with them, they’ll kill you, I think. Guys from Germany would say, ‘Instead of drugs, why don’t you start businesses?’ They have hotels. In the Netherlands, they have businesses too. They don’t understand that in Canada, if you start a hotel or a car business, they’re [police, government] right on you. It’s not easy. They have their own wine. Their own spirits: Route 81. They have their own cigarettes. It’s actually legal. They own whole fucking blocks there. In the Netherlands, they own coffee shops and bars that sell pot. They own whorehouses that are legal. In Canada, we can’t do that.”

  Campbell was in the Côte d’Azur shortly after 9/11, and he didn’t get any grief from police, who were bent on stopping terrorists. “The cops don’t give you a second look.”

  It was in France that he was introduced by Angel Rick Ciarnello of B.C. to outlaw biker icon Sonny Barger, the man alternately credited with or blamed for organizing the modern-day Hells Angels’ worldwide expansion. Ba
rger was a legend in the Angels’ world. In one of many stories about him, he once put a man’s hands in a vise and horse-whipped him for stealing his Harley, which he had named Sweet Cocaine. He was also something of a marketing phenomenon, with a full range of signature products, including American Legend sunglasses, beanies and Cabernet Sauvignon. Campbell’s meeting with Barger was brief, as other bikers were crowding around and one drunken member kept cutting in.

  Barger signed a couple of copies of his autobiography for Campbell, one for himself and one for an Angel friend who was about to get married. He was alert and personable, although it was an effort for him to speak after a bout with cancer, since he had to press a valve in his throat whenever he wanted to say something. “He’s quite the gentleman.… The man’s earned his respect big time. Partly for the organizer he is. He doesn’t take any shit. If you fuck with me, I’ll fuck back.”

  A year after the patch-over, a tattoo artist came down from Barrie to the Simcoe County clubhouse near Georgian Bay to ink the copyrighted Angels death head onto Campbell and his clubmates. There’s a Canadian rule that Angels can only get club tattoos a year after membership, once they have proven themselves worthy. For Campbell, it would be the first of five Angels tattoos.