Unrepentant

by Peter Edwards

  The one-year anniversary of the patch-over was marked by a provincial Angels convention in Toronto’s entertainment district. Bikers were warned by senior club officers to be on their best behaviour. When they went to restaurants wearing their colours, they were told to be pleasant and to tip large. People would be talking and the club wanted the public saying good things.

  Campbell was in charge of security for the Simcoe County charter and wasn’t surprised when police told Hells Angels spokesman Donny Petersen just before the convention began that there had been a bomb threat in the hotel and that they’d have to immediately leave the building. “Well, that would solve your problems for you, wouldn’t it?” Petersen said, suspecting it was just a ploy so that police could plant recording devices in their rooms and throughout the hotel. “No go. Nice try, boys.”

  No bombs exploded that week at the hotel. There was a media bombshell, however, when Toronto mayor Mel Lastman popped in for a surprise visit, shaking the hand of Simcoe County member Tony Biancafiore. Biancafiore was finance manager for a General Motors dealership, and suspected that Lastman recognized his face from community events. He doubted that Lastman knew before that day that he was also an outlaw biker.

  “He walked in and he came towards me,” remembers Biancafiore. “I ran towards him. I think we both stuck our hands out at the same time. I was sort of stunned that he was even there. He had that look on his face: almost stunned or in fear.… I don’t know what he expected.”

  The mayor accepted a souvenir T-shirt from Biancafiore. The next day, a photo of the handshake was in newspapers across the country, with headlines such as MAYOR HAS DEVIL TO PAY FOR SHAKING HANDS WITH ANGEL; MEL, IT’S TIME TO GO; and HANDSHAKE FROM HELL.

  In an effort to quell the shitstorm of bad publicity, Lastman posed for a photo tossing his souvenir Angels support T-shirt into the garbage. This brought a HELLS ANGELS WANT LASTMAN TO APOLOGIZE FOR RUDENESS headline in the National Post. Lastman claimed he didn’t know that members of the Hells Angels made money selling illegal drugs, and said he only shook Biancafiore’s hand because he was afraid. “What am I going to do?” he asked. “Not give them my hand? I’d be afraid not to.” Toronto police chief Julian Fantino said the handshaking and media kerfuffle was evidence of the Angels’ deft skill in public relations. Many others said it made Lastman look like the consummate buffoon.

  In Quebec, the “Handshake from Hell” was considered further evidence of anglo stupidity and insensitivity, as well as the deviousness of outlaw bikers. The timing of the handshake couldn’t have been much worse, as the story broke just as a series of biker trials was beginning. Pretrial arguments were to be heard in Montreal in the first-degree murder trial of Maurice (Mom) Boucher for ordering the deaths of two prison guards in 1997. Pretrial proceedings were also under way in Montreal for thirteen other Hells Angels and associates, including Stadnick. They faced charges including first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and gangsterism relating to the war with the now-defunct Rock Machine, who morphed into membership in the Bandidos, a major international club.

  The mother of Daniel Desrochers, the eleven-year-old Montreal boy who was killed by a pipe bomb during the biker war, called Lastman dangerously naive. “I’m very saddened by the mayor of Toronto,” Joanne Desrochers said. “It’s like burying your head in the sand. This is a dangerous thing—very dangerous.”

  While the handshake photo was a unique humiliation for Lastman, it hurt Biancafiore even more. After he was publicly outed as a Hells Angel, he lost his licence to sell automobiles. “It certainly didn’t work in my favour.”

  Much of the horrendous press around the Canadian Angels centred on Boucher, president of the Montreal Nomads charter. Boucher had declared his own personal war on the state, without first consulting the rest of the club. He conspired to kill politicians, a broadcaster, a judge and respected crime writer Michel Auger of the Journal de Montréal, among others. For Campbell, it was clear that Boucher had forgotten his place in the world. “Biker wars are biker wars. I’ve been in them. Participated. Never backed down from the violence. But to have delusions of grandeur that you want to take on the government? We’re just Hells Angels and a motorcycle club. We’re apolitical. Hells Angels have always been that way. Once you get political, you’re going to lose. What happened to Michel Auger is horrendous—a horrendous, cowardly thing to do.”

  Campbell was tasked with pulling together a Sudbury charter for the Angels. The central Ontario city didn’t have any existing charters for one-percenter clubs in the early 2000s, but it did have a lively biker history, including a bloody clash in 1992 between the Choice and Johnny Sombrero’s Black Diamond Riders, who had faded into the background but refused to become extinct. The BDR had ostensibly been in town for a baseball tournament when the violence erupted. By the time things cooled, eight members of the BDR were in hospital: four with knife wounds, one shot in the eye and the abdomen, and the others beaten with clubs.

  There was also a bizarre incident on December 15, 1996, when someone set off an explosion at the Sudbury police station. Police estimated more than a kilogram of powdered explosives, ignited by a fuse, had been used to blast a hole in the wall of the building. The police station kept on functioning, but the bill for repairs to the station and a bank next door ran to $133,000. Exactly a year later, six Choice members and associates from the Hamilton and Sudbury areas were charged with more than three dozen offences related to the bombing. They included Ion (John) Croitoru, president of the Hamilton chapter of the Choice, a massive product of weight training and steroid abuse who wrestled professionally under the names “Johnny K-9” and “Bruiser Bedlam.” Croitoru was one of a new breed of club member. He owned a motorcycle, but Campbell never saw him actually riding it.

  K-9 was bizarrely competitive for someone who performed in rigged spectacles. One night inside the Sudbury clubhouse, Campbell defeated him in an Indian leg-wrestling contest and K-9 demanded a rematch. Campbell won again. K-9 demanded another rematch. Again K-9 lost. And again. By now it was tedious for everyone but K-9, who was beside himself. There was no clue rattling about inside his big bald head about why he kept losing, since he was considered by many to be the strongest—steroid-powered—man in the Canadian biker scene and Campbell was considerably smaller, steroid-free and on the senior side of fifty.

  “How the fuck do you do that, you cocksucker?” K-9 asked.

  “He wouldn’t leave me alone,” Campbell recalls. “That night he was like a dog following me around.”

  “There’s a technique that your little brain can’t understand,” Campbell said to K-9.

  “You’ve got to show me,” K-9 persisted.

  Campbell finally did, just to shut K-9 up. “As soon as you hook, you roll,” Campbell said. Then they had another rematch and K-9 finally won. “When I showed him, he almost broke my back.”

  Police didn’t think K-9 and his crew had any particular reason for bombing the Sudbury police station, other than a general unhappiness with law enforcement. Also among those charged was 39-year-old Michael Dubé of Sudbury, who was already in jail awaiting trial for conspiracy to bomb a local nightclub. He had also been a suspect in a 1988 murder. Dubé never made it to trial for the Sudbury bombing, hanging himself in his jail cell in September 1998. “He told somebody he couldn’t do any more time.”

  Attempts to blow up the police station aside, Sudbury became known in biker circles as a hospitable charter. Evelyn cooked up big servings of comfort food for any members passing through, and Campbell supplied free female companionship and booze. A lot of people stayed five or six days, just to soak up the hospitality. “It’s often said [in biker circles] if you can’t get laid in Sudbury, there’s something wrong with you.”

  Not surprisingly, plenty of men wanted to join the charter, but Campbell was generally unimpressed with the quality of candidates and found himself kicking out a string of them. He preferred to be diplomatic, like a kindly corporate downsizer, and say s
imply, “It’s not working out.” That was the hint that it was time to make a graceful exit, before Campbell’s patience ran out and he made himself clear with a left hook.

  He sounded less kindly when a member posted a picture of Toronto police chief Julian Fantino’s home on the club’s website. The photo was lifted from a January 2001 edition of the free Toronto listings magazine NOW, along with the words “Chief Fantino’s suburban bunker.” Recalls Campbell: “I freaked when I saw that. I said, ‘Get that the fuck off our website today.’ Everybody thought it was funny, but I didn’t. I thought it was too confrontational. Don’t be confrontational towards a man with that much power. We’re bikers. Don’t think you have that much power in this world.”

  One full-patch member who stayed on was Sylvain (20/20) Vachon, a former minor league hockey enforcer from Sherbrooke, Quebec. Vachon loved the sport so much he once bought his own hockey team. Eventually, he had to leave the game because no one wanted to fight him, fearing any confrontation on the ice would spill over onto the streets and involve the Hells Angels. His nickname “20/20” came from the American newsmagazine, and it was in reference to the massive publicity his hockey sideline brought him, including a mention in Sports Illustrated.

  Campbell was also impressed with a striker from Copper Cliff, near Sudbury, named Phil Boudreault. Boudreault had been raised without a father and at a young age assumed the role of man of the house for his mother and two little brothers. He could be a good student when he applied himself, and he could also be a major public menace, as he was quick with his fists and his temper. He channelled his aggression into boxing, fighting for Canada in the light welterweight division at the 1996 Olympics before turning pro, billed as “the Sudbury Sensation.”

  Boudreault had been with the Satan’s Choice while he was boxing for Canada, but kept it low-key so that the Olympic association wouldn’t get riled up. Senior members such as Campbell, Doug Hoyle and Bernie Guindon struck him as impressive father figures. “They don’t make men like they used to,” Boudreault says. “I wish everybody was like that.”

  He didn’t medal at the Atlanta Olympics, but he fought well, winning one match and losing another. He sat beside his daughter and former wife in a Mustang convertible in a parade through Sudbury when local Olympians returned home, waving to fans like a conquering hero. An autograph signing at a wine and cheese party followed, and everything was festive until police arrived with an outstanding arrest warrant.

  His ex-wife and daughter were understandably upset by the rude end to the festivities, but Boudreault laughed off the homecoming parade debacle with Campbell, whom he started calling Dad. “I’ve heard about him since I was a young kid,” Boudreault says. “Never anything negative. Always positive, as for the one-percent side. He’s just a man standing by his beliefs. He doesn’t sway side to side.… When I look at him, I see myself as time will pass.… I always felt that was me, just an older version of me.” Boudreault was also impressed by Campbell’s punching power, even in his post-fifty years. “He’s got a really, really hard shot. He throws it like it’s the last punch he’ll ever throw.”

  Something about Campbell’s attitude also clicked with Boudreault. “Life’s too short to be asking, ‘Can I do this? Can I do that?’ ” Boudreault respected how Campbell didn’t act like a victim when things got rocky, for example during extended stays behind bars. “Lorne gets his time and he never cried about it. Never bitched about it. Just did his time.”

  Once, at a crowded bar, Campbell bumped into someone or someone bumped into Campbell. Whatever the case, Boudreault immediately corked the stranger with a stiff hook. “Phil, you don’t have to do that,” Campbell said.

  “He bumped into you.”

  Another evening, Boudreault was at a party with his girlfriend at the clubhouse bar. He earnestly approached Campbell.

  “If there’s somebody that I want to punch out, can I do it?” he asked.

  There are definite rules in the outlaw biker world about whom you can and whom you cannot punch out. If a member hits another member, it can result in as little as a hundred-dollar fine. If two members are fighting, rules forbid the use of weapons and “pile-ons,” or others joining in, but kicking, punching, gouging and biting are permissible. If a non-member hits a member, then all rules are off and other members are expected to join in. “Then you’ll see a group situation. It’s not a pretty sight.” When Mother McEwan and others boot-fucked Campbell as he fought with Dave Seguin in 1976 at the Montreal Choice clubhouse, it wasn’t just nasty: they were in clear violation of one-percenter rules.

  As a senior club member, Campbell had a role in regulating violence, which is why Boudreault showed him the respect of asking him before laying a beating on someone.

  “Why’s that?” Campbell asked.

  “Someone’s coming on to my old lady.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I have told him [to stop] a couple of times.”

  “Sure, it’s okay then,” Campbell said, returning to his beer as Boudreault headed back to the bar.

  For some reason, Campbell thought Boudreault was complaining about a non-member sitting at the bar by the fridge. There was no rule against punching out an obnoxious non-member.

  “Who do you think it is?” a member asked Campbell.

  “That guy at the bar.”

  “No, it’s Terry.”

  Terry was Terry Pink, a full-patch member. Boudreault was then a “prospect,” which was the Hells Angels’ equivalent of the probationary rank of striker in the Choice. It was strictly against club rules for a prospect to hit a full member, and yet punching out Pink was exactly what Campbell had given Boudreault permission to do. Making it worse, Boudreault’s punches would smash into Pink’s face with world-class precision. “Phil was just about to fill him in and I got between them. I explained that I thought it was a different guy.” Boudreault respectfully assented to Campbell’s wishes and stepped away, leaving Pink with no clue how close he’d come to a righteous pounding.

  Campbell then tried to tell Pink to knock it off. He hadn’t particularly liked Pink before and now he liked him less, patch or not. “He was arrogant, like his shit doesn’t stink.”

  Boudreault accompanied Campbell overseas in May 2002, when the Hells Angels celebrated the tenth anniversary of their North Coast charter in Holland, which they preferred to call Helland. Amsterdam is a preferred point of entry for bikers going to Europe, and members there are comfortable with their role as biker hosts. There were more than 125 Hells Angels charters in Europe, and the Dutch prided themselves on being unsurpassed in hospitality. “You can’t pay for anything. I offered to pay and it was an insult.” While the Dutch Angels were hospitable to outsiders, members of the Dutch Nomads charters were often brutal to each other. Campbell was in Holland with Ian Watson of Barrie when Watson felt he needed to say something. “He said, ‘I can’t believe them Holland Nomads. They punch each other all the time.’ I said, ‘Don’t look behind you, it’s happening again.’ The [Dutch Nomads] president was punching a guy in the head six times or so.”

  In Amsterdam, Campbell met a biker from California nicknamed “Tiny” who was bigger than Paul (Sasquatch) Porter of Ottawa, and Porter tipped the Toledos at somewhere close to five hundred pounds. “I couldn’t believe the size of the motherfucker. He was the biggest Tiny I had ever seen.”

  The Dutch bikers loved Boudreault’s swagger and suggested that Campbell give him a death head patch on the spot, signifying full membership in the club. Normally, that’s something that’s done only after a prospect’s home charter holds a vote. Campbell was certain they would approve his membership and was swayed by the enthusiasm of the Dutchmen, several of whom were charter presidents. They were already offering Boudreault free drinks in the clubhouse, even though strikers and hangarounds are expected to refrain from imbibing on club property. “They really liked him. They were treating him like he already was a member.”

  Campbell asked Boudreault to meet
him in what they both like to describe as a “seedy Amsterdam motel room.” That’s when Campbell welcomed him into the club and handed him a death head patch. It was the silk-threaded version that’s popular in Europe, rather than the Canadian cloth model. “He was shocked.” Both men revelled in the moment. “He reminds me of when I was younger. He don’t back down from anybody. People will make money off of him and his reputation without him even knowing.” Says Boudreault: “I don’t care if everybody [else] doesn’t respect me. As long as he respects me, I can go to bed.”

  It was while travelling overseas that Campbell got a measure of the respect in which Canadian Hells Angel Walter (Nurget) Stadnick is held in the club worldwide. Stadnick wears “Hell” rather than “Hells” on a patch under his ribs, a comment on the hell he went through when he was severely burned after his motorcycle collided with a car driven by a priest. The accident took place when Stadnick was riding to a biker funeral and the priest was driving to the papal visit. Campbell heard about an incident when another biker in Europe had a “Hell” patch too, and Stadnick successfully ordered the biker to immediately remove it so that he alone could wear it. “He flipped out when someone else wore ‘Hell’ instead of ‘Hells.’ [It was like] ‘If you’ve been through the hell I’ve been through.’ He was a god wherever he travelled. I maintain that the reason is that he did everything for the Hells Angels.”

  It was easy to imagine Stadnick as a wartime general. In a sense that was true, and the war was far from over.

  ———

  Like many television watchers across the Commonwealth, Campbell and Evelyn perched themselves on the couch in July 2002 to watch a parade for Queen Elizabeth II, celebrating her half-century on the throne. Nothing about that moment was as interesting as watching her gold-gilded carriage roll past a sea of red and blue bunting and Union Jacks, led by a procession of her subjects. Of particular interest that day was Alan (Snob) Fisher, a full-patch Hells Angel from west London. Snob rode at the head of a pack of fifty motorcycles—one for each year Queen Elizabeth II sat on the throne. Absent from any guest list was Johnny Sombrero, the Toronto biker who had written to the Queen some four decades earlier, asking for a charter to rid Canada of outlaw bikers. “Ev and I were at home watching it from the start just to see the Hells Angels lead the parade. It was a proud moment.”