Unrepentant

by Peter Edwards

  Hey There:

  Pretty hard to get a visit around here. I guess they’re still having their problems.

  It’s 2:00 pm so I don’t think the dentist is in the picture for 2-day. I’ll have to wait till after the prelim is over.…

  And that’s it for now. Here’s a smile for you. [happy face]

  I Love you

  Lorne XOXO

  On May 2, Campbell’s journal summarized his experience in the Don, which was about to end:

  3 to cell—original built for 1

  —clothing changes 1 every 3 wks

  —yard … sometimes not for wks

  —lock down due to job acshone by guard—threats on black guard

  —lockdown no visits because guards refuse to work because concerns over weapons in jail

  —slept on floor beside toilet when 3 to cell

  toilets flood whole range, piss, shit everywhere (2 inches, 5X)

  constantly sick, dirty have to steal clean and disinfctant to clean cells.

  After thirteen months in the Don, Campbell was finally transferred to the Metro East Detention Centre. Lockdowns at the East weren’t quite as severe as at the Don. The cells were a little cleaner and less crowded, and the ventilation was better. As best he could, Campbell took up the same routine he had followed in the Don. When he was permitted to leave his cell, he spent much of his time in a special seat, where Campbell and Campbell alone could sit and play solitaire.

  The transfer to the East signalled the start of his preliminary hearing, which began May 5. Finally, the legal process was moving ahead. There were daily trips to the Eglinton Avenue courthouse in suburban Scarborough, papers to study and talks with the lawyers.

  On the first day of the preliminary, Campbell joined his co-accused in the prisoners’ bullpen in the basement of the courthouse. He made it clear what he expected from them. They hadn’t been through the court system as he had, and none of them had done serious prison time. “Throughout this, nobody is going to see you arguing,” Campbell said. “We’re all Hells Angels. Suck it up. Act solid. Act together. Don’t let anyone see us disorganized. Do not argue in front of people. Do not talk about Hells Angels.”

  On their way to court each morning in the back of a transfer vehicle, the Angels picked the locks of their handcuffs and leg restraints with a plastic comb so they could stretch out and ride in more comfort. When they were pulling up to the jail, they’d click them back on again. It felt good to be free, but also to outwit the system, if only for a few minutes. One day, a guard opened the wagon earlier than expected and saw them all relaxing with their wrists free.

  “Fuck,” was the best Campbell could say.

  If the guard had wanted to press the issue, they could all have been charged with attempting to escape, even though the Angels all silently put their manacles back on. “He never said a word.”

  One day on their ride into court, a young black prisoner rode with them. They didn’t talk to him but undid his cuffs as a courtesy. “You guys without a doubt are the coolest motherfuckers I ever met,” he said as they continued their conversation, ignoring him.

  Campbell was saddened to hear how the grade nine daughter of Adolfo Rengel, a court officer who handled him, had been murdered on New Year’s Day 2008. Stefanie Rengel had been lured from her home, stabbed six times and left to die in a snowbank just metres from her home. She was the victim of an obsessively jealous teenaged girl she had never met who was dating her former boyfriend. “He was a good guy. He always would talk to us, driving us back and forth to the preliminary. He’d remember our names and say, ‘How are you doing?’ Just a nice guy. A lot of these guys are ignorant. He wasn’t. I said, ‘Sorry to hear what happened.’ He said, ‘Thank you.’ ”

  The preliminary was a chance to get out of jail for a few hours and see fellow club members, but there was a price. Each day, when they came back from court and put their court clothes away, they had to pull down their underwear and bend over for an up-close inspection. “The women guards are right there. It’s extremely, extremely demeaning.” It was the same routine when a team of a half-dozen guards made surprise checks on their cells. Prisoners were ordered out, one by one, and told: “Drop your boxers. Now bend over. Pull back your ass cheeks.”

  “Why do six guys have to look at your asshole?”

  Family pictures and letters were eyeballed. All of their things from the canteen, such as gum and potato chips, would be mixed together in a pile, along with their bedding. “You didn’t know what sheets are yours. What property is yours. I used to tell those guys, ‘In a penitentiary you would not get away with that.’ They’d say, ‘What do you mean?’ I’d say, ‘You would fucking be jumped and have the shit kicked out of you. Or you would have a grievance against you. And we are not convicted.’ They would never go into your cell in a prison. Guys would freak.”

  Things were a little better now for Evelyn. When Campbell was at the Don, she would sometimes make the two-hour drive down to Toronto only to hear there was a prisoner lockdown and she couldn’t get a visit. Often Evelyn had to make four drives to the Don in one week to yield just two visits. She was waiting tables at a golf club at the time, so it was hard to take when she gave up sleep and made the long trip only to be told she couldn’t see her husband. At the East Detention Centre, staff often let her know in advance when visiting privileges were cancelled, to spare her the drive. Other times, they just let her visit anyway.

  Campbell wanted to be in shape physically when his trial finally started. He developed a fitness programme at the East, running twice around a tiny yard, which was half the size of a hockey rink, then alternating laps between running and walking. He was only supposed to be outside for twenty minutes a day, so this was as much running as he could get in.

  In the winter, he lay on his back alone in the snow in the yard and made snow angels, which brought a laugh from the guards. Perhaps they thought he was making a statement. Campbell swears he was just playing in the snow.

  Once a week, he went to Native smudge ceremonies. There was something about the people there that he felt he could trust. “They were really nice people. There were white guys and black guys too. It was nothing in this room went out of this room.” While in the Native group, he made a dream catcher for Evelyn, designed to catch evil spirits.

  A judge came in once to speak to prisoners and Campbell was curious what she would have to say. A few inmates giggled and heckled and farted loudly to disrupt her, while others asked questions of breathtaking stupidity. “Do you know that the police lie?” one agitated prisoner called out, and then gave a convoluted description of his case that was impossible to follow, except for the fact that he’d thrown illegal drugs away while being chased by police and then been charged anyway. The prisoner seemed to think the judge would be shocked by the injustice of this. “I don’t know your case,” the judge diplomatically replied.

  “She was trying to help,” Campbell remembers. He had trouble containing his rage against inmates who ruined the meeting, especially the moron whining about his drug arrest. “I thought, ‘You fucker. Fucking bonehead. Is that why you came here?’ I had a couple of questions but didn’t get to ask them. When we were leaving, I apologized to her. She just smiled back.”

  On May 24, 2008, Campbell sent Evelyn a plain card:

  Hey You:

  And this is the card they sent me. It’s a good thing that some of us care.

  anyway happy anniversary and I so much wish I was out there with you.

  I love you with all my being

  Lorne XOXO

  On June 2, Campbell wrote his lawyer, Tony Bryant:

  We know that the police are trying to put us all in jail. Just because you are not paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. [Happy face].…

  We are “tightening up” to protect our way of life. No more—no less.

  Then he wrote about transcripts of the secret recordings made by Shakey Dave Atwell, the friend turned police agent.
“Him and Rod Barry talking about an eightball. It occurs to me that Attwell [sic] is instigating the so called drug talk in the clubhouse.”

  On June 4, Campbell again wrote Evelyn. He didn’t have much to say, but the letter was a form of contact nonetheless:

  Hey:

  John and I are sitting here in our cell just thinking that they’re pulling the same things on us as they are on them terrorists that are in the papers lately. It seems everywhere we are we’re being recorded. Oh well.

  There were a couple of paragraphs about a family member who was having troubles, and then he signed off.

  A biker friend wrote on June 10 to state: “Remarkable how good and loyal and strong Evelyn has been through this whole ordeal. You have every reason to be proud of her.”

  The letter writer also noted that the son of a Hells Angel in San Quentin had been killed: “He was shot to death leading a funeral procession for J.R., a brother from Sonoma County that died in prison of cancer.” He continued: “These are difficult times and your strength feeds us all. I am proud to be your brother and I know your support will help get through this. One day all of us that are separated by bars and borders will be sitting in a hot tub in a bordello in some place where they can’t keep us apart.”

  ———

  On Sunday, June 15, Campbell wrote Evelyn:

  Hey there:

  Well we’re just sitting here on Father’s Day laughing at our cell mate.

  I didn’t know till an hour ago that he’s in here for robbing a bank. Listening to him tell the stories is enough to keep us entertained for a while.

  Any way here’s a Garfield cartoon that I got a kick out of. It’s a good one to hang on the fridge.

  So goodnite and I’ll see ya tomorrow at court.

  I Love You

  Lorne XOXO

  The inscription on the Garfield card read: “Thinking of you adds a wonderful touch of love to my every day.” The drawing showed Garfield the cat preparing to kick Odie the dog and then missing. He walks away in frustration, sneaks up behind the dog again, kicks him hard, and then thinks, “It’s tough getting old.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Holding Pattern

  the only thing I miss more than you … you and me!

  card from EVELYN to Lorne Campbell

  Evelyn kept sending Campbell reading material, including the June 16, 2008, edition of Maclean’s magazine, which had the front-page headline BUSTED: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE BERNIER SCANDAL. The headline alluded, not so subtly, to a cavernous cleavage shot on the cover of Julie Couillard, a former squeeze of a senior Quebec Hells Angel, who moved on to date Canadian foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier. Evelyn also constantly sent cards with stories about their dogs and cars and her jobs, such as waiting tables at a golf course and customer service at Walmart. One card showed kids enjoying a picnic, and it contained the message: “the only thing I miss more than you … you and me! I love you.” There were only so many ways of saying the same thing, but Evelyn kept on trying. On November 18, she wrote a note that said: “Well, it’s pretty lonely without you. Writing cards is not the same eh. But that will change + we can be laying in the bedroom watching T.V. together pretending it’s not snowing haha.”

  She also sent one to their friend and club member Shaun Robinson, who was also in custody awaiting charges from the Project Develop raids. It read: “Welcome to your new home.”

  Plenty of women Campbell had never met also took the time to write him, after getting his name and address from biker-friendly websites. One woman named Ruth (a.k.a. “hotmom”) noted she was forty-two and a single mother:

  Hi Lorne, how are you keeping? I do hope well! I do hope you don’t mind me writing you but I want to send some love and let ya know I’m a supporter. I do think they should free all angels.

  I’m a platinum blonde, 5-2, 109 pds, have 5 tats … 2 angels on each top thigh (on the side) and my lower back has a cross with a design on each side going to my hips. Planning on getting more.… Do you have kids? Are you married?

  There was also a troubling letter from a woman he had known back when she was ten years old and he was in his late twenties. Tina Fudge clearly wasn’t seeking male companionship of the romantic kind when she wrote from the Vanier Detention Centre in Milton, outside Toronto, where she was awaiting trial on a murder charge: “Fuck I tell ya things sure have changed since prison for woman days—this place is a joke. These girls think being Queer is kissing a girl—well I say Come over to my room I’ll show you a few licks, oops I mean tricks ha, ha!”

  Campbell remembers visiting her home when she was a little girl. “Her father was always in the pen. She and her sister were expected to have sex with visitors to their home when they were just kids. They didn’t have a chance to learn any different.”

  Campbell’s sixtieth birthday fell on Tuesday, September 2, 2008. On that milestone day, Campbell’s journal entry shows he celebrated alone by doing 1,081 push-ups. His goal had been 1,000, but he added 81 for good measure because “81” is a nickname for the Hells Angels—H being the eighth letter of the alphabet and A the first.

  By December, it was so cold in Campbell’s cell that he could see his breath. He complained daily to jail officials about the lack of proper heating and wrote the provincial ombudsman. He received a letter dated December 16 in which the ombudsman suggested he submit a written request to the jail superintendent.

  Campbell’s comment in his diary for March 27, 2009, reads: “Talked to the Rabbi and signed a paper to start the Kosher diet.”

  In his constant quest for better food behind bars, Campbell revived an old trick from prison and looked into changing religions. Now, he decided it was high time to become Jewish. That revelation hit him after he was impressed with the look of the kosher meals of fellow Hells Angel Mark (Bullet) Bodenstein. Any religion that allows for so much tasty fish couldn’t be all bad in Campbell’s books. Campbell told a jail chaplain that he was seeking to become a Jew, and the matter settled deep into the back of his mind until a guard stopped by his cell one day.

  “Campbell, the rabbi is here to see you.”

  Campbell thought it would take much longer to set up the meeting, and he hadn’t put much thought into his Judaism conversion story.

  “Your name’s Campbell,” the rabbi noted. Perhaps he already sensed that Campbell sought kosher fish and chicken, not religious conversation.

  “My mother’s Jewish.”

  “Well, what’s her last name?”

  Campbell was flustered. His mind blanked. No Jewish names came immediately to mind. Somehow, he hadn’t expected the question. At least not yet. The best he could manage was to ask the rabbi to speak with Evelyn, who was no more Jewish than Campbell.

  The rabbi was no fool. Campbell attempted to rally by saying, “I left home when I was just a little kid,” as if that would explain why he couldn’t recall his mother’s maiden name. He tried to gain a bit of control in the conversation by adding, “I’d really like a Jewish Bible. Could you get me one?” The rabbi’s face showed things had just gone from bad to worse in less time than it takes to eat a bagel and lox. “He knows I’m lying. I know he knows I’m lying.”

  That was the last time Campbell saw the rabbi. The chaplain who arranged the meeting also wasn’t impressed. Normally a cheerful woman, now she seemed to scowl at Campbell whenever she wasn’t ignoring him altogether. It was a side of her Campbell hadn’t seen before, and it was unsettling. “She liked everybody.”

  ———

  A March 27 story from the Toronto Sun noted that Gerald (Skinny) Ward, head of the Niagara Falls Hells Angels, had been sentenced to nine years in prison for instructing others to commit an offence on behalf of a criminal organization. Ward had already pleaded guilty to trafficking cocaine and possessing the proceeds of crime—$304,000 in cash, found in Ward’s home after his arrest in September 2006. Like Campbell, a member of the club had turned against him. In Ward’s case, it was Steven (Hannibal) Gault, the form
er Oshawa Hells Angel who made more than a million dollars working for police as a paid agent between the spring of 2005 and fall of 2006. Campbell had only talked with Gault a couple of times, but he found there was something off-putting about the way he wouldn’t nod until Campbell nodded first. “He looked sneaky. He just didn’t look right.”

  Other articles Campbell read behind bars included one published in the Toronto Star on March 27 about how Raymond Desfosses, a high-ranking member of Montreal’s notorious West End Gang, and Frédéric Faucher, former leader of the Rock Machine, had been arrested along with eight others in Quebec in connection with dozens of murders linked to outlaw biker gangs between 1978 and 2003. Five of the victims were killed by accident. Police said the roundup was partly based on information provided by Gérald Gallant, a contract killer who turned police informant after committing twenty-seven murders himself and attempting another twelve. It was obvious that the more clubs got into drugs, the more blood was spilled and the more informer problems they developed. Old moral lines about police doing deals with the devil were now so blurred as to be non-existent.

  Campbell couldn’t control the outside world, but he could manage his health up to a point. His April 11, 2009, journal entry noted: “Started DIET Squats (240) No bread, potatoes, desserts, chocolate, sugar and no eating after supper.” He could also zone out by losing himself in a game of chess. On June 9, he received a printout of “Rules of Chess” from Tony Biancafiore, the Angel who had been photographed shaking the hand of Toronto mayor Mel Lastman.

  Campbell sent a letter to Evelyn on Monday, August 10 about Prison Justice Day, an event organized by his old friend Rick Sauvé. It was an attempt to call attention to violence against inmates and involved a daylong fast. His note to her mentioned how authorities tried to cut a deal with charter president John (Winner) Neal, the former Para-Dice Rider member who was caught up in the same sweep that put Campbell in jail: