Unrepentant

by Peter Edwards

  During the preliminary hearing, Campbell watched as Bayani sat quietly near Evelyn in the public area of the courtroom. Bayani was free on bail and curious to hear what was being said about him. One day, he heard the police intercept of a conversation in which Bahman ridiculed Bayani’s clothing and then threatened to chop him up into little bits.

  “I didn’t know where to look,” Evelyn recalls. “He smiled.”

  Campbell was also watching Bayani’s face, and found himself thinking he would be a good man to stand beside in a war. “I’ve been involved in a lot of violence. I looked at him and thought, ‘So has he.’ He didn’t let anything bother him. I never met him in the life, but I liked his style.”

  After three months of pretrial wrangling, Campbell was eager to defend himself. Bryant set the tone for his defence when he opened the actual trial before Justice Maureen Forestell by filing a statement from Campbell that became the trial’s first exhibit. It was an acknowledgement that he was a full-patch Hells Angel, and proud of it.

  As the trial began, Campbell became concerned that Juicy seemed prepared to cut a deal and plead guilty to conspiracy. To protect the club as a whole, Campbell quickly moved to put the brakes on any individual deal-making. By their very nature, conspiracy charges involve more than one person. “I told him, ‘Juicy, don’t do that. Don’t tell me you can make a deal for conspiracy and not involve anyone else.’ ”

  Juicy agreed and didn’t go ahead with any conspiracy deal. He immediately pleaded guilty to nine charges of trafficking drugs and possession of the proceeds of crime. He entered not-guilty pleas to possession of brass knuckles and to trafficking drugs and guns to benefit a criminal organization.

  In her opening remarks, Crown attorney Tanit Gilliam said that Atwell’s undercover operation was halted after Myles grilled him in February 2007 about his involvement in a number of cocaine and GHB deals gone bad. That was around the time Shakey Dave started acting whiny to Campbell about people saying mean things about him. Gilliam told the court that Neal, Myles and Pooler stepped in to arrange payment of Bahman’s drug debt: “This was done in order to protect the reputation and good name of the Hells Angels.” Lawyers for Neal, Myles and Pooler countered that the Toronto Hells Angels weren’t trying to traffic GHB, just protect Bahman’s skin from angry drug dealers from B.C. As the Angels saw things, they were now being punished for peacemaking.

  Amidst the intrigue and talk of murder plots, there was time for a food fight. Legal affairs writer Tracey Tyler of the Toronto Star reported that Toronto jail residents such as Campbell received only $1.19 worth of food for their lunch, which often was no more than a semi-nutritious cheese sandwich and a glass of water with artificial flavour crystals. That paled compared with the $5.89 spent for jailhouse lunches in Newfoundland, where prisoners often dined on grilled salmon and grilled chicken pitas, roast beef, mashed potatoes and coleslaw, which they could wash down with skim milk. In the end, the Downtown Toronto Angels were allowed to buy their own lunches from the court cafeteria. While this meant healthier, better-tasting food, it also meant an added expense of thousands of dollars for Evelyn as the trial dragged on. Campbell’s diary entry for Tuesday, October 19 read: “5.05 Breakfast. Motion to sit beside my lawyer denied. Won the food fight. We are allowed lunch from caf. We pay. No hot.”

  When Shakey Dave Atwell took the stand in mid-November, he was dressed in a conservative business suit, shirt and tie, and looked like an undertaker, not a biker. He quickly told the court he expected to spend the rest of his life in hiding.

  “I’m a … rat,” he told Crown attorney Faiyaz Alibhai. “I’ve got to be hiding for the rest of my life, sir.”

  As Shakey Dave confided his fears, his former clubmates showed not even a flicker of sentiment towards him. This was according to plan. It was like the shunning by a strict religious order of a wayward former member, whose very existence is not worthy of the slightest acknowledgement. Campbell had reminded the others in the box to keep any reactions in check: “ ‘Do not make any emotion towards anybody. Don’t huff. Don’t make a face.’ It was hard. Even for me. It just looks bad, and it’s a kid thing to do.” He gave the same caution to Evelyn, who was in a front row of the courtroom daily. Atwell craved attention and Campbell didn’t want them to give him any.

  Shakey Dave fought to keep his voice even as he noted there was a photo of Steve (Hannibal) Gault on the walls of clubhouses across the province. Written over Gault’s photo inside the Toronto clubhouse were the words “Rat” and “LIAR.”

  Evelyn, meanwhile, studied the eyes of jurors. She felt that one of them had a crush on Tony Bryant, as she seemed to have a bad case of “moon eyes.” That was good. However, two of them seemed to have a crush on Atwell. That was very bad.

  Atwell continued his testimony, noting that some members of the club once wore patches on their vests that read “Filthy Few.” He explained: “Those members of the Hells Angels have killed for the club.” That had recently been replaced by a patch called “Front Line” after “Filthy Few” began to attract too much police and media attention, he said. In fact, the Downtown Toronto Hells Angels routinely swept their fortified clubhouse for police listening devices and spoke with hand signals and code words when discussing drug deals. “There was a lot of note writing, and you’d burn the note afterwards. There was a lot of talking in code and signals.” Code for a kilogram of cocaine was holding car keys, while touching one’s nose meant cocaine. Rubbing a thumb over a cheek meant “Mafia,” while tugging on a sleeve was shorthand for buying drugs on the cuff, with payment coming later. He added that he personally had upgraded the infrared security camera system around the clubhouse.

  Atwell said that the clubhouse had a sliding steel front door and concrete pillars—disguised as flower planters—to slow down any police battering rams heading their way. Cocaine and marijuana were freely consumed inside the Eastern Avenue clubhouse, Atwell continued, and he personally had been a frequent and enthusiastic user. “You go to a biker party, there are guys smoking pot in one corner and guys doing lines of cocaine in another corner.”

  Campbell’s journal entry for Thursday, December 2 was printed below a particularly apt line of Scripture: “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked”—Isaiah 57:21. Campbell’s entry that day read: “Got in a fight in medical bull pen & put in the hole. Misconduct.”

  His heart troubles re-emerged and seeing a doctor while in custody was always a strain. “You can’t get upset with the doctor in there. They’d take you and throw you in the hole.” One day when court wasn’t sitting, Campbell went to the jail’s medical centre. When he got up to ask a question, a young convict rushed into his seat.

  “I’m sitting here,” Campbell said.

  “Fuck you,” the inmate replied.

  “He felt like picking on the old guy. I hit him six or seven times.” Before each shot, Campbell called out, “Watch out.” The younger prisoner wasn’t able to connect with shots of his own. “While they were taking me away, I said, ‘Nice try, kid.’ ”

  On Friday, January 14, Andre Watteel of the Kitchener Angels sent Campbell a card from jail in Hamilton. Two days earlier, Watteel had been hit with a 6½-year sentence for trafficking in cocaine and possessing the proceeds of crime. He had earlier pleaded guilty to selling almost a kilogram of high-grade cocaine to police during twenty-eight separate deals.

  He was ordered to return the sixty thousand dollars that police provided to an undercover agent to buy the cocaine, as well as forfeit a PT Cruiser he drove during some of the coke deals. As he passed sentence, Ontario Court Justice John Takach noted that Watteel had been a prominent member of the Satan’s Choice Motorcycle Club before it “patched over” to the Hells Angels in Sorel, Quebec, in December 2000. The judge also noted that Watteel and his wife organized a Christmas toy drive and performed other charitable good deeds in their community. However, Takach continued, these acts of community service were outweighed by the damage drugs cause society. “Coc
aine is an insidious poison that has destroyed innumerable lives,” Takach said. “Even before one ounce reaches the street, it is indubitably soaked with the blood of others.”

  Watteel felt the judge couldn’t see past his Hells Angels membership, writing Campbell: “In my sentencing the judge focused more on my membership than the crimes.… I don’t think anybody gets a fair trial.”

  Back at Campbell’s own trial, there were a few light moments on Friday, February 11 when Downtown vice-president Larry Pooler got to play lawyer and cross-examine Atwell. Jurors and prisoners grinned as Pooler presented himself as a model of civility, looking dapper in a pinstriped charcoal business jacket, with his long grey hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Pooler had been free on strict bail conditions and was acting as his own lawyer in a nine-dollar sports jacket he had bought at a Salvation Army store.

  He asked Atwell to think back to his mother’s death in 2002. “Did the club not support you? Rally around you? Attend the funeral? That kind of thing?” Pooler asked.

  “Some members attended the funeral,” Atwell replied, controlling his emotions.

  For much of his two-hour cross-examination, Pooler asked Atwell about club rules against having unpaid bills or cheating people in business transactions.

  “Would you not agree … that I was a stickler for the rules?” Pooler asked.

  “For some rules,” countered Atwell.

  Pooler asked Atwell what he considered to be Pooler’s line of work. “You had a couple of concerts and bike shows,” he replied. “I never attended any of them.”

  “So I was a self-employed businessman?”

  “Yeah, that would be fair.”

  “Have you known me to be a drug user?” Pooler continued.

  “I thought I seen you smoking a joint. I could be wrong. I never knew you to be a drinker either.”

  Pooler asked Atwell if he could remember serving as a bodyguard for a man named Larry.

  “That guy who pulled a gun on you?”

  Pooler didn’t flinch at the reply, moving on to the next question on several sheets of notes in front of him.

  Some jurors smiled as Pooler scrupulously observed courtroom protocol, addressing Atwell as “Mr. Atwell,” and at one point saying to Justice Forestell, “May I approach the witness, your Honour?”

  “Yes,” the judge replied.

  Atwell had earlier testified that men joining the Hells Angels are required to fill out a form, giving personal information such as the names and addresses of relatives.

  “The form also asked if you might have pets or other issues that require attention?” Pooler asked, referring to a club practice of taking care of each other’s pets when members are suddenly pinched by police.

  Atwell responded with a shrug.

  Pooler asked Atwell about a business dispute over a vehicle sale while Atwell was working as a police agent. “Is it true that you took a baseball bat out of your vehicle and proceeded to smash the lights out of that vehicle?” Pooler asked.

  “I think it was a bat that was [already] there and it was another vehicle,” Atwell replied, as if the clarification made a significant difference.

  Pooler quizzed Atwell on whether he managed to settle all of his debts before he disappeared into witness protection, including one to a man named Lou.

  “You owed some money to the underworld?” Pooler asked.

  “I didn’t,” Atwell said.

  “But he [Lou] believed you did?”

  “He can believe anything he wants.”

  Atwell sounded a bit testy now as Pooler asked if Atwell knew if Lou was connected to serious players in the underworld.

  “I met Peter Scarcella through him,” Atwell replied, referring to the former driver of murdered mobster Paul Volpe. Atwell stopped there, not elaborating on any alleged underworld debts.

  Campbell and Bryant had thought of lightening things up by playing the jury an audio recording of Atwell singing karaoke at a bar with fellow Hells Angels. Shakey Dave had worn only a sheet as he lay on his back and belted out the Ray Stevens novelty tune “Ahab the Arab.” But without video, they decided not to. It might not have made any great legal point, but it would have been fun.

  Bryant had wanted to put Campbell on the stand, but Campbell nixed the idea. The only other time he had testified in court was at the trial for the Bill Matiyek shooting, and that couldn’t have gone much worse. Besides, lead investigator Al Rennie of the OPP likely knew plenty more about the Hells Angels internationally than he did. If Campbell was asked questions that he couldn’t answer, that would only make him look evasive. In the end, none of the Angels took the stand.

  One day in the prisoners’ box, Campbell felt a great weight crushing his chest. There hadn’t been anything particularly exciting or stressful going on when the pains hit. He didn’t want to think it might be his heart, but that was the obvious conclusion. Doug Myles pushed him to tell a court officer. Court was halted as an ambulance was called. Paramedics took his vital signs and then rushed him to the hospital. Two East Detention Centre guards stayed with him throughout. “I was shackled and handcuffed to the hospital bed, but that is standard procedure.”

  The scare happened on one of the few days Evelyn wasn’t in court. Tony Bryant called their close friend Elizabeth Sanchez, who broke the news to her. For a frantic few hours, Evelyn tried to figure out where her husband had been taken and how he was doing. They weren’t any help at the jail, where a guard said words to the effect of: “All we know is that if he doesn’t come back, we put him down as escaped and we go looking for him.” Finally, Evelyn got through to his hospital ward, where a nurse said: “Oh, he’s fine. He’s joking around with all of the nurses.”

  Campbell received a letter sent April 10, 2011, from Sean (9 Fingers) McLay, writing from Gravenhurst minimum-security prison. McLay was in custody for cocaine trafficking and Evelyn had taken him on as a foster child of sorts. She bought 9 Fingers black jeans and T-shirts from Walmarts and Value Villages and Giant Tigers so that he wouldn’t look too raggedy in court. She did the same for other inmates who didn’t have anyone to look out for them. She found that inmates were notoriously bad at estimating their sizes, and she often had to make an educated guess. “He always appreciated that,” Evelyn said. From his cell, 9 Fingers wrote to Campbell:

  I’m here with ‘Forehead’ and Eddie ‘the King of Regent Park’, they both say hi!

  I’m out in 25 days so this will be the last letter from me for awhile as I can’t be in contact with anyone while on parole (14 months). I’ll just be keeping a low profile and working.

  After all the bullshit is done with we should meet up for a drink of scotch. See you then.

  Respects

  Sean 9 fingers

  In his closing remarks in May 2011, Bryant acknowledged that the jurors must be sick of the legal system after nine months of hearing evidence. He quoted from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2, which includes the line: “The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers.” That was always sure to get at least a smile from tired jurors. Then he drew from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and the passage on the trial of the Knave of Hearts, who was accused of stealing the Queen of Hearts’ tarts:

  “Consider your verdict,” the King said to the jury.

  “Not yet, not yet!” the Rabbit hastily interrupted. “There’s a great deal to come before that!”

  Bryant then introduced jurors to writings from the trial in 356 CE of Numerius, a governor in the Roman Empire. “Oh, illustrious Caesar! If it is fit to deny, what hereafter will become of the guilty?” the prosecutor asked, to which Emperor Julian replied, “If it suffices to accuse, what will become of the innocent?”

  Next cited was the fictional lawyer Horace (Rumpole of the Bailey) Rumpole, created by British writer and barrister John Mortimer. “Fictional character though he may be, he did one thing in every case he tried. He would always talk of the golden thread that winds its way through our criminal law: the golden thread
of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Let me repeat that—proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

  “That idea that someone can only be convicted on the basis of proof of the offence beyond a reasonable doubt is a hallmark of the Anglo-Canadian criminal justice system—a bulwark that separates our system from those of other societies considerably less free and democratic.” Bryant was serving the jury feel-good stuff about Western civilization and the basis of British jurisprudence. “Its importance is unchallenged. This golden thread is very much a part of the fabric of Canadian society and was permanently enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms though it existed long before it was written back in the early 80s.”

  Once Bryant finished his remarks, all Campbell could do was return to his cell and wait. “I was relaxed. He [Bryant] made every point. He was shocking and he was brave. He can be arrogant and condescending, but he has a sense of humour and he is loyal and he is extremely smart. A lot of people don’t see his sense of humour. They don’t see his intelligence and his loyalty to his clients. He was there every day. I would rather have no other lawyer on that case.”

  When the jury finally returned on May 23, 2011, after four days of deliberations, none of them looked towards the bikers in the prisoners’ dock.

  “This isn’t good,” Campbell thought.

  CHAPTER 34

  Riding Off

  It used to be you knew who your enemies were.

  LORNE CAMPBELL