As ‘Mom’ Boucher faces new charges, former accomplice seeks parole

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While his former underling will get to apply for early release in about a year, Quebec's most notorious criminal biker is in trouble with the law again, with a report that the police have a video of him shanking another penitentiary inmate.

Maurice (Mom) Boucher and Stéphane (Godasse) Gagné were once close and both are serving life sentences for roles in one of of the most shocking crimes in Canadian crime annals, the random killing of two prison guards in 1997.

But their paths are diverging.

Now 62 and behind bars for the past decade and a half, Mr. Boucher, a former Hells Angels leader, was charged last week with conspiracy to commit murder. Furthermore, a correctional source confirmed that there is an investigation into another incident involving Mr. Boucher. According to Le Journal de Montréal, Mr. Boucher and an accomplice are alleged to have stabbed another long-time convict on Nov. 3.

Meanwhile, Mr. Boucher's one-time subordinate, Mr. Gagné, 45, learned Tuesday he would be eligible to apply for parole on Jan. 1, 2017, six years earlier than usual.

Once eager to kill and hurt people for Mr. Boucher, Mr. Gagné turned informant and his courtroom testimony was crucial in convicting his ex-boss. In return, he was able to apply for release earlier. In his application, which was heard by a jury earlier this month, Mr. Gagné made a tearful apology to his victim's daughter.

Mr. Boucher has shown no sign of mollifying since he went to jail.

Police alleged last week that while his pregnant daughter visited him this year, he spoke in code to her to pass a message that he was conspiring to kill another jailed kingpin, Raynald Desjardins. Mr. Boucher is detained at the Special Handling Unit (SHU), a high-security wing at the Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines penitentiary, north of Montreal.

According to Le Journal de Montréal, three weeks ago, Mr. Boucher and another inmate used homemade picks to attacked another SHU prisoner, 64-year-old Ghislain Gaudet.

A provincial police spokesman would not identify victim or suspects but said the Sûreté du Québec was investigating an aggravated assault on an inmate in his 60s that took place on the evening of Nov. 3.

None of the three would co-operate with the police but investigators have obtained footage from surveillance cameras, the paper reported.

The alleged victim is no choirboy.

Mr. Gaudet has spent nearly the past four decades behind bars. He initially went to the penitentiary on a 13-year sentence for armed robbery and kidnapping.

He then got a life sentence for the slaying of a prison guard, Guy Fournier, who died after a shootout when four inmates escaped from the Saint-Vincent-de-Paul penitentiary in 1978. Mr. Gaudet was recaptured after a week while he and another escapee were hiding in a tent near the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Reports introduced in court describe him as a high-risk, violent inmate who had escaped three times because "he has no hope of leaving prison through normal means."

Unlike Mr. Boucher and Mr. Gaudet, Mr. Gagné has a chance to leave prison through normal channels. As a wannabe biker in the 1990s, he met Mr. Boucher while both served short sentences in a provincial jail.

Afterward, Mr. Gagné joined the junior bikers who did Mr. Boucher's bidding during the violent turf war that pitted the Hells Angels against the Rock Machine for control of Quebec's illicit drug trade. In 1997, Mr. Gagné took part in the random killing of prison guards ordered by Mr. Boucher.

After his arrest, he pleaded guilty to killing prison guard Diane Lavigne and got a life sentence, for which he normally wouldn't have been eligible for parole for 25 years. However, as a favour because he turned informant, prosecutors charged him with only one count of first-degree murder.

That allowed him to apply under the faint-hope clause for parole after 15 years. After reviewing his case, a jury on Tuesday decided he could apply for parole after 19 years and one month.

The National Parole Board will decide his case in 2017.