Prosecution efforts to brand Ontario's Hells Angels a criminal organization have displayed one striking shortfall, an extortion trial was told yesterday: evidence from Ontario.
Instead, the court was told, Crown attorney Graeme Cameron has relied largely on events in Quebec to support his thesis that the Angels is an innately criminal grouping.
"This is a curious gap in the prosecution's case," said lawyer Margaret Bojanowska, co-defence counsel for accused Hells Angel Steven (Tiger) Lindsay.
While not disputing that the Hells Angels' track record in Quebec is drenched in crime, Ms. Bojanowska said, "There is no relevance to the issues before the court."
Mr. Lindsay and fellow biker Raymond Bonner, both full-patch members of the Angels' Woodbridge chapter, north of Toronto, stand jointly accused of trying to extort $75,000 from a Barrie-area businessman.
But in what might otherwise be a run-of-the-mill extortion case, the two men are also accused of acting "in association with" an identifiable criminal group, namely the Hells Angels.
That additional charge was laid under Canada's revised anti-gang legislation, in what is seen as a test case for the new law.
Mr. Cameron contends that when Quebec's Hells Angels spread into Ontario four years ago, in a "patchover" ceremony that added 179 of the province's outlaw bikers to the organization, the expansion was all about control of the drug trade.
But the evidence he has presented has little bearing on Ontario's Hells Angels, Ms. Bojanowska told Madam Justice Michelle Fuerst of Ontario Superior Court, who is hearing the case without a jury.
Notwithstanding the motorcycle colours, rules, traditions and hierarchical structure shared by all Hells Angels, individual chapters retain a wide degree of autonomy, she said.
"The Hells Angels motorcycle club does not function as an integrated whole."
Last year, in an effort to show otherwise, Mr. Cameron brought before the court four witnesses acknowledged as biker experts, plus a police officer with wide experience in the same field.
Collectively, those experts testified that with chapters around the world, the Hells Angels comprise a tightly knit, crime-oriented clan.
But none of the five is currently a police officer in Ontario, and Ms. Bojanowska said their evidence displayed a "glaring gap."
Chiefly missing from their overview, she said, were specifics about investigations or convictions involving the Hells Angels in Ontario.
Among the witnesses was Quebec RCMP Staff Sergeant Jacques Lemieux, who said he was aware only of two continuing Hells Angels-related prosecutions in Ontario, one of which is this trial.
Of Ontario's 178 full-patch Angels, just three are in jail, Staff Sgt. Lemieux told the court, compared to 37 in Quebec, where membership is believed to be about 80.
Ms. Bojanowska also cited police wiretaps in which Ontario Hells Angels are overheard talking about how different they are from their Quebec brethren.
"We love them, we respect them, but we're not the same," one Angel is heard to remark. "I don't walk down the street and . . . blow people away."
In another interception, an Angel says: "You know, we're not all jetting over to Colombia to get 100 [kilos of cocaine]"
In what is the last phase of the on-off trial, which commenced in September, Mr. Cameron will begin his final submissions today.
For the organized-crime component of the charge to stick, Judge Fuerst will first have to accept the predicate offence of extortion.
That would mean accepting the broad truth of the Barrie-area businessman who said the two bikers shook him down three years ago.
Through another man, he had sold the bikers $75,000 worth of obsolete software designed to permit the theft of satellite television signals.
Yesterday, Mr. Bonner's co-counsel, Brian Grys, heaped scorn on the man's testimony, which was sprinkled with inconsistencies and contradictions, and he urged Judge Fuerst to reject it.
"This is a dishonest man in a dishonest business . . . who lies at the drop of the hat," Mr. Grys said.
Mr. Lindsay has entered a guilty plea to the extortion charge but it remains to be seen whether it will be accepted since he only acknowledges part of what is alleged. He has not pleaded guilty to the criminal organization charge.