Firefighters were called to the corner of St-Laurent Blvd. and Legendre St. at 12:50 a.m. Wednesday for a criminally set fire at La Cantina restaurant in Ahuntsic-Cartierville.

This is the second time in less than 10 days that this establishment has been targeted and this time witnesses saw one or two people running away before the blaze started. It was firebombed on Nov. 24.

The damage from this fire is considerable, Montreal police spokesperson Manuel Couture said. No one was inside the restaurant at the time of the fire.

In a related incident, a fire vehicle, driven by the fire captain, answering the call for the blaze at La Cantina, collided with a city bus at 1:05 a.m.

The small fire department truck was travelling east on Sauvé St. when it hit the STM bus travelling north on Meilleur St.

Both drivers were taken to hospital. The streets were snow-slicked at the time of the accident.

asutherland@montrealgazette.com

Hello and welcome to montrealgazette.com and welcome to Midday. Here’s the rundown on some of the stories we’re following for you today.

In a surprise development at the Montreal courthouse on Wednesday, the Crown decided to not proceed with a series of firearms-related cases filed against alleged Mafia leader Antonio (Tony) Mucci and three other people. Prosecutor Véronique Beauchamp announced the decision Wednesday, which was scheduled to be the first of six days set to deal with a motion concerning Philippe Paul, a former Montreal police detective who retired last year while he is being investigated by the RCMP. The motion was intended to challenge the credibility of Paul, one of the investigators in the Mucci case. Beauchamp did not say why the Crown won’t proceed with the trial. She said the Crown won’t file an official indictment, required at the start of any trial. The decision means Mucci and the others aren’t acquitted and can be charged at a later date. Defence lawyer Claude Olivier said afterward that he does not know why the cases were dropped but that he believes it involved his motion concerning Paul. “My opinion is it can’t be any other thing,” Olivier said.

Pierre Karl Péladeau gave away information on his Facebook page that could lead anyone to the premier’s front door. The media mogul and front-runner to replace Pauline Marois at the head of the Parti Québécois posted a document from the Collège des médecins on Monday morning listing Premier Philippe Couillard’s home address and personal phone number. The Collège keeps a directory of all active and retired members within the professional order. The post was edited a few hours later to remove the premier’s contact information after the premier’s office complained to the PQ that the post was “very inappropriate,” Couillard’s press aide Harold Fortin said. “From the moment that you decide to post the personal address of a colleague of the National Assembly — not to mention the premier of Quebec — it’s another demonstration of a lack of judgment,” he added.

An aggressive fire at a duplex in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in the early morning will cause traffic disruptions for much of the day Wednesday. Sherbrooke St. reopened to traffic at 7:50 a.m., but Girouard Ave. remained closed between Sherbrooke St. and Upper Lachine Rd. The fire started at 3 a.m. on the balcony of the building on Girouard near Sherbrooke. It quickly spread and 150 firefighters were called to the scene. Neighbouring buildings were evacuated and 20 people have been given shelter by the Red Cross. One woman was treated for shock at a hospital, fire chief Ian Ritchie said. By 7 a.m. the fire was extinguished, but firefighters will continue to ensure the safety of neighbouring buildings and investigate the cause throughout the morning. So far, the fire is deemed accidental.

The union representing STM bus drivers has called for improvements to the reserved bus lane opened last fall on eastbound Highway 20 to speed up public transit from the West Island to downtown. It appears the $13-million bus lane, which opened Nov. 15, has quickly become a no-go zone, at least for some STM bus drivers. On Tuesday, union president Renato Carlone confirmed some STM drivers are opting not to use the new lane, located to the far left of the eastbound highway’s three lanes of traffic. The union is the Syndicat des chauffeurs d’autobus, opérateurs de métro et employés des services connexes au transport de la STM (SCFP 1983). Since the lane’s opening two months ago, Carlone said, some drivers have raised concerns about the new lane and that “they find it too dangerous at times.”

Stay with us for more on these stories and breaking news as it happens at montrealgazette.com

Despite being on the wrong end of a pair of handcuffs, Montreal police Sgt. André Thibodeau did not appear uncomfortable as he made his first court appearance on charges that he gave the orders in a Mob-tied illegal bookmaking ring.

The 49-year-old supervising patrol officer wore black jeans and a black sweatshirt with a huge “black eagle” logo on the front as he peered around a courtroom at the Laval courthouse, apparently looking for a familiar face.

His lawyer, Normand Bibeau, entered a not-guilty plea to some of the 11 charges Thibodeau faces that needed to be immediately responded to with a plea. The defence lawyer asked that other charges not be read into the court record, allowing Thibodeau the option to enter a plea at a later date. Prosecutor Jean-François Tessier said the Crown is opposed to Thibodeau being released and the case was carried over to Wednesday for a formality hearing. That means Thibodeau agreed to being detained for at least five days before he can have a bail hearing.

“Don’t forget he benefits from the presumption of innocence in court and should with the media as well,” Bibeau said outside the courtroom, adding later he was somewhat surprised the Crown opposed his release.

Isabelle Poulin, another prosecutor in the case, explained to reporters that the prosecution will argue that an informed public might lose faith in the justice system if Thibodeau is released while charged. It is one of three criteria the Crown can refer to when it seeks to deny bail.

“These are serious charges. One carries a maximum 14-year sentence and the other carries a maximum life sentence. That is why we objected to (Thibodeau’s) release,” Poulin said.

On Thursday, Thibodeau was part of a group of a dozen people arrested in Montreal and other cities in Quebec as the result of a two-year investigation of the bookmaking ring ,which the Montreal police alleges has ties to the Mafia in Montreal.

The other alleged leader of the ring, Natalino (Lino) Paccione, 60, of Laval, pleaded guilty in 2011 to taking part in a very sophisticated bookmaking ring that was run and financed by members of the Rizzuto organization. He ended up being sentenced to pay a $20,000 fine.

His lawyer, Éric-Pierre Fugère, also replied “not guilty” to the charges that had to be immediately addressed on Friday.

The most serious charge — the one that carries a maximum life sentence — alleges that Thibodeau and Paccione gave orders to other people involved in the bookmaking ring. The accusation is part of a section of the Criminal Code that covers gangsterism offences. It alleges the pair issued orders “directly or indirectly” to commit a Criminal Code offence “for the profit or under the direction or in association with a criminal organization.”

Another gangsterism charge alleges the pair committed a crime for the profit of a criminal organization. Thibodeau and Paccione are also charged, along with eight other people, with taking part in a conspiracy that ran from Aug. 28, 2012, to Jan. 2, 2015.

Thibodeau also learned that a second indictment has been filed against him alone and accuses him of breach of trust and obstruction of justice.

Vanny Siv, 47, of Laval, was the only other person, among the dozen arrested on Thursday, to appear at the Laval courthouse on Friday. The other nine were apparently released on condition that they appear in court at a later date.

The arrests were part of an investigation by the Montreal police internal affairs unit, which began two years ago when questions were raised about the people Thibodeau associated with.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

twitter.com/pcherryreporter

Paul Cherry is the Montreal Gazette’s crime reporter.

Criminal charges continue to pile up against André Thibodeau, the Montreal police officer arrested last week as the alleged head of a bookmaking ring with ties to the Mafia.

While appearing before a judge at the Laval courthouse on Wednesday, Thibodeau learned he faces at least four new charges on top of the 15 filed against him last week following his arrest on Thursday. The new charges allege Thibodeau was in possession of a firearm that was not stored properly on the day he was arrested.

The new charges were filed as Quebec Court Judge Dominique Larochelle was asked to scheduled Thibodeau’s bail hearing for Friday. The bail hearing with be held at the St-Jérôme courthouse, instead of Laval, because of a shortage of judges and courtrooms available in Laval next week. The bail hearing was originally planned to be held over the course of three days next week, but because of the shortages, both sides in the case agreed to a one-day bail hearing on Friday even though it will be held in a different court district.

Thibodeau’s lawyer, Normand Bibeau, asked Larochelle to order that his client remain in segregated custody because “of his 28 years as a police officer.” Thibodeau then personally asked the judge that he be held in the infirmary of the detention centre where he is currently detained. Larochelle said she can only make the recommendation, but can’t order a provincial detention centre to follow it.

Thibodeau, a Blainville resident, is suspended without pay and turned 50 last weekend while detained. He was arrested along with Natalino Paccione, 60, of Laval, and 10 other people as the result of an investigation by the Montreal police internal affairs division. Paccione, who also appeared before Larochelle on Wednesday, will have his bail hearing on Friday with Thibodeau.

The investigation began two years ago when questions were raised about people Thibodeau was hanging around with.

André Thibodeau had been investigated for two years before his arrest on Thursday.

Paccione was convicted in a case related to Project Colisée, a lengthy investigation into the Mafia in Montreal and its associates. In 2011, Paccione was fined $20,000 after he pleaded guilty to taking part in a very sophisticated bookmaking ring that was financed by leaders within the Rizzuto organization and made an estimated $26 million in profits for the Mob over a period of only two years.

An indictment filed against 10 of the 16 people investigated by the internal affairs division alleges Thibodeau and Paccione gave the orders and committed crimes for the profit of a criminal organization, charges that are commonly referred to as gangsterism. They are the only two people charged in the case so far to be singled out as alleged leaders.

One of the indictments filed specifically against Thibodeau alleges he committed breach of trust against his police force and obstructed justice on three occasions — once on Nov. 28 and twice on Dec. 12, through separate “events.” The charges do not describe what Thibodeau is alleged to have done, but they suggest he suspected he was under investigation late last year. At the time of his arrest, Thibodeau, a sergeant, was working as a supervising patrol officer out of neighbourhood police station 33, in Park Extension.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

Related

• Indictment alleges Montreal cop gave orders in illegal bookmaking ring

André Thibodeau, the Montreal police officer charged with gangsterism this year after he allegedly acted as a leader in a Mafia-linked bookmaking ring, made his first court appearance since his release from custody in January.

Thibodeau, 50, appeared at the Laval courthouse on Friday for a hearing that served as a mere formality before Quebec Court Judge Sandra Blanchard. Through his lawyer, Jonathan Gordon, Thibodeau agreed to a slight modification of the curfew he was ordered to follow when he was released in January.

Gordon informed the court that defence lawyer Jeffrey Boro will eventually represent Thibodeau, who faces a total of 17 criminal charges, including gangsterism and conspiring to run a sports bookmaking ring between Aug. 28, 2012, and Jan. 2, 2015.

Thibodeau, a sergeant and a supervising patrol officer who worked in Parc-Extension, was suspended following his arrest. At the time, his own police force alleged he helped run a bookmaking operation that took illegal bets on sporting events and accepted wagers as high as $125,000. The investigation was conducted by the Montreal police internal affairs division.

Natalino Paccione, 61, of Laval, also made a brief appearance before Blanchard. He was denied bail in January and, of the eight people arrested with Thibodeau in January, is the only one who remains detained.

Most of the seven others arrested in January had their first court date in the case on Friday, but were not required to appear in person. Prosecutor Simon Blais requested that cases against Thibodeau and Paccione return to court on May 27 and that the next date for the seven others be set for June 2.

When Blanchard asked why the nine men should be divided into two groups, Blais explained that Thibodeau and Paccione are the only ones among the charged who will have a preliminary inquiry because they are charged with gangsterism, by allegedly acting as leaders in a criminal organization.

Salvatore (Sam) Biunno, 59, the owner of a Montreal-based company that buys and sells race horses, was one of the seven accused who were not required to be present Friday. Through a lawyer, Biunno entered a not-guilty plea to the charges he faces. Defence lawyer Frédérick Carle also agreed to inform Biunno that he is required to follow a series of conditions while the case is pending. One condition requires that he stay away from the Acropolis Café Bar, on Bloomfield Ave. in Parc-Extension.

Biunno has no criminal record, but was charged in 1993 with running an illegal gaming house in Laval after an investigation by the Sûreté du Québec. He was acquitted six months after being charged.

Like Biunno, at least a few of the other men accused of being part of the bookmaking ring are, or were, the owners of legitimate businesses when they were arrested in January. That includes Athanasios Gomatos, 32, part owner of the Trophy’s sports bar on Crémazie Blvd. W., and Marc Bishara, 41, a St-Laurent resident and part owner of a pharmacy in Montreal.

Sai Ming Poon, 30, of Dorval, the former owner of a sushi restaurant in Drummondville, is also charged in the case.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

twitter.com/PCherryReporter

Anyone who was riveted by the Charbonneau Commission‘s televised public hearings will remember the image of Nicolo Milioto stuffing wads of rolled up cash in his sock at the back of the Montreal Mafia hangout Café Consenza.

So where’s the money that Milioto, a major municipal sidewalk contractor at the time, was seen handling in the company of Nicolo Rizzuto Sr. and his lieutenant, Rocco Sollecito, in an RCMP surveillance video during the corruption hearings ?

For that matter, what do 3% + 2.5% + 1% equal in dollars that were stolen from taxpayers through kickbacks on an unquantified number of municipal construction contracts that were awarded in Montreal?

They are the percentages that former construction boss Lino Zambito and other witnesses testified at the Charbonneau Commission were paid in the mid-2000s on inflated city construction contracts or phoney contract extras to former Union Montreal party fundraiser Bernard Trépanier, the mafia, and city engineer Gilles Surprenant, respectively.

The answers aren’t in the Charbonneau Commission’s 1,741-page report, which it presented this week. The report is instead sprinkled with disparate figures pulled from testimony about illegal cash contributions that went to provincial political parties and Union Montreal, sometimes using false billing, and about some specific kickbacks.

But a dollar tally and a list of recipients are vital to what ought to be the logical next step following the Charbonneau inquiry, says a forensic accountant.

“There should be a separate investigation dealing with what was stolen from the taxpayers, what was skimmed,” said Richard Wise, an investigative and forensic accountant with close to 40 years of experience and a senior partner with the Montreal office of MNP LLP accounting firm.

The Charbonneau Commission, which had 30 investigators including police officers, wasn’t given an express mandate by the Quebec government to follow the money trail and tally how much has been stolen from taxpayers on contracts that were inflated by collusion and kickbacks, Wise noted.

“However, it goes without saying that if bribes were paid and there was skimming and things like that then obviously where did the money go, who received it and how do we trace it?” he said. “And it should be taxed because it’s illicit gains and it’s subject to income tax under the Income Tax Act.”

There are a variety of methods to evaluate what an individual obtained, he said, such as a net-worth assessment and examining a person’s lifestyle.

“It’s not going into his bank account,” Wise said. The money will have gone into cash payments for a kitchen renovation or to pay the gardener or the snow removal guy, he said.

In divorce cases where there’s a dispute over a spouse’s earnings, the other spouse’s lawyer will subpoena the gardener, the contractor, the architect and interior decorator, Wise said. When that person testifies about the details of work that was done, “then you can convert that profile into dollars and cents.”

When his services are called upon in a divorce case, he said, he’ll ask for copies of all pages of the spouse’s passport to look for fishy activity, such as frequent trips to tax havens, and will request a schedule of visits by the person to bank safety deposit boxes.

Revenue Quebec spokesman Stéphane Dion said on Thursday the revenue agency has “several investigations and tax audits underway.”

But he said he has no details to offer for the moment.

“Revenue Quebec followed the work of the Charbonneau Commission with great interest,” Dion said.

“Be assured that Revenue Quebec has taken or will take all necessary action under the tax laws to ensure that the individuals and companies concerned respect their tax obligations.”

The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), which produces intelligence from financial transactions to help law enforcement and national security agencies fight money laundering and terrorist activity financing, also followed the Charbonneau Commission hearings closely, said spokesperson Renée Bercier. However, it too won’t offer details, she said.

The Quebec government launched a program this fall to recoup money that was defrauded in the past 20 years through public contracts. The program gives companies and individuals a year to make arrangements to voluntarily reimburse money from contracts they obtained from public bodies in any industry through collusion, bid-rigging or other fraudulent acts dating back to 1996.

The city of Montreal issued 380 demand letters earlier in November to put firms and individuals on legal notice that the city expects reimbursements from them if they don’t voluntarily reimburse. However, the list is confidential, city spokesperson Gonzalo Nunez said.

Witnesses who testified at the Charbonneau Commission have immunity from having their testimony used against them in other court proceedings.

On the other hand, there’s nothing stopping the authorities from charging a witness if the police can find evidence aside from their testimony to use against them.

But, the RCMP, which has evidence from its decade-old anti-mafia operation, Projet Colisée, showing that multiple municipal construction contractors went to Café Consenza, is non-committal on whether it will use it to pursue cases relating to proceeds from corruption.

Proceeds of crime cases that flowed from Projet Colisée, which led to 90 arrests in 2006, “are done with,” RCMP spokesperson Corporal Camille Habel said.

And testimony from witnesses at the Charbonneau Commission hearings ratting out other witnesses cannot be used as proof, she said.

“It’s worth nothing in court,” Habel said.

“The burden of proof that we need to first of all get someone charged and then for somebody to be found guilty is way beyond what we get from the commission.”

lgyulai@montrealgazette.com

twitter.com/CityHallReport

Lawyers representing the people alleged to be among the more important suspects arrested last month in a police investigation targeting the Mafia and the Hells Angels are still seeking dates for bail hearing for their clients.

The attorneys who are handling the cases of Leonardo Rizzuto, 46, and Stefano Sollecito, 48, appeared before Quebec Court Judge Pierre Labelle at the Montreal courthouse on Thursday but dates for the release hearings were not set.

Danielle Roy, Sollecito’s lawyer, said her client is sick with cancer and is scheduled to see a doctor on Monday. Depending on what the doctor says next week, Roy told Labelle, Sollecito may require a bail hearing sooner rather than later.

Sollecito and Rizzuto were among 48 people arrested or sought on warrants on Nov. 19, in Projects Magot and Mastiffs – joint investigations led by the Sûreté du Québec into drug trafficking conspiracies allegedly run by the Mafia, Hells Angels and street gangs. Rizzuto and Sollecito are charged with committing a criminal act “for the profit of, under the direction of, or in association with a criminal organization.” The pair are also charged with taking part in two different conspiracies to traffic cocaine between Jan. 1, 2013, and Nov. 16 of this year.

When they were arrested last month, Rizzuto and Sollecito were alleged to be the new heads of the Mafia in Montreal. Both are the sons of men who served as heads of the criminal organization in the past. Rizzuto is the son of Vito Rizzuto, who died of natural causes two years ago, and Sollecito is the son of Rocco Sollecito, who was revealed to have been part of a committee that took over control of the Mafia in the city while Vito Rizzuto was jailed in the U.S. for several years.

Roy and Dominique Schoofey, the lawyer for Leonardo Rizzuto, told Labelle they have yet to see evidence the police gathered in their investigation.

“We’d still like to know what we are talking about in terms of evidence,” Schoofey said. The lawyers pointed out that it was difficult to set a date for a bail hearing without being fully aware of what they would hear during a hearing.

The parties agreed that bail hearings might be set to begin on either Dec. 14 or Jan. 11. The dates are expected to be chosen on Dec. 9.

Loris Cavaliere, a lawyer who was arrested in project Magot, has a court date scheduled for Friday. The attorney is charged with “participating or contributing to the activity of a criminal organization” to facilitate its crimes. Cavaliere is also charged with tracking in cocaine, between Jan. 1, 2013 and Nov. 16, 2015, along with nine other men.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

Defence lawyer Loris Cavaliere has agreed to put his practice on hold as part of a series of conditions to be released from detention two weeks after his arrest in a major organized crime bust.

Cavaliere, 61, agreed to follow a long list of conditions, as laid out by the Crown, during a court hearing before Quebec Court Judge Nathalie Fafard at the Montreal courthouse on Friday.

The conditions forbid Cavaliere from meeting with his clients, even those with cases pending, and he is not allowed to associate with people who have criminal records. He is also not allowed to go to his own law firm, Cavaliere et Associés on St-Laurent Blvd., while his case is pending. He is also only allowed to be at a courthouse for court dates related to his own case. Another condition forbids him from even identifying himself as a lawyer.

Cavaliere, who is being represented by lawyer Gilbert Frigon, was also required to deposit $150,000 and have someone post a bond worth $150,000 in order to be released. Other conditions that were imposed on the attorney were more of the standard variety. He is not allowed to have a cellphone, smart phone or a firearm in his possession and he is not allowed to be inside bars.

Cavaliere was arrested on Nov. 19, along with several other people, including alleged Mafia bosses Leonardo Rizzuto, 46, and Stefano Sollecito, 48, in Projects Magot and Mastiff, a police investigation into the Mafia, Hells Angels and Montreal street gangs.

Related

• Find more on the Montreal Mafia

As Frigon waited for the hearing to proceed Friday morning he could be seen chatting with several experienced defence lawyers who appeared to be interested in Cavaliere’s release. Rizzuto’s sister, Bettina, a lawyer with Cavaliere et Associés according to the Barreau du Quebec’s website, joined in the courthouse hallway conversations as well. Leonardo Rizzuto is also listed as a lawyer with Cavaliere et Associés. Their father, Vito Rizzuto, was the head of the Mafia in Montreal for decades before he died of natural causes two years ago.

After the arrests were made, the Sûreté du Québec alleged that Cavaliere’s office in Little Italy was used as a meeting place for high-ranking organized crime figures to allow them to discuss criminal conspiracies. The provincial police force also alleged Cavaliere had acted as an intermediary between Rizzuto and Sollecito and other high-ranking organized crime figures. An organizational chart presented at a police press conference on Nov. 19 portrayed Cavaliere as a middleman between the alleged Mafia bosses and Hells Angels leader Salvatore Cazzetta, 61, as well as three well known street gang leaders; Gregory Woolley, 43, Dany Sprinces Cadet, 45, and Jean Winsing Barthelus, 37.

Cavaliere is charged with “participating or contributing to the activity of a criminal organization with the goal of increasing the organization’s facility” to commit a crime. He is also charged with trafficking in cocaine, along with nine other men including Gaétan Sévigny, a man with known ties to the Hells Angels. The alleged crimes occurred between Jan. 1, 2013 and Nov. 16 of this year.

Cavaliere’s case returns to court on Jan. 18.

pcherry@montrealgazette.com

The two men alleged to be the new heads of the Mafia in Montreal when they were arrested in November, as part of a police investigation targeting the leaders of criminal organizations in the city, are scheduled to begin their long-awaited bail hearing on Monday.

Evidence is expected to be heard over the course of three days, at the Montreal courthouse as Leonardo Rizzuto, 46, and Stefano Sollecito, 48, seek to be released while both face two charges related to Project Magot, a Sûreté du Québec-led investigation into drug trafficking in Montreal. Both men are charged with taking part in a conspiracy to traffic in drugs between Jan. 1, 2013, and Nov. 16 last year. They are also charged committing a crime “for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization.” 

When they were arrested in November, the police identified Rizzuto and Sollecito as the heads of the Mafia in Montreal. A organizational chart presented during a press conference identified Sollecito as the “Interim Godfather” of the Mafia. Rizzuto’s father, Vito, was the head of the Mafia in Montreal for more than two decades until his death, by natural causes, in December 2013. Leonardo Rizzuto, recognized as a lawyer by the Quebec Bar Association, has been convicted twice in the past for impaired driving and was sentenced to serve a 14-day prison term in 1995. 

Sollecito, the son of Mafia leader Rocco Sollecito, 67, was arrested in 2001, as part of a Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit investigation dubbed Project Oltre. The investigation, based in Ontario, uncovered a group that had distributed tens of thousands of ecstasy pills in Canada. Sollecito ended up with a four-year prison term in Project Oltre, after being convicted of drug trafficking and the illegal possession of a firearm. According to a Parole Board of Canada decision made in 2003, while serving his sentence, Sollecito was “perceived as a person who had power over other inmates.”   

Both Rizzuto and Sollecito have been detained since Nov. 19, when the SQ, along with several other police forces, arrested dozens of people sought on arrest warrants filed in Project Magot as well as Project Mastiff, an investigation into a drug trafficking network related to the Hells Angels. During the course of Projects Magot and Mastiff, the SQ also uncovered a plot to murder Raynald Desjardins, 62, a former close associate of Rizzuto’s now-deceased father, Vito. Desjardins is behind bars and awaiting his sentence for plotting the murder of Salvatore Montagna, a Mafioso who was killed near Montreal on Nov. 24, 2011. 

Eighteen people in all were charged in Project Mastiff alone and seven have since been released. The other nine people who are detained and charged on the same indictment as Rizzuto and Sollecito have yet to have bail hearings and have court dates scheduled for next week. 

Forty-six people have been arrested in Projects Magot and Mastiff since Nov. 19. Another two — José McCarthy, 39, and Patrick Williams, 41 — are still being sought by the Sûreté du Québec. Both men face drug trafficking charges in Project Mastiff. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

Leonardo Rizzuto and Stefano Sollecito will remain behind bars for at least another two weeks as their ongoing bail hearing at the Montreal courthouse was carried over for at least three more days in early February. 

Rizzuto, 46, and Sollecito, 48, were arrested in November following a drug trafficking investigation led by the Sûreté du Québec. During a news conference held after more than 40 arrests were made in the investigation, the SQ alleged that Rizzuto, the son of now-deceased mob boss Vito Rizzuto, and Sollecito were the new heads of the Mafia in Montreal. 

When the bail hearing began last week, Quebec Court Judge Daniel Bédard was originally expected to hear evidence over the course of three days. Instead, the judge heard evidence from the prosecution all last week as well as on Monday and again on Tuesday. When the day ended on Tuesday Bédard agreed to set three days beginning on Feb. 2 to hear evidence from the defence in support of the release of both men. Evidence presented during the bail hearing has been placed under a publication ban. 

Both men are charged with taking part in a conspiracy to traffic in drugs between Jan. 1, 2013, and Nov. 16, 2015. They are also charged with committing a crime “for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organization.” Because the latter charge is considered a so-called gangsterism offence, the burden is on the defence to prove their clients merit a release. In normal bail hearings the burden rests on the Crown to prove the accused should remain behind bars.

A parcel of land in the largest remaining natural space on Montreal Island, where the administration of Mayor Denis Coderre vowed last year it would block development to create an eco-territory, is for sale by a group of people and companies that have links to a who’s who of the Montreal Mafia.

And the Coderre administration now says that residential construction on the piece of land near Gouin Blvd. W. in western Pierrefonds is “theoretically” possible. That’s after the administration vowed in June to “completely block all development” on it in response to a Montreal Gazette article that revealed the property’s ownership and the fact that the city had negotiated for years with the owners to buy it for conservation but gave up without trying to expropriate it.

The asking price on a 802,955 square-foot portion of the 3-million square-foot land that’s for sale near Gouin is $12 per square foot, which would come to $9.6 million. 

The For Sale notice advertises it as “land for sale for development” and as “prime land next to the l’Anse-à-l’Orme natural park” where the zoning is for “one-to-two-floor single-family units.”

The owners are Placements Manchester Brighton Ltée, which is owned by the estate of Gaétan Gosselin, a member of the Mafia who was shot dead in 2013, and Gestion de Placements Uni-Dev Inc., which the Gazette reported in June held in trust shares in the land for a group of individuals and companies that included owners who were identified as members of the Mafia and family members of people identified as Mafia members.

The owners are also advertising for sale or for rent the remaining 2.3 million square feet of land, which is zoned by the province as agricultural and which is immediately south of the parcel that’s for sale for development. The asking rent on that parcel is $150,000 per year on a 20-year lease.

“I know there’s a sector that falls within a zone that allows for development, so then theoretically it can be developed,” city executive committee member Russell Copeman, who is responsible for housing and urban planning for the Coderre administration, said on Tuesday when asked to comment about the land being advertised for sale for development by its owners.

If developed, the property would have the only new housing inside a 180-hectare conservation zone. The borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro zoned part of the companies’  land near Gouin as residential more than a decade ago. In fact, the northern tip of the land is subdivided for 11 single-family dwellings, according to real-estate records.

Manchester Brighton/Uni-Dev was a hold-out land owner inside the eco-territory zone that didn’t sell or cede its land to the city. 

In June, Copeman said the city would block development of the Manchester Brighton/Uni-Dev land designated for the l’Anse-à-l’Orme eco-territory, even if the city doesn’t expropriate it.

On Tuesday, Copeman said that he was referring in June to “the part that’s in the eco-territory. I didn’t make that comment with regard to the small portion … which is already zoned residential.”

However, at his press conference in reaction to the Gazette article on June 29, Copeman said: “There’s a part north of the L’Anse-à-l’Orme River that’s effectively zoned residential. That’s a question for Pierrefonds-Roxboro. It’s they who control the zoning. And that part is also identified in the land-use plan as dominantly residential affectation. But that doesn’t mean there will be residential development there because in part it’s in a flood zone, it’s inside the eco-territory, there aren’t (water and sewer) services. So the city has all the means to block development even in the part that’s in the zoning for residential development. And I repeat, the city has the intention to completely block all development on this land.”

On Tuesday, Copeman said the city’s possibility to control the development of the land that’s zoned residential comes from the fact that anyone wishing to build on it will have to negotiate with the city to build the necessary infrastructure, including roads, sewers and an aqueduct. 

But Copeman added that it’s too soon to say whether the Coderre administration would approve an infrastructure agreement with a developer. 

“I don’t know,” Copeman said. “It’s premature to say that.

“We’re not there yet. … I’m not the borough of Pierrefonds-Roxboro. I don’t know if there’s any concrete project for development in that area. I have no idea. You’d have to speak to the mayor of Pierrefonds-Roxboro.”

Pierrefonds-Roxboro mayor Dimitrios (Jim) Beis has not returned the Montreal Gazette’s calls. 

Manchester Brighton/Uni-Dev paid $1.89 million for the property in 1988. The strip starts near Gouin and descends toward the border of Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, crossing l’Anse-à-l’Orme Rd. and the river of the same name. 

For the past decade, successive city administrations have simultaneously designated the portion of the Manchester Brighton/Uni-Dev land near Gouin as residential in some municipal documents and as conservation in other municipal documents.

For example, Coderre, Copeman and Beis presented a map of the eco-territory at a press conference on June 26. The map shows the Manchester Brighton/Uni-Dev land in green along with the rest of the eco-territory.

However, Montreal’s land-use plan, approved by the Coderre administration in January 2015, marks the portion of the Manchester Brighton/Uni-Dev land near Gouin for residential usage.

Montreal’s 2004 urban plan, unveiled by then-mayor Gérald Tremblay’s administration, marked the Manchester Brighton/Uni-Dev land above the river, along with most of western Pierrefonds, for residential construction up to 10 storeys.

A residential vocation was retained for the area in a 2007 map in the urban plan.

But the Tremblay administration also publicly pledged to conserve 180 hectares of western Pierrefonds. A map it produced in August 2006 showed all of the Manchester Brighton/Uni-Dev land inside the future eco-territory, as did a February 2011 map.

Projet Montréal contends the city is shirking its responsibility to protect the land from development.

“The city has all the tools to protect this land so that it’s not developed and so that it be protected,” Projet councillor Éric Alan Caldwell said. “For us, that’s what should have been done, that’s what must be done for Montrealers and for the people of Pierrefonds-Roxboro, and that’s the promise Mr. Copeman made.

“And since it wasn’t done, then the city didn’t exercise its responsibility. And that’s highly reprehensible.”

lgyulai@postmedia.com

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Lawyers at the Contrecoeur corruption trial debated Thursday whether a 12-year-old anonymous letter naming elected officials and alleging contract bid-rigging should be kept secret.

The letter was sent to provincial police in 2004, wound up with an RCMP officer investigating the Montreal Mafia and then found its way into a provincial police affidavit to obtain search warrants in 2010 concerning the sale of city-owned land at Faubourg Contrecoeur.

The letter’s trajectory has piqued the interest of the defence for the former No. 2 man at Montreal city hall, Frank Zampino, who is one of the accused in the Contrecoeur corruption trial.

Because the letter was in the hands of an RCMP officer who participated in Project Colisée, a major investigation into the Montreal Mafia that netted the arrests of its upper echelons in 2006, Zampino’s lawyer said on Thursday that she wanted to declare in court “on the record” that her client is not a member of the Mafia.

“This person before you never had any part in organized crime,” lawyer Isabel Schurman said of Zampino. 

The prosecution questioned the procedural appropriateness of Schurman’s declaration. 

However, Judge Yvan Poulin said he took it as a statement for the record and not as evidence.

Zampino and seven others are charged with fraud and conspiracy in the 2007 sale of the municipal Contrecoeur land to a construction firm for an 1,800-unit housing development. Construction Frank Catania & Associés Inc. paid $4.4 million for the property, even though its municipal assessment was $31 million. 

The company, its former president, Paolo Catania, and four of its former executives or shareholders are also charged. Bernard Trépanier, the former director of fundraising for the party in power at city hall at the time, is also charged. He remained hospitalized as of Wednesday, the court was told on Thursday. 

The accused have opted for a trial by judge alone.

The prosecution is challenging a motion filed by Schurman to have the anonymous letter disclosed. The Crown argues the author’s life is in danger if his or her identity can be guessed from the letter’s content.

However, the judge blasted the prosecution on Thursday for previously allowing the release of three paragraphs of the missive it claims is too sensitive to divulge.

“How do you explain that three paragraphs were disclosed?” Poulin asked prosecutor Eric Bernier. 

Bernier said he was trying to avoid using the word “error” to explain the actions of the police, who copied two paragraphs of the letter in the 2010 affidavit to obtain seven search warrants in the Contrecoeur investigation, dubbed Project Faufil.

(A third paragraph of the letter was ordered disclosed by a judge presiding a pre-trial conference in the Contrecoeur case.)

Instead, Bernier called it “clumsiness” and then “potential clumsiness.” Nevertheless, he argued, the court has a responsibility to block the letter’s disclosure because only its author can renounce their right to confidentiality. He also argued the writer benefits from an implied promise of confidentiality from the authorities.

The Crown may not want to use the word “error,” Poulin responded, but he had other words that came to mind to describe the authorities, he said. “Bad management. Very bad management,” he said, before adding it is “difficult for the court to comprehend.”

“So someone didn’t do their job,” the judge said, referring to the authorities’ responsibility to protect the letter and the identity of someone whom the Crown is attempting to convince him should be treated as a confidential informant.

However, Schurman argued the authorities made no error. Rather, she said, they didn’t initially consider the writer a confidential informant.

The letter was unsolicited, she added, so there was no way for the police to explicitly or implicitly promise confidentiality.

The letter was submitted in court under seal pending Poulin’s ruling on Schurman’s motion to disclose it. Poulin said he will render his decision on March 18.

Schurman told the court on Tuesday that the letter names Zampino, two city councillors, a federal MP, a Quebec MNA, an elected school board official and a seventh individual. The other names were not said in court. 

Schurman argued the writer may be motivated by revenge or trying to cause trouble for a public figure.

The police affidavit was released in court beginning in 2013 in response to a request by the Montreal Gazette. The affidavit says the anonymous letter was sent to the head of the Sûreté du Québec, who received it on Jan. 7, 2004.

The section of the affidavit concerning the letter remains partly redacted, such as three lines that follow the words: “The first experience with rigged contracts was…” 

The next paragraph says that unidentified people were assured their election would be “staged” and no “valid opponents” would run against them. It doesn’t say which election. It also says the people would receive “monetary compensation from the contractors.”

lgyulai@postmedia.com

twitter.com/CityHallReport

It has been an unusually quiet start to 2016 for Montreal’s homicide squad.

It’s mid-March and not a single slaying has been reported, Montreal police confirmed Friday.

Homicides had been committed by Jan. 21 in every one of the previous 10 years. In four of the past 10 years (2013, 2009, 2008 and 2007), the first slayings of the year happened in the first week of January. 

The homicide rate has been falling steadily over the past 25 years in Montreal, as it has across Canada. Not since the 1960s have Montreal and Canada recorded so few slayings – and so few violent crimes in general.

Technology seems to be the biggest factor, according to Université de Montréal criminologist Marc Ouimet, a homicide researcher.

“DNA, surveillance cameras everywhere, dash cams, GPS-equipped cell phones – people have realized that there are many ways of getting caught,” Ouimet said. “The camera might not film you shooting someone but could catch you a block away, proving you were nearby.”

Technology is also keeping more people at home.

“People don’t go to bars or congregate downtown the way they used to do,” Ouimet said. “Especially teenagers – they’re in their basements playing games with friends” or staring at their computers or smartphones.

More restrictive laws – smoking bans in public places and tough drunk-driving laws – also keep people from going out. “People don’t congregate in specific places as much as they used to and lots of violent crimes are spur of the moment,” Ouimet said.

In 2015, 29 homicides were reported in Montreal, one more than in 2013 and 2014. By comparison, the city had 104 homicides in 1975. Attempted murders are also down.

In 2014, Montreal had the lowest homicide rate of Canada’s five biggest cities. Quebec had the third lowest rate among provinces and territories.

Across Canada, the homicide rate – 1.45 per 100,000 population – is at its lowest since 1966, Statistics Canada says.

The trend is similar in the United States, though the homicide rate south of the border is still three to four times that in Canada, thanks to the easier availability of firearms, said criminologist Maurice Cusson, author of a recent book, Les Homicides, about the history of homicides and recent trends.

There have also been steep drops in street crimes such as armed robberies and burglaries, Cusson said.

You can thank the aging of the population, in part, he said. “If you have fewer people in the 15 to 30 age group, you’re going to have less criminality in general and fewer homicides,” Cusson said.

Police are also doing a better job – by intervening more quickly in cases of conjugal and family violence, for example, he said.

But don’t expect the calm to last. Organized-crime experts are predicting more violence after a well-known member of the Montreal mafia was killed in Laval last week.

Cusson said he does not read much into the fact that Montreal hasn’t had any homicides yet in 2016.

“It’s possible that in two months there (will be) a spate of homicides in Montreal – for example, if there’s movement in organized crime, settling of accounts.”

ariga@postmedia.com

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A special investigation into a possible leak of evidence to three journalists has been turned over to a prosecutor outside Quebec. 

The evidence, which is subject to a publication ban, might be heard during the upcoming trial dealing with the murder of Mafia boss Salvatore Montagna. Jean-François Tessier, a prosecutor from St-Jérôme, began an investigation in November into whether information was leaked to three journalists and then published.

Tessier was expected to present the results of the investigation to Superior Court Justice Michael Stober at the Laval courthouse on Monday, but the prosecutor informed the judge that he decided to transfer the case to a prosecutor in New Brunswick. He said the investigation was almost finished in February but that “new facts” he received sometime around mid-February changed his plans. He added that something that was said during a court hearing, on Feb. 17, caused him to wonder whether he should be the one acting as prosecutor in the case. At that point in the investigation, 22 witnesses had been interviewed by the Sûreté du Québec and a search warrant had been carried out in Toronto. 

“I took the decision to mandate the file to someone more independent as counsel than me,” Tessier told the court.  

“I told my bosses it was preferable that I withdraw myself from the case.”  

Tessier said he was unable to explain why he felt the need to transfer the file because it might hinder the investigation. He was willing to give the judge sealed documents that might explain his decision but Stober turned down the offer.

The new prosecutor, Sebastien Michaud, is based in Edmundston, N.B. Tessier said he believes Michaud will be finished his work by the end of this month and might be able to present his findings in April.

Montagna, an organized crime figure who had moved from New York to Montreal, was fatally shot on Nov. 24, 2011, in Charlemagne, a suburb just east of Montreal. Seven men are charged in connection with the slaying. Stober is hearing pretrial motions in the murder case. Frank Addario, a defence lawyer representing one of the accused, raised the issue of the published information last year. Addario also recently filed a motion seeking to discover the source of the information that was published.  

Raynald Desjardins, 62, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder Montagna. He has yet to be sentenced in the case. 

Six men are charged with first-degree murder in the case: Vittorio Mirarchi, 38, Jack Simpson,73, Calogero Milioto, 44, Pietro Magistrale, 64, Steven Fracas, 31, and Steven D’Addario, 38. Felice Racaniello, 31, is charged with being an accessory after the fact to the murder.

The court has not set a date for when the trial will begin.

pcherry@postmedia.com

Four Montreal-area men, including a businessman whose construction company was firebombed in Laval a few years ago, face criminal charges alleging they extorted money from two victims over a period of four years. 

Domenico Miceli, 47, of Blainville, appeared before a Quebec Court judge on Thursday at the Montreal courthouse, where he was charged with extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion between April 12, 2012, and May 11, 2016. All four of the charges involve two men who were allegedly shaken down for money for years.

One of the victims was assaulted in Montreal on Monday. A spokesperson for the Montreal police was unable to comment on the case on Thursday, because he didn’t yet have details.

Miceli’s name was mentioned in 2013 during the Charbonneau Commission into corruption in Quebec. He was named as the part owner of one of four companies who were collectively noted for receiving 56 per cent of the construction contracts the city of Montreal awarded in 2005. 

In September 2012, three cars parked outside the building of the construction company partly owned by Miceli were torched in Laval. At the time, police sources speculated the fire had been set as part of an internal conflict within the Mafia in Montreal. The company was previously owned by two brothers who were believed to have sided with Salvatore Montagna when the mobster tried to wrestle power away from the Rizzuto organization in a failed attempt to control the Mafia in this city. Montagna was murdered in 2011.

On Thursday, Miceli agreed to follow a series of conditions in order to be released. But another man alleged to be part of the extortion plot, Michael (Miami Mike) Czajkowski, 38, of Montreal, was ordered detained for a bail hearing on Friday.

The Crown likely objected to Czajkowski’s release because of his criminal record. Late last year, he finished serving a five-year sentence for illegal possession of a firearm.

According to the court decision made to determine the sentence, a Montreal police detective investigated Czajkowski after receiving a tip that he was preparing to carry out a home invasion. On Dec. 15, 2010, a SWAT team stopped a car in which Czajkowski and three other men were riding in Town of Mount Royal, and found the firearm.

Czajkowski was also sentenced to a six-year prison term, in 2006, for an armed robbery in London, Ont., where he and three other men from Montreal held up a jewelry store and fired several shots at police as they tried to escape with more than $1 million worth of jewelry and watches.

Their rolled over during the pursuit and two of Czajkowski’s accomplices died in the accident. 

Czajkowski is charged with assaulting one of the victims, as was Michael John Neil, 32, of Verdun. The fourth man named in an indictment filed at the Montreal courthouse, Calogero Bruna, 53, is wanted on an arrest warrant.

pcherry@postmedia.com

The “limited event drama Bad Blood: The Vito Rizzuto Story,” is part of the 2016-2017 program schedule announced today in Toronto by City television. 

“Inspired by reputed mobster Vito Rizzuto, and based on the best-selling book, Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto’s Last War by Antonio Nicaso and Peter Edwards, Bad Blood: The Vito Rizzuto Story is a six-part … scripted limited event series debuting on City and FX in 2017. While imprisoned in Colorado’s Supermax Prison for the murders of three Bonanno family members, Rizzuto watches helplessly as the thriving empire he built is dismantled, and his closest friends and family members are mysteriously murdered one by one. When Rizzuto is finally released from prison, a Shakespearean-level revenge tale plays out – leading to the brutal murders of his closest companions, and ultimately the death of Rizzuto himself. Bad Blood: The Vito Rizzuto Story is produced by New Metric Media, Sphere Media and DHX Media. Writers and Executive Producers are Michael Konyves (Barney’s Version) and Simon Barry (Van Helsing).”

Tap here to sample some of the Montreal Gazette’s Mafia-related coverage.

Behind every homicide carried out in Montreal’s underworld is human suffering, and Francesca Montagna’s harsh words for a man who plotted her husband’s death are a reminder of that pain. 

“I will regret you for the rest of my life, Mr. Desjardins. I will never forgive you. I tried, but I can’t. You will never know the harsh pain and struggle you caused us,” Montagna said during a court hearing in April. She was addressing Raynald Desjardins, who last year pleaded guilty to being part of the plot to kill her husband, Salvatore. 

Desjardins, 62, played a leading role in the conspiracy. Montagna was killed on Nov. 24, 2011, in Charlemagne, just east of Montreal. The motive was revenge for a failed attempt on Desjardins’s life two months earlier, in Laval.

The two influential Mafia figures had formed an ill-fated consortium to wrest power from the Rizzuto organization. The alliance fell apart during the spring of 2011, when Montagna and Desjardins began arguing over control of such areas as loansharking and bookmaking in the city. 

Dec. 20, 2011: Police officers arrest Raynald Desjardins (centre) in the death of Salvatore Montagna.

But the reasons behind the dispute were irrelevant to Francesca Montagna when she appeared before Superior Court Justice André Vincent on April 29 at the Gouin courthouse. She appeared before the judge via a video link-up from New York City, where she and Montagna had spent most of their time together before Montagna was expelled from the U.S. 

American authorities, after realizing he wasn’t a citizen despite having lived there for years, gave Montagna the choice to be sent to his native Canada or to Italy, where he was also a citizen. At the time Montagna was ordered deported, he was the temporary boss of the Bonanno crime family in New York, which had links to Montreal dating back decades. So Montagna and his wife moved to Montreal, the city where he was born, in 2009.

It is almost unheard of for a relative of someone slain in an underworld settling of accounts to testify at a sentence hearing in a Canadian court — especially when it involves such influential mob figures as Desjardins and Montagna. But Francesca Montagna wanted Desjardins to know the harm he and his accomplices caused to her family. 

“I don’t know how I’ve made it since (my husband was killed),” she said via video link from the offices of Canada’s Consulate General in New York. “When I stop and think where my life is now, I want to scream and let the whole world hear me.”  

“I speak not only on my behalf but on behalf of my (three) daughters,” Montagna said with a thick New York accent. Despite being in Canada for a couple of years before the murder, one thing that remains foremost in her memory is that her husband was killed on American Thanksgiving. She said she wore black clothing for four years “to mourn my husband’s death before I realized that no matter what colour I wore, it made no difference.”

She said she and her daughters also kept a place for him at their dinner table, and blew out candles on his birthdays. 

“My in-laws both recently died, I believe, from broken hearts caused by the death of their wonderful son. I often prayed that God would take me, too. But I realized I need to (move) forward to help and teach my daughters to live productive, happy lives. I decided to not have my daughters here today because I feared that this court proceeding would destroy them by coming face-to-face with their Papa’s killer, the one who has destroyed their lives. Please have patience with me today, it is very difficult for me to express my feelings (on) the destruction Mr. Desjardins has caused my dear family.” 

Near the end of Desjardins’s sentence hearing, a prosecutor told Vincent that Francesca Montagna would be informed, by phone, of how six other people also pleaded guilty, on March 30, to being part of the conspiracy to murder Montagna. A seventh man pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder. The six men who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge are scheduled to have a sentence hearing on Friday.

It was unclear in April whether Montagna’s widow intends to testify during the sentencing stage of their cases, as well. She had written her statement in February — weeks before the other men admitted to their roles in the plot. 

“I will respect the sentence you will (eventually) hand down to Mr. Desjardins. However, in determining a just sentence I ask that you consider my pain, grief and suffering of my three young daughters’ broken hearts,” she said as she finished reading from the statement.

The next date in Desjardins’s sentence hearing is scheduled for September. The conspiracy charge he pleaded guilty to carries the possibility of a life sentence. 

pcherry@postmedia.com

In the months before he was gunned down in cold blood, Mafioso Salvatore Montagna was being hunted by a team of people who knew almost every move he made while he was being betrayed by a cloned smartphone. 

The detail is one of many contained in the evidence gathered in the wake of Montagna’s murder, on Nov. 24, 2011, that had been subject to a publication ban for years until a Superior Court judge partially lifted the order during a hearing at the Laval courthouse on Friday. 

Montagna was the upstart within the Mafia in Montreal, arriving in 2009 after being deported from the United States. He apparently chose to reside here to take advantage of the fact that Vito Rizzuto, the longtime leader of the Mafia in Montreal, was serving a 10-year sentence in the U.S., and the organization that bore his family’s name was weakened in his absence. 

What Montagna likely did not factor into his plans was that just months after he arrived in Montreal, Raynald Desjardins, 62, was freed of court-imposed conditions, after serving jail time, that had prevented him from re-taking his high stature among Montreal’s mobsters. Desjardins was sentenced to 15 years in 1994 for plotting to smuggle cocaine into Canada.

Those conditions included one that forbade him from meeting with known criminals. Desjardins had once been a loyal associate of Rizzuto and had paid his dues through the lengthy sentence he had served. Desjardins likely resented Montagna’s arrival in the city just before his conditions were about to expire.

AN UNEASY ALLIANCE

Nonetheless, by 2010 police sources were saying it appeared the two were working together and had formed a consortium of influential men who tried to take control of the Mafia in Montreal from the Rizzuto organization.

The evidence gathered in the investigation into Montagna’s murder reveals that Desjardins and Montagna could not stand each other as they became embroiled in disputes over who would control such areas as loan sharking and bookmaking. 

Desjardins had teamed up with Vittorio Mirarchi, 38, a Montrealer who had no criminal record but was already an underworld force to be reckoned with.

This undated photo shows Raynald Desjardins, left, adjusting Vittorio Mirarchi’s tie on Mirarchi’s wedding day.

In 2011, while investigating Mirarchi in an unrelated affair, the RCMP managed to intercept and decipher the BlackBerry messages Mirarchi and his associates were sending to each other. Like the rest of the world, Mirarchi and Desjardins believed the PIN-to-PIN messages they were exchanging could not be read by anyone else.   

By the summer of 2011, Mirarchi and Desjardins were referring to Montagna using derogatory nicknames like “Mickey Mouse” and “Tin Man” (Montagna used to own a company that produced steel in New York). They were also monitoring his movements.

TRACKING MONTAGNA’S MOVEMENTS

Desjardins was in Europe on July 23, 2011, when he asked Mirarchi to give him up update on what was going on in Montreal. In his reply, Mirarchi noted that Montagna and his family had spent the previous night at the Sofitel, a luxury hotel in downtown Montreal.

Mirarchi also noted that, “The Sauces r up to some thing not sure what but I’m on it.” It was an apparent reference to Rocco Sollecito (who was murdered in Laval on May 27) and his son Stefano. Both have often been referred to by the nickname “Sauce.” Police believe Rocco Sollecito remained loyal to the Rizzuto organization while Montagna and Desjardins tried to push it aside.

“City is (quiet) but everyone’s in a panic mode,” Mirarchi wrote.   

“More I see (Montagna’s) afraid (of) something or us or v (likely a reference to Vito Rizzuto’s supporters),” Desjardins replied before expressing concern he was not there to back up Mirarchi. “K but please be careful if (Montagna) know (you’re) alone (and) I’m not there he will try to get (you).” 

Desjardins then recommended Mirarchi “put j in back of you he’s got a lot of experience.” It was likely a reference to Desjardins’s own bodyguard, Jonathan Mignacca. 

When August arrived Desjardins was still in Europe and the updates Mirarchi sent indicate he had met with people who did not want to work with Montagna. By Aug. 9, it appeared Montagna had stepped up the pressure and was ordering more and more people who were paying the Rizzuto organization — for protection while they operated various illegal schemes — to pay him instead. 

Salvatore Montagna.

“At the end of the day he’s taking what they had and saying it’s all his. It’s ok (patience),” Mirarchi wrote in an exchange of messages sent that day. 

Later, during the same exchange, Desjardins compared his and Mirarchi’s group to Montagna’s and wrote: “This f–king (playing games) all the time with us (and) we r the cream of the crop compare(d) to them (and) we got good guys around us which he will never have.” 

‘LOL LET’S GET TO WORK’

Three weeks later, on Aug. 30, 2011, Mirarchi informed Desjardins that Calogero Milioto, 45, (one of the men who ultimately pleaded guilty to being part of the conspiracy to murder Montagna) had been approached by someone on Montagna’s side of the dispute with an offer to kill Desjardins.

Milioto was apparently a known associate of Mirarchi when the offer was made, and the move seemed desperate to Desjardins. In a message he sent back to Mirarchi, Desjardins reacted by stating Montagna was “trying to win by any way.”

He speculated that Montagna’s next move would be to try to get himself or Mirarchi to betray the other by joining him.

“Lol let’s get to work,” Mirarchi wrote while scoffing at the suggestion he would turn on Desjardins. 

“I’m ready,” Desjardins wrote in reply. 

Vittorio Mirarchi outside his home in Ste-Adele in December 2011.

An exchange of messages sent on Sept. 6, 2011, revealed Desjardins and Mirarchi were also discussing the possibility of killing brothers Domenico and Antonino Arcuri, the longtime owners of Ital Gelati Inc., an ice cream company in St-Léonard. According to evidence presented in court, the brothers had turned their backs on the Rizzuto organization and teamed up with Montagna. Based on their text messages, Desjardins and Mirarchi believed that if they eliminated the brothers, Montagna would lose a considerable amount of support.

Two days later, on Sept. 8, 2011, it was apparent that Mirarchi was ready to make a move on at least one of the Arcuri brothers. He sent Desjardins a message informing him that Antonino Arcuri was “back to work” and therefore easy to locate. 

“R we doing him today to (end) with (one) at least,” Desjardins asked.

Mirarchi replied that someone on their side of the conflict was following Arcuri that day. Arcuri had offered to meet with Mirarchi, and Desjardins suggested he attend, if only to size up the possibility of a hit. Mirarchi replied that it wasn’t such a good idea because his visit to Arcuri’s office would be recorded on a security camera, which would make for handy evidence if a hit was carried out hours later. 

THE ATTEMPT ON DESJARDINS

Police believe Montagna’s team decided to strike first, on Sept. 16, 2011, when a gunman tried to kill Desjardins that morning in Laval.  Desjardins was inside his BMW X5, talking to his bodyguard, Mignacca, who was seated in another parked vehicle, when a gunman emerged from a wooded area off the shore of Rivière des Prairies and opened fire toward them.

Sept. 16, 2011: Laval police investigate a shooting that targeted Raynald Desjardins.

Desjardins managed to drive away while Mignacca fired back. The gunman escaped and has never been arrested. Mignacca was later convicted of several counts related to discharging the weapon that day, and was sentenced to a six-year prison term.

Five minutes later, Laval police located Desjardins’s BMW at a construction site where he was seen in discussion with Gino Di Paola, 38, and Giuseppe Bertolo, the brother of Giovanni Bertolo, a Mafia-tied union representative with the Quebec Federation of Labour who was murdered in 2005.

Desjardins was detained for the purposes of the investigation but was not handcuffed, and he was allowed to use his smartphone. Desjardins asked if he had the right to contact a lawyer and made a call. The investigation later revealed he actually called Domenico Arcuri. The call lasted 29 seconds. 

An undated photo of Raynald Desjardins, left, with former FTQ union boss Jocelyn Dupuis.

‘I WON’T MISS YOU’

Later that same day, Bertolo informed Mirarchi, through text messages, that Domenico Arcuri asked that they meet with Montagna as soon as possible. The Sûreté du Québec had at least one of the men under surveillance that day and investigators witnessed how Bertolo did indeed meet with both Domenico Arcuri and Montagna at a Tim Horton’s restaurant on Louis H. Lafontaine Blvd. in Montreal.

On the day of the failed attempt on the life of Raynald Desjardins in Laval, an SQ officer snapped this photo of Giuseppe Bertolo, who was meeting with Salvatore Montagna and Domenico Acruri at a Tim Hortons in Montreal.

Based on a message Bertolo later sent to Mirarchi, the 29-second phone call Desjardins made to Domenico Arcuri was to tell him: “I know it’s you. And I won’t miss you.”

An SQ investigator working undercover managed to get a photo of the meeting, shot between two stacks of coffee cans, but only managed to capture an image of Bertolo. The investigator, who watched from a distance, noted that Montagna controlled the conversation throughout the meeting. 

Three days later, on Sept. 19, 2011, two SQ investigators arranged to have a meeting with Desjardins’s brother-in-law, Mafioso Giuseppe (Jos) Di Maulo, at a Pizzadelic restaurant in Laval. Di Maulo was accompanied by defence lawyer Pierre Morneau and, according to a summary prepared by the SQ, the investigators informed Di Maulo that “it would be desirable if he could use his influence” to lower tensions and avoid a war.

Di Maulo replied by saying the media had made him out to be a much more powerful person than he actually was. (Di Maulo was later killed, in November 2012, outside his home in Blainville. Police sources have speculated he might have been murdered for doing nothing to stop Montagna and Desjardins’s plans to form the consortium.)

Close family members of Joseph Di Maulo, including his wife Huguette Desjardins, front left with glasses, free white doves at the foot of Notre Dame du Mont Carmel church in Montreal on Wednesday November 14, 2012 following the funeral of the high ranking mafia member. Di Maulo was killed in Blainville the previous week.

TENSIONS MOUNT

Tensions continued to mount and a series of exchanges made by Mirarchi and other people in his group, on Oct. 25, 2011, revealed they had somehow cloned a smartphone used by someone in Montagna’s group and were thus able to read messages. This gave the Mirarchi/Desjardins group knowledge about where Montagna was going to be.   

Despite having the advantage, it was clear that the men working under Mirarchi were growing frustrated over how difficult it was to follow Montagna. On Nov. 15, 2011, Steven Fracas, 31, complained that Montagna often made U-turns and drove on crowded downtown streets for no apparent reason to shake off anyone who might be tailing him. 

Later that same day, Desjardins was insulted to learn that Montagna and his supporters were using the word “old” as a coded reference to Desjardins in their BlackBerry messages. 

“So they r f–k up those guy(s),” Desjardins wrote to Mirarchi. 

“Yep time to close the book. The story is getting too long,” Mirarchi replied.

“Yep let’s do what we talk about b4,” Desjardins wrote back.

“Already on it,” Mirarchi responded.  

Desjardins ended the exchange with: “K lol” 

THE RUSE AND THE PICKUP

Exchanges sent between Mirarchi and Desjardins, on Nov. 23, 2011, revealed that Desjardins had somehow convinced Montagna to meet with Jack Simpson, a man they both knew. What Montagna likely did not know was that as early as Sept. 16, hours after the attempt was made on Desjardins’s life, Simpson had sent Desjardins messages to offer his services.

Jack Simpson.

Montagna was willing to be picked up, by Simpson, outside a métro station of Desjardins’s choosing, at 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 24, 2011. The plan called for Simpson to drive Montagna to his home on Île Vaudry, off the eastern tip of Montreal, where, Montagna was led to believe, they could discuss matters in private. 

Mirarchi wrote back to Desjardins that the Langelier métro station would be a good location for Simpson to pick up Montagna, and mentioned that Milioto would follow Simpson’s white Ford F150 along the route to Simpson’s home. 

On the day Montagna was killed, Jack Simpson sent Desjardins a message, at 8:37 a.m., asking: “What time is my pickup?” 

“9h30 langelier (métro) south(east) side,” Desjardins answered

Simpson: “Ok. (I’ll) be there.” 

Desjardins: “K got a crew around you.” 

Messages sent between Desjardins and Mirarchi in the next hour revealed Mirarchi was closely monitoring the moment when Simpson picked up Montagna.

“On the move looks good,” Mirarchi wrote to Desjardins. 

“If only we could be there,” Desjardins responded. 

THE HIT ON MONTAGNA

Security cameras in companies that line Sherbrooke St. in Montreal recorded images — later seized as evidence by police — of Simpson’s white F150 heading east with Simpson and Montagna inside. Based on the images, the SQ estimates the two arrived at Simpson’s home at 9:54 a.m. 

Six minutes later, Simpson’s neighbours heard the sound of at least two shots fired from inside Simpson’s home. A witness in a nearby apartment saw Montagna run out of Simpson’s home toward the nearby Assomption River. He slipped down a slope facing the waterway and disappeared from sight. Montagna managed to cross a narrow section of the river but collapsed immediately after. Ambulance technicians applied first aid at the scene but Montagna was declared dead after he was taken to a hospital.

Police block the road to Ile Vaudry, the small island where Salvatore Montagna was killed in the municipality of Charlemagne, near Repentigny on Nov. 24, 2011. 

Meanwhile, as the witness called 911 from his apartment, he could see Simpson’s white pickup driving away.

Shortly after 10 a.m., Simpson began to send Desjardins a series of messages. 

“Ur done,” Desjardins asked.

“Yes,” Simpson replied. 

Desjardins then relayed a simple message to Mirarchi. 

“Done,” was all Desjardins wrote. 

“Perfect,” Mirarchi replied. 

The group tried to hide Simpson in Ottawa, at the home of someone Mirarchi knew, but the SQ found him and arrested him on Nov. 28, 2011. The seven other men involved in the conspiracy, including Desjardins and Mirarchi, were arrested in the months that followed after the SQ and the RCMP pieced together the BlackBerry messages they had intercepted. 

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A well-connected drug trafficker arrested a decade ago received a 15-year sentence in a case that took many twists and turns before finally reaching its end on Monday. 

“Good luck to you Mr. Piccirilli,” Quebec Court Judge Marie Suzanne Lauzon told Sergio Piccirilli, 56, after reading her decision at the Laval courthouse. With the time he has served off and on since he was arrested in 2006, Piccirilli was left with a prison term of 9 years and 9 months. 

When Piccirilli learned how much time Lauzon had calculated as the remainder of his sentence he appeared to be somewhat in a state of disbelief. He turned his head toward two relatives who were seated in the courtroom and let out a sigh. 

While it might be the end of the case in Quebec Court, Piccirilli’s lawyer, Patrice Duliot, has filed an appeal of the decision Lauzon made in January in which she found Piccirilli guilty of 23 charges including conspiracy, issuing orders for the benefit of a criminal organization and trafficking in methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. Piccirilli was also found guilty of the illegal possession of a powerful automatic rifle he obtained after learning leaders in the Rizzuto organization had placed a contract on his head, in 2005, while he was under investigation by the RCMP. Piccirilli was warned by police back then that they had credible information that someone wanted him dead while he and members of a Mafia clan based in Granby were at odds with the Rizzuto organization over who was responsible for how a smuggled shipment of marijuana, worth millions of dollars, arrived in the U.S. spoiled and rotten.

While Piccirilli argued with leaders in the Rizzuto organization (he even showed up at their hangout in St-Léonard in 2005 armed with a pistol) he was being investigated in Project Cleopatra, a Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit investigation led by the RCMP. Piccirilli was arrested in 2006 along with three dozen other people as a result of Project Cleopatra. The main focus of the investigation was Piccirilli’s then girlfriend, Sharon Simon, a Kanesatake resident who was the head of a marijuana trafficking network. As Project Cleopatra evolved the RCMP learned that Piccirilli had a network of his own that was involved in trafficking in methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. The Mounties also learned of Piccirilli’s close ties to Salvatore Cazzetta, 61, one of the more influential Hells Angels in Quebec. The two men have known each other since childhood and held a meeting, during the investigation, where Piccirilli wanted to discuss how another Hells Angel, Claude Pépin, was claiming he controlled turf where Piccirilli was selling drugs. 

In 2008, Piccirilli managed to have a stay of proceeding placed on his case after arguing the Crown and the police had abused his rights as he prepared to go to trial. Piccirilli had argued a prosecutor was trying to bully him into taking a guilty plea and that the police provided conflicting evidence over how they seized the firearm during the investigation. The Supreme Court of Canada ordered a new trial in 2014 after ruling the judge in the first trial could have found a less drastic remedy to deal with the issues rather than issuing a stay of proceedings. 

Duliot said on Monday that he would consult with his client before deciding whether to also appeal the sentence. The Crown, represented by prosecutors Dominique Dudemaine and Marie Eve Moore, had requested an 18-year prison term while Duliot suggested 13 years was more in line with jurisprudence. 

pcherry@postmedia.com