[20] In February 1975, Boucher was interviewed by Pellerin who described him as an ambitious man who wanted to get rich without working. [76] As a former policeman, Lepage could not join the Hells Angels as the Angels do not accept current or former policeman into their ranks, but he did join the Rockers. [29] The journalist James Dubro stated about the distinctive outlaw biking sub-culture in Quebec: "There's always has been more violence in Quebec. [135] In the summer of 2000, Michel Auger, the crime correspondent of Le Journal de Montral wrote a series of articles stating that Boucher had turned on his former allies such as Desjardins, Savard and the Craigs and was systematically killing them off. He rules by fear. [40] On 15 September 1989, Boucher had the Hells Angels firebomb the clubhouse of the rival Outlaws gang in Danville. [149] The key witness for the prosecution was Stphane Gagn, nicknamed Godasse (Old Shoe), who was involved in both murders. [18] The first known crime committed by Boucher as an adult was on the night of 5 November 1974, when he broke into a grocery store in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district and attempted to steal 23 cartons of cigarettes but was caught by police upon exiting the store in possession of the cartons. I don't play". [71] Bouchard told Sher and Marsden in a 1999 interview: "Cause I'll tell you something. Kane described Boucher as a much more self-disciplined man than he had been in the 1970s, saying that he only consumed alcohol and otherwise avoided all drugs and that he always got up early in the morning to meet other Angels at about 9:30 am. [69] Kane's notes state that Boucher had placed the anonymous call and bribed the Sret du Qubec detectives to plant the evidence, as this would be a "win-win" for him. In the affairs of the Mafia OK? [70] Cleverly, Boucher usually paid his lawyer to be present at his meetings with other Angels, thus technically making these meetings between a client and his lawyer, meaning the police could not record these meetings as that would violate solicitor-client confidentiality. 
I just didn't like them". [67] In April 1994, a Norwegian container ship, the Thor 1, arrived in Montreal. [59][60] At their first meeting on 4 November 1994, Kane told Verdon that Boucher was a very dangerous man who was much feared by the other Angels, who was planning to murder anyone and everyone who might oppose him in his plans to take over the drug trade in Quebec. He was 69 years old. [145] Craig, who was an active drug dealer in partnership with her late husband, possessed much information in the form of spreadsheets and invoices about the sale of drugs in Montreal, testifying she and her husband had arranged the sale of 1,700 kilos of cocaine to the Hells Angels between 1998 and 2000. [68] The case collapsed in court when Matticks's lawyers established that the Sret du Qubec had planted evidence, most notably documents written in French that were found in Matticks' home. [36] One Hells Angel who later turned Crown's evidence, Serge Boutin, testified at Boucher's trial in 2002: "Monsieur Boucher was considered like a god. The Crown Attorney prosecuting Boucher, France Charbonneau described herself as: "I am a woman of conviction. And smart and charismatic, even charming and could get along with just about anyone". [78] After his arrest, a Sret du Qubec detective told Boucher that the RCMP had a "coded informer" numbered C-2994 within his gang. Two months later, divers located the decomposing bodies of the victims wrapped in sleeping bags and tied to weightlifting plates at the bottom of the St. Lawrence River. [14] Boucher's father was described as "a severe man who tolerated no lip from his children" and imposed an "iron discipline" on his children. The Hells Angels Nomads chapter was a group made up of the most powerful Hells Angels in Quebec and not bound by geographical locations like other Hells Angels chapters. We would have thumped the son of a bitch. [99] Boucher became suspicious of Gagn as a result, though he told Gagn: "It's because you're so irritating when you're in prison. If he comes here I know someone who can kill him, if he wants.
[75] Using Kane's list of killers, Bouchard had the Service de police de la Ville de Montral seize DNA evidence left in the "open" by the Hells Angels or the Rockers such as uneaten food at restaurants or discarded cardboard coffee cups as the basis for DNA testing. [29], As a man who detested outlaw bikers, Bouchard become Boucher's arch enemy, and to annoy him, Boucher took to hanging around with his fellow Angels wearing their "Death's Head" patches on their jackets together with their lawyers at the Au Bon Pain cafe, which was also Bouchard's favourite cafe. [129], In June 2000, Sandra Craig, a Bolivian immigrant who was the daughter of one of Bolivia's most powerful drug lords was almost killed by the Hells Angels on the streets of Montreal and on 29 August 2000, her Canadian husband Raymond Craig was killed by the Angels in the resort town of Ste-Adle; the Craigs had previously been the main link between the Colombian gangsters and the Rizzuto family and the Hells Angels in Montreal. Nine bombs went off around the province during his funeral. [50] Desjardins had lunch with Rizzuto every Sunday at the Buffet Roma restaurant; it was reported that Rizzuto had a strong distaste for associating with outlaw bikers. [22] In December 1981, Boucher was again charged with a home invasion, but the charges were dropped when the victim refused to testify against him in court. [128] However, Gagn testified that Boucher wanted to eliminate people like Desjardins, French-Canadian criminals willing to work with the Mafia, as an interim measure as a way of weakening the power of the Mafia before taking them on outright.
I remember an Outlaws hit man telling me he was scared going to Montreal."[30]. [16] The world that Boucher grew up in was a world where violence was commonplace and where corruption was accepted as normal. [86] Gagn would park one of the vehicles, set the camera running and came back the next day to collect the video footage. [79] During his time in prison, Boucher quarreled with the warden, Nicole Quesnel, after she refused his request to give him day passes and on 9 June 1995, her house was burned down after being firebombed by masked men riding Harley-Davidson motorcycles. [13] Boucher had seven siblings; his father worked as a construction worker while his mother stayed at home to raise their eight children. [22], Around 1982, Boucher was a member of a white supremacist motorcycle gang named the SS who were based in Pointe-aux-Trembles, on the eastern tip of the Island of Montreal.
[47] In September 1992, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) started an investigation, codenamed Project Jaggy, of a drug smuggling operation run jointly by the Mafia and the Hells Angels to bring in cocaine from Jamaica, which in turn originated in Venezuela. [22] According to Kane, Boucher had told him that the Nomads were going to be "plus rock n' roll" ("more rock n' roll") meaning "more badass", as in more free to act at will, less bound by club rules.
[43] By December 1990, the Outlaws had been virtually driven out of Quebec by Boucher.
Normand "Biff" Hamel joined the Angels just a few months before Boucher did. [102] Boucher hired the lawyer Alan Gold to challenge the appeal court's decision before the Supreme Court, arguing that the decision to overturn double jeopardy violated his rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but in December 2000 the Supreme Court sided with the Crown. [131] Kane stated that Boucher wanted to attend the meeting with Rizzuto, but did not as out of the fear it would attract police attention. [141][136] The court of appeal accepted the argument of Crown Attorney France Charbonneau that Justice Boilard had displayed such an outrageous pro-defence bias that a new trial was required. [42] Leblanc served as an Angel agent within the Outlaws, supplying intelligence as the Hells Angels and their puppet club, the Evil Ones, started to take over territories controlled by the Outlaws in 1989 and 1990. [130] Roy had objected to the deal Boucher had reached with the Rizzuto family to sell cocaine for $50,000 per kilo. [106] After a lengthy interrogation by Detective Robert Pigeon, Gagn broke down in tears and agreed to turn Crown's evidence on 6 December 1997.[107]. [54][55], Boucher persuaded Rock Machine controlled bars and their resident drug dealers to surrender their illegal drug business or their resistance would lead to bloodshed. [72] Boucher was also active as a real estate developer in Mexico, owning several properties in Acapulco and often hosted parties attended by senior officers of the extremely corrupt Acapulco police department. You saw a guy walking up the street in his colors, you kicked the shit out of him, and that was it". [139] As Laforest was walking his dog, he was attacked on the streets in the daylight by three masked men who beat him to death with baseball bats. [93] The Hells Angels put up posters all over Montreal, Quebec City and other cities in Quebec urging voters to vote no, and significantly, Quebec separatists who usually vandalized non posters never damaged the posters put up by the Angels.
[42] In 1989, Boucher was charged with lying to a police officer, and given a choice between paying the $200 fine or going to prison for four months; for reasons that remain unclear, he chose the latter, being released in March 1990. On 1 May 1987, Boucher became a "full patch" member of the Hells Angels, just three days after the murder of Martin Huneault, a leader of a rival outlaw biker gang, the Death Riders. However, Bouchard went on to say that despite being a semi-literate thug who has trouble speaking coherently: He's very intelligent in the way he runs people. [132] According to Kane, a group called La Table consisting of Boucher, Denis Houle, Michel Rose, Normand Robitaille and Andr Chouinard set the prices for drugs in Quebec in consultation with the Mafia. [138] On 27 September 2000, Boucher met with Frdric "Fred" Faucher, the leader of the Rock Machine, in a courthouse in Quebec City to agree to the truce. It doesn't matter that she had tits". [4], He was sent to serve three life sentences at Canada's only supermax prison, in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines. [25][26][pageneeded] One of the members of the SS was one Normand "Biff" Hamel, who was to follow Boucher into the Hells Angels; it was Hamel, whose first conviction for drug dealing was in 1978, who introduced the SS gang to the drug trade, arguing that this was a more profitable form of activity than beating up non-white immigrants, which, however fun it may have been for them, did not make them money.
On 4 November 1997, Steinert together with his bodyguard Donald "Bam Bam" Magnussen were last seen alive leaving the Lavigueur mansion where they lived to see Boucher. [45] With the Outlaws reduced down to powerlessness in Quebec, Boucher no longer needed Leblanc. [90] Boucher was able to post bail, but forbidden to associate with members of the Hells Angels, Vito Rizzuto, and Robert Savard, one of the best-known loan sharks in Montreal. [56] As Stadnick spoke no French and Boucher no English, police wiretaps showed that the two men needed interpreters to communicate. They'd send him out to beat up some guy. [119], The 1998 Hilton-Ouellet boxing match marked the beginning of Boucher's "folk hero" status in Quebec. [32] Bouchard stated that Boucher stopped his substance abuse after the Lennoxville massacre, which was prompted because of the heavy drug use of the Montreal North chapter, saying "He got the message and a lot of them got the message. His ultimate aim was to establish a Hells Angels monopoly over street-level, biker gang drug-dealing in the Montreal areaand eventually, all of Quebec. People respect him because they fear him. [95] In the summer of 1997, Boucher decided to bypass the Mafia and establish a direct link to the Colombian drug cartels, sending Lepage to Colombia to meet Miguel Carvajal of the Mejia Twins cartel run by the twin brothers Vctor Manuel Meja Mnera and Miguel ngel Meja Mnera. You've got to show them, 'I'm not afraid of you, you prick'". [40] The Angels liked to hide the cash from their criminal activities at Muselle's house out of the belief that neither rival criminals nor the police would search the home of an elderly, frail and rarely seen man. [5][6] While imprisoned there, Boucher survived several assassination attempts motivated by his infamy, and was placed in a special unit of the prison to isolate him. According to Thibault and Sguin, Boucher strongly desired revenge against his former outlaws, should he ever be released, whom he regards as having betrayed him. [21] Boucher told Pellerin that he would have liked to have followed his father into the construction trade, but the economic recession caused by the Arab oil shock of 197374 had made work very hard to find. after punching out the Angel.
[27] Right up until his murder in 2000, Hamel was described as Boucher's principal business partner. [108] Boucher was extremely unhappy when he learned that Gagn had turned Crown's evidence as he believed the Crown would never cut a deal with someone who killed prison guards, and to prevent Tousignant from making a deal is widely believed to have ordered his murder. Both officers had been chosen at random.
[102] The discovery that the Grade 9 drop-out Boucher was incapable of writing a proper sentence in French did much to damage his "cool" image, instead giving him an oafish image. [84], After Gagn was released in 1996, he joined the Rockers. [11][12], Born in Causapscal, Quebec, Canada, he was raised in poverty in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough of inner-city Montreal, where his family moved when he was two years old. [160] On 3 November 2015, Boucher and another inmate, Ren Girard, were accused of attempting to murder another prisoner, Ghislain Gaudet, stabbing him repeatedly with homemade knives.
[166] Matthew Ferguson, the Crown Attorney prosecuting Boucher and Mongeau declined to explain to the media why the Crown had not presented evidence of Mongeau's involvement in the plot to kill Desjardins, leading to her acquittal with Mongeau only being sentenced to 21 months of community service for living off the proceeds of crime.[166]. [71] Bouchard very much wanted to beat up Boucher and the rest of his Angels who were hanging around at the Au Bon Pain, but was told by his superiors that the "old school" policing methods he had started with were no longer acceptable, so he just had to accept the Hells Angels were holding their meetings at the Au Bon Pain about four days every week. [162] Boucher and Girard were charged with the attempted murder of Gaudet. [149] When Larochelle started to refer to Boucher as "Mom" in the courtroom in order to make him seem lovable to the jury, Charbonneau objected every time, saying he should be referred to as Monsieur Boucher; she was so effective in her objections that finally even Larochelle took to describing his client as M. [32] Laurent Viau of the Laval chapter had been killed in the Lennoxville massacre, Rjean Lessard of the Sorel chapter had been convicted of first-degree murder for ordering the Lennoxville massacre, and Angels' national president Michel "Sky" Langois fled to Morocco to escape charges of first-degree murder relating to the massacre. [14], On 5 November 1975, Boucher committed an armed robbery but was caught and sentenced to 40 months in prison. [96] The payments for the cocaine went through the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of America. [40] In a highly unusual move, the Crown agreed to have the case tried in Montreal instead of Mississauga and Boucher's $10,000 bail was paid for by another Angel, Normand Hamel, who managed a company importing coffee from Costa Rica. [111] Fontaine, by contrast, fled to Quebec City and from there to Mexico. "[166] Boucher's reasons for wanting to kill Desjardins were revenge for the murder of the Mafiosi Salvatore Montagna on 24 November 2011, which Desjardins had ordered after falling out with his ally Montagna. [57] Given that Stadnick did not speak French and his grotesquely deformed face was as far from being telegenic as possible, the Quebec media preferred to focus on the charismatic French-Canadian Boucher. [157] In September 2002, the Indian Posse, a criminal gang made up of First Nations people active on the Prairies, tried to kill Boucher by firing a bazooka at his cell. [58], On 17 October 1994, Dany Kane, a Rocker and a protg of Boucher's lieutenant David "Wolf" Carroll contacted Interpol's office in Ottawa, saying he knew much about the Angels and wanted to sell information. [25] In the aftermath of the massacre, Yves "Apache" Trudeau, the Angels' leading killer, turned Crown's evidence and his testimony sent 39 Angels to prison. [161] Girard, a man of limited intelligence who during an alcohol and cocaine binge in 1986 had sex with a man whom he mistook for a woman, and killed him in his fury when he noticed his lover had a penis, was described as an immature man prone to extreme violence who is easily manipulated. [35] Huneault had been watching a hockey game and drinking with his girlfriend in a Laval bar when somebody marched in and shot him three times; none of the people in the bar who witnessed the crime were willing to testify that the gunman was Boucher. [105] As a result of Boies's information, Gagn was arrested on 5 December 1997. [39], In 1988, Boucher went to Mississauga, Ontario, where he hijacked a truck and attempted to drive it back to Montreal, being arrested by the Peel Regional Police before getting very far. [166] On 11 May 2018, Downs sentenced Boucher to ten years in prison, meaning that the earliest that Boucher could apply for parole would be in 2037.
[19] It was during this time that Boucher's girlfriend, Diane Leblanc, was pregnant.
[86], On 9 August 1995, a Jeep wired with a remote-controlled bomb exploded, killing an 11-year-old boy, Daniel Desrochers, who was playing in a nearby schoolyard. [110] On 27 February 1998, Tousignant's burned corpse was found buried in the Eastern Townships with one bullet hole in his head and another in his chest. [17] When filing his income taxes, Boucher variously gave his occupation as a chef, construction worker, used car salesman, and real estate developer. He wouldn't have done that twenty years ago. [125] On 27 April 2000, Desjardins was murdered in a very professional killing while leaving Shawn's, with an assassin putting 11 bullets into his back as he was getting into his car. [33], Cazzetta found the ambushessentially, biker "brothers" killing their ownto be an unforgivable breach of the outlaw code. [14] In April 1973, the 19-year-old Boucher committed his first known crime, when he stole $200 from a dpanneur. [108] On 18 December 1997, Boucher was arrested and charged with two counts of first degree murder for the killings of Rondeau and Lavigne. [35] It is widely believed that Boucher killed Huneault to become a "full patch" member of the Angels' Montreal chapter, the oldest and most prestigious Angel chapter in Canada. [127] Boucher refused to answer any questions and told Bouchard he would only speak with his lawyer present. [135] Regardless of his actual fate, Roy was last seen alive going to the Nomads' party on 25 June 2000 and has not been seen since. [101] Their bodies were later found floating in the St. Lawrence with their heads bashed into bloody pulps after being repeatedly hit with baseball bats and hammers. [3] In 2002, Boucher was convicted of ordering the murders of two Quebec prison officers in an effort to destabilize the Quebec Justice system. [130] Roy had preferred to sell cocaine for considerably less and had told Boucher he would not abide by La Table's prices, believing that as a founding member of the Nomads that he was immune from being punished by Boucher. That must be why the guards think it's you". Besides for Gagn, Serge Boutin also turned Crown's evidence. [53], In 1994, following the arrest of Salvatore Cazzetta on charges of conspiring to import 200 kilos (440 lbs) of cocaine, the Rock Machine was rendered temporarily leaderless. On 26 April 2000, Boucher had lunch at a popular Montreal restaurant, Shawn's, with Andr "Dd" Desjardins, one of the most "infamous" union bosses in Quebec who had become Montreal's most successful loan shark. [156], He was detained in the only Canadian Super-Maximum security penitentiary, located in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, north of Montreal. In 2000, an appeals court dismissed the earlier acquittal, and he was arrested again. He refused Boucher's offer to join him at the top of the Quebec Hells Angels, and instead formed his own smaller gangthe Rock Machinewith his brother Giovanni Cazzetta in 1986. [46] On 26 March 1992, Boucher founded the Rockers, the Hells Angels' puppet club in Montreal that was to be responsible for most of the murders committed in the Quebec biker war, with hopes of being promoted up to Hells Angels. [140], On 8 October 2000 to celebrate Thanksgiving, Boucher and Faucher had dinner together at Bleu Martin restaurant and while a photographer from All Police tabloid recorded the scene, the leaders of the Hell's Angels and the Rock Machine exchanged handshakes, hugged and broke bread together (a common symbol in French-Canada of reconciliation).
[142] Bouchard stated about Boucher that day "He was pissed off", recalling that Boucher swore continuously at the police when he was taken in as he never expected double jeopardy to be undone. Maurice Boucher (21 June 1953 10 July 2022) was a Canadian gangster, convicted murderer, reputed drug trafficker, and outlaw bikeronce president of the Hells Angels' Quebec Nomads chapter. [125] However, Desjardins agreed to meet Boucher at Shawn's the next day to further discuss the matter. [9], Canadian outlaw biker and gangster (19532022), The killings of Desrochers, Lavigne and Rondeau, The Auger assassination attempt and the truce, Service de police de la Ville de Montral, "Former Hells Angels crime boss Maurice (Mom) Boucher dies of cancer", "Gangs of Montreal, Episode 5: The biker war", "Maurice Boucher reportedly stabbed in prison", "Former biker says sorry, is denied parole", "Hells Angels 'Mom' Boucher stabbed in jail", "Maurice Mom Boucher emport par le cancer", "Daughter of Mom Boucher faces new charges", "Francis Boucher, 'Mom' Boucher's son, pleads guilty after wrongful jail release", "How Canada's Most Prolific Hit Man Turned Informant on the Hells Angels", McGill Tribune, Bikers, Bill C-95, Drugs and Mom, "Benot Roberge, ex-cop, sentenced to 8 years for gangsterism", Organized Crime in Canada: A Quarterly Summary April to June 2002, "Coming court cases for Maurice (Mom) Boucher pose security challenges", "A who's who of the Montreal underworld: The Mafiosi, bikers and gangsters swept up in police raids", "Mom Boucher, Gregory Wooley preliminary inquiry delayed by surprise motions", "Crime organis: la descente aux enfers de Mom Boucher en cellule", Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maurice_Boucher&oldid=1099115828, Canadian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, People from MercierHochelaga-Maisonneuve, Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Canada, All Wikipedia articles written in Canadian English, Pages using infobox criminal with known for parameter, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from December 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Attempted murder and two counts of first-degree murder (2002), This page was last edited on 19 July 2022, at 02:38. [72] Based on his prison experiences, Boucher felt that prison guards were the lowest of the low in the Quebec justice system, which is why prison guards were targeted. A RCMP report described Steinert as a "very violent and cruel psychopath who can't control himself", concluding he was the man most likely to have exploded the bomb that killed Dube despite the fact that there were children playing across the street from where Dube's jeep was parked. [43], On 15 September 1990, Claude Meunier, the president of Outlaws' Montreal chapter, was assassinated in a drive-by shooting, taking four bullets to his chest. [89] In the aftermath of Desrochers's killing, the province of Quebec was desperate for any reason to put Boucher behind bars and decided to seek to deny him bail in relation to the counselling violence charges in order to put him into jail for at least a few months. [129], Reflecting his mainstream status, during the wedding of Hells Angel member Ren Charlebois on 5 August 2000, Ginette Reno, one of the best-loved folksingers in Quebec attended and sang, and posed for photographs with Boucher for the Montreal tabloid All Police, saying to the All Police journalist that she was honoured to meet such an outstanding man like Boucher. You can't be rotten from morning till night". [97] When Gagn stated he had killed a woman, Boucher told him: "That's good, Godasse. [113] During the trial, Justice Boilard displayed a strong bias in favour of the defence and promptly agreed to Larochelle's request to exclude five tapes of intercepted phone calls made by Boucher, which weakened the Crown's case. [68] The fall-out from the Thor affair was a royal commission headed by Justice Lawrence Poitras which criticized the Sret du Qubec for routinely engaging in unprofessional practices such as planting evidence, threatening witnesses, and perjury in court.