MONTREAL — Bandidos biker paroled

OFF THE WIRE
By Marc Pigeon, QMI Agency


MONTREAL — A powerful Bandidos biker who was convicted of plotting to murder a rival is now at the centre of a dispute between Correctional Service Canada and the National Parole Board.
The board has ordered Jean (The Frenchman) Duquaire released from prison despite the fact the convicted drug dealer was recently found in possession of narcotics behind bars.
Corrections officials want him to complete his entire 12-year term for gangsterism, drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit murder. Duquaire was sentenced in 2003 and has served seven years in prison.
Parole board commissioners Pierre Cadieux and Gilles Roussel ruled recently that Duquaire, 54, can move to a halfway house, though they recommended he be followed closely given the drug incident in prison.
"Great care is in order since you were found to be in possession of steroids quite recently,” the commissioners wrote.
QMI Agency has learned the biker’s case management team disagrees with the release order and believes Duquaire could resume his drug-running ways.
The corrections officials want him to remain in prison until his sentence expires in 2015 — an exceptional measure that is only applied to 5% of federal inmates.
The parole board’s own report says Duquaire used his influence to gain certain privileges in prison, which led officials to transfer him to a maximum-security facility. A psychological evaluation found him to be narcissistic, the report says.
Duquaire, nicknamed The Frenchman because of his European accent, was one of the architects of the Rock Machine gang’s merger with the Bandidos during the bloody Quebec biker war in the 1990s.
He was convicted of trafficking up to 4 kg of cocaine a week. He was arrested with nearly 200 kg of marijuana and a court later heard that his clients owed him more than $500,000.
Duquaire was also found to have ordered the assassination of a Hells Angels associate in 2001 in retaliation for the murder of two friends. Police thwarted his plot before it could be carried out.
Jean (The Frenchman) Duquaire’s parole conditions:
Must live in a halfway house
Must provide bank statements to parole officer
Must abstain from drugs, except for prescribed medication
Must not communicate or meet with convicted criminals
The biker war in brief:
The Rock Machine, later renamed the Bandidos, fought a bloody war against the Hells Angels between 1994 and 2002. There were countless shootouts and bombings, mainly in Quebec, and 200 people were killed. Some of the victims were innocent bystanders, including 10-year-old Daniel Desrochers, who was killed by car-bomb shrapnel while he played in a Montreal street in 1995. The boy’s death led to a public outcry that culminated in the passage of Canada’s first gangsterism law, which made it illegal to be a member of a criminal gang.
Subsequent police raids and mass trials have decimated biker gangs in Quebec but they continue to operate major drug operations in Ontario and other provinces.