OFF THE WIRE
Four years after police trumpeted the success of their offensive against the Hells Angels, Toronto prosecutors have abandoned their attempt to have the motorcycle club declared a criminal organization.
The decision comes six weeks after a jury — following a six month trial — acquitted the president of the Downtown Toronto Hells Angels chapter and four members of belonging to a criminal organization. They were, however, convicted of charges relating to drug trafficking and one biker found guilty of possessing a restricted firearm.
Crown attorneys and lawyers for the remaining accused, former Angels spokesman Donald (Donny) Petersen, Vincenzo Sansalone and Omid Bayani, agreed the trio would be bound by the jury’s verdict on whether the first group of bikers belonged to an organized crime group.
So Crown attorney Faiyaz Alibhai told court Monday the prosecution would call no evidence to support that charge and asked Superior Court Justice Robert Clark to acquit the men, who pleaded not guilty.
“I’m happy to be acquitted by a jury of my peers,” said Petersen, who has been out on bail since 2007. “The Hells Angels are not a criminal organization,” he said outside the courtroom.
“They are a criminal organization,” countered Det.-Sgt. Len Isnor, of the Ontario Provincial Police’s Biker Enforcement Unit. Other courts have declared the Hells Angels a criminal organization and each case is tried on its own merits. “Our job was to get the charges before the courts…I can’t say that I’m happy but we’ve done our job,” he said.
Sansalone and Bayani still face a charge of conspiracy to traffic GHB, the date rape drug. The judge-alone trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday. Both are out of custody.
In April 2007, police officers arrested 31 people — some full-patch members and many associates — and laid 169 charges, mostly drug-related, after raids on Angels’ clubhouses across Canada, including the downtown Toronto chapter’s Eastern Ave. location, which police seized.
Of the five Toronto Angels on trial this spring, only vice-president Douglas Myles and Mehrdad Bahman remain behind bars after being convicted of conspiracy to traffic drugs. Myles received an 11-year sentence, Bahman 13 years. Both were given nine years credit for pre-trial custody.
Journalist Yves Lavigne, who has written three books on the Hells Angels, said Monday police and prosecutors are relying too heavily on the criminal organization law when they should be conducting exhaustive investigations.
“The only way to take out any criminal organization is one brick at a time,” he said in an interview. “They (police) want to do it in a grand sweeping gesture, everyone wants to be a big hero and get promoted and they failed.”
The Hells Angels, meanwhile, are thriving in Toronto both in the illicit drug trade and offering protection, Lavigne said.
“They are raking in the bucks,” he said.
http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/article/1019182--hells-angels-acquitted-on-organized-crime-charges
