Biker Trials, The Read Free

for target practice in residential neighborhoods. During the late 1970s, Michaud ran a stripper agency for the Hells Angels before becoming a “full-patch” (or full-fledged) member in 1980. He would become part of the gang’s second chapter in Quebec, based in Laval, an island city north of Montreal. But two years later, he asked to return to the Montreal chapter as he and other Hells Angels began to realize some members of the Laval chapter were unwilling to discipline themselves into a well-tuned, organized gang. Michaud would later be described as a zealot of the Hells Angels’ doctrine and he was believed to be a driving force behind the March 24, 1985, slaughter of five members of the Laval chapter, dubbed the Lennoxville Purge. He was convicted on five counts of first-degree murder for his role in the murders and sentenced to life with no chance of parole until he had served 25 years.
    In 1993, however, while he was serving his sentence, Michaud wanted nothing to do with the Hells Angels and was expelled from the gang. He was apparently a changed man. In 2001,he used section 745.6 of the Criminal Code, the judicial review provision, better known as Canada’s “faint hope clause,” to convince a jury that he deserved a break on his sentence and was given a chance at parole after having served 20 years. He described his role in the slaughter, saying he had merely pointed a firearm at one of the victims and told him not to move, just before the five Hells Angels were shot dead.
    Michaud was released on day parole in May 2003 and impressed parole officials with his rehabilitation. He spent two years in a halfway house, being gradually reintegrated into free society and becoming a family man. He admitted to the National Parole Board that he had been morally blind to what the Hells Angels were doing when he was a member and that he joined them out of an immature need to belong to something, no matter how criminal. He was released on full parole in June 2005.
    Among the five Hells Angels murdered in the Sherbrooke chapter’s clubhouse in 1985 was Michel (Willie) Mayrand, a former member of the Marauders, a gang based in the Eastern Townships mining town of Asbestos. The Marauders was another of the smaller gangs the Hells Angels used to select its members from during their early years in Quebec. Mayrand’s brother Richard joined the Hells Angels’ Montreal chapter a year before his brother was murdered. After the slaughter, Richard Mayrand chose the gang over sibling loyalties and decided to stay with the Hells Angels. He even did time for refusing to talk at a coroner’s inquest about what happened in Sherbrooke. He would later take on an important role in the Nomads chapter and be a key player in the Hells Angels’ expansion into Ontario. He would also be among the people arrested in Operation Springtime 2001.
    The Hells Angels’ ability to purge five of their own members in such a violent way in 1985 brought them notoriety in Quebec and would influence future developments. The gang’s Montreal chapter was left scattered after the purge as many of its members were rounded up as suspects or went into hiding. The chapter needed new blood, younger members who were willing to join an organization with a reputation for killing its own.
    Boucher was made a member of the Montreal chapter in 1987, joining Walter (Nurget) Stadnick, who had earned his patch in 1982. Both men would play important roles in the gang’s future, not only in Quebec but in the rest of Canada as well.
    Stadnick had been a member of the Wild Ones, a gang based in Hamilton, before joining the Hells Angels. Like Boucher and most other members of the Nomads chapter, Stadnick grew up in a working-class neighborhood, but in his case it was in Ontario. Between 1971 and 1988, he had been convicted at least four times for crimes committed in Hamilton and Toronto. The longest sentence he had served was six