Hells Angels Member Denied Parole

Quebec, Canada (September 8, 2020) - A founding charter member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in Quebec has been denied parole on a drug-trafficking sentence — in part because he remains loyal to the motorcycle club.

Michel (Sky) Langlois, 74, also told the Parole Board of Canada he is not interested in being transferred to a halfway house because he fears contracting the coronavirus. He was denied both full parole and day parole. During a hearing held last week, Langlois’s case management team recommended day parole was acceptable in his case but full parole would be “premature.”

Langlois was arrested in April 2018 in Project Objection, a probe led by the Escouade nationale de répression contre le crime organisé (ENRCO). The investigation alleged a few Hells Angels based in Quebec, including Langlois, controlled drug networks in specific locations across the province.

An undercover agent met with Langlois and another Hells Angel on Aug. 9, 2017 at restaurant on Drummond St. in downtown Montreal to discuss the distribution of drugs in the Outaouais region. The agent learned Langlois claimed to have title over drug trafficking in Petite Nation, a regional county municipality, and was partners in the distribution of nearly 300,000 meth pills and several kilos of hashish.

On Oct. 3, 2018, Langlois pleaded guilty at the Montreal courthouse to charges of drug trafficking, conspiracy and gangsterism charges. His sentence left him with a prison term of just under 33 months. At the time, Langlois agreed with a summary of facts that were read into the court record. But he told a different story to the parole board last week — that he was merely helping a friend by selling meth and never saw the drugs being sold.

A written summary of the board’s decision indicates Langlois worked on a farm as a teenager before he left for Montreal. In 1963, he began to hang around with the Popeyes, another of Quebec’s motorcycle club at the time.

In 1977, Langlois and several members of the Popeyes were recruited into the Hells Angels and formed the clubs’s first chapter in Canada, based in Montreal. In 1997, he became a founding member of the club’s South chapter, based on the South Shore.

Langlois does not deny he is a Hells Angel but, he told the board he “never committed an offence at their incitation,” according to the summary.

“You do not consider the Hells Angels to be a criminal organization and you adhere to this group solely out of a love for motorcycles and that the group does not recommend to its members that they commit crimes,” it says.

The parole board noted Langlois has been a model inmate who worked in the penitentiary’s library before it was forced to close because of the pandemic. But the board could not overlook the fact Langlois continues to meet with organized crime figures while behind bars.

Langlois will become eligible for a statutory release sometime next year.

SOURCE: Montreal Gazette

Hells Angels Host Charity Event

Akron, Ohio, USA (September 8, 2020) BTN - An annual lemonade stand that raises money for children battling cancer is coming to a local Hells Angels Motorcycle Club this year. Kiely’s Lemonade Stand helps raise money each year for families staying at the Ronald McDonald House of Akron with children who are battling cancer.

The fundraiser, which usually is held in Streetsboro, will take place this year in Akron. Brandy Taylor said the Akron Hells Angels Motorcycle Club volunteered space this year to host the seventh annual event.

Taylor said the lemonade stand started after her daughter Kiely’s two cousins, Ryland and Jocelyn, were diagnosed with brain cancer. Taylor said the brother and sister were diagnosed in 2011 and 2012, and are now cancer free.

Kiely's Lemonade Stand

She said the Ronald McDonald House was amazing with helping out the family, which inspired the family to organize the stand each year.

The event will take place from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 13. Rather than selling lemonade and cookies for a fixed price, patrons can choose their donation, Taylor said. The club is at 560 N. Howard St. in Akron.

Taylor said they’ll also hold raffles for gift cards and other items donated before the stand opens up. Since the fundraiser started, she said they’ve raised close to $18,000. Taylor said they’ve donated to 17 families so far.

Part of the proceeds also go to making goodie bags each Christmas for children battling cancer. Last year, 50 bags were given to children in the hospital over the holidays.

People interested in learning more can visit facebook.com/KielysLemonadeStand

Reported Gunfight Between Rival Clubs

Houston, Texas, USA (September 6, 2020) BTN - Three people were shot Saturday during a gunfight outside a southwest Houston bar. It happened in the 9900 block of Fondren around 11:30 p.m.

The shooting happened as rival motorcycle clubs fought in the parking lot, investigators said. One person was shot five times and was last listed in critical condition. Two others were wounded but are expected to survive.


Witnesses were not cooperating with police as they worked to find out what led to the violence, Houston police said. No arrests had been made as of Sunday morning.

SOURCE: ABC13

Convictions Reversed in Hells Angels Case

Montreal, Canada (September 6, 2020) BTN - Four people who were convicted four years ago on charges alleging they helped three Hells Angels members launder their money have succeeded in having their convictions reversed on appeal.

In a decision released on Thursday, the Quebec Court of Appeal ordered that the trial of Richard Felx, 62, Michel Ste-Marie, 75, and his children Dax, 45, and Marie Ste-Marie, 47, should not have proceeded.

All four were first charged in 2009 in Operation Diligence, an investigation led by the Sûreté du Québec, into how members of the Hells Angels based in Quebec had infiltrated specific segments of the province’s construction industry. As part of the same investigation, Felx, a former notary, and the others, were found to have helped Normand (Casper) Ouimet, 51, Martin Robert, 45, and Alain Durand, all full patch members of the motorcycle club, hide their money.

In a trial held at the Laval courthouse in 2016, Quebec Court Judge Gilles Garneau found all four guilty of money laundering, conspiracy and gangsterism. Felx’s role was to create trusts and an offshore company in Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, where he was able to send his clients’ money.

Ste-Marie and his children had a company that specialized in credit recovery and helped the three Hells Angels move their money around and into offshore bank accounts based in Mauritius. They charged a 10-per-cent commission on their transactions.

After they were convicted, Felx and the others were sentenced to prison terms of between 42 and 66 months.

But before the trial started, Garneau was asked to rule on a defence motion arguing it took the prosecution too long to prosecute the case. The four accused were first charged, along with Ouimet and Robert, in 2009 and the trial began seven years later. The motion was even argued before the Supreme Court of Canada issued a decision in 2016, commonly referred to as the Jordan ruling, setting very strict limits on how long a person charged with a crime should expect to wait before they have a trial.

Garneau ruled that, while he agreed it took the prosecution too long to bring the case to trial, placing a stay of proceedings on the charges would not have been an appropriate remedy in their case. Garneau wrote that “society has a certain and primordial interest in seeing the accused undergo their trial.”

On Thursday, three Quebec Court of Appeal judges issued their unanimous decision. They ruled that the only remedy available was to have a stay of proceedings placed on the charges filed against all four. They quashed the guilty verdicts and ordered a stay of proceedings on the charges.

“The first (error in Garneau’s decision) is an assumption that an appropriate remedy allows a measure of discretion in the assessment of various factors and that this discretion allows a judge to decline a stay of proceedings if he or she should conclude that it is not an appropriate and just remedy. An unbroken line of jurisprudence since (a precedent-setting case) has held that the only available remedy for a finding of unreasonable delay is a stay of proceeding,” Superior Court Justice Patrick Healey wrote on behalf of all three of the appellate court judges.

SOURCE: Montreal Gazette