A man who was injured in his failed attempt to shoot a former member of a Hells Angels support club outside a restaurant in St-Léonard received an overall sentence of six years on Wednesday.
Girard Anglade, 43, pleaded guilty to six charges related to what happened on the afternoon of Jan. 24, 2018 outside La Vieille Cheminée restaurant. Through his guilty plea at the Montreal courthouse before Quebec Court Judge Hélène Morin, he admitted he fired one shot toward Jean-Guy Bourgoin, 54, a very influential former member of the Rockers, a Hells Angels support club, during Quebec’s bikers war between 1994 and 2002.
More than 160 people were killed in the conflict between organized crime groups, and the Rockers did most of the dirty work in Montreal for the Hells Angels during the eight years of the bikers war.
“I don’t know what will happen (in the future). But I assume Mr. Bourgoin won’t forget this,” Morin said before she agreed with the joint recommendation on Anglade’s sentence. “I get the impression there is nothing I can say that will change your lifestyle when you get out. But we’ll see.”
Anglade told the judge he had nothing to add beyond what his lawyer Dominique Shoofey said on his behalf in court on Wednesday.
“The challenge was to prove intent,” Shoofey told the judge while explaining why the Crown agreed to drop an attempted murder charge filed against Anglade following his arrest. Anglade was set to have a trial before a jury this year, but opted to plead guilty when it was clear his case would be pushed back to 2021 because of the pandemic.
The Montreal North resident pleaded guilty to pointing a firearm toward a person, discharging a firearm with the intention to harm someone and four charges related to the firearm, including how the serial number on the pistol was scratched off.
According to a joint statement of facts Morin received before making her decision, Bourgoin and two other men tied to biker clubs dined inside La Vieille Cheminée, on Métropolitain Blvd. E., on the afternoon in question.
Bourgoin exited the restaurant alone and Anglade approached him while pointing a 9mm Glock pistol equipped with a silencer. Anglade fired one shot before the pistol jammed.
“According to the evidence, Mr. Anglade pointed the pistol equipped with a silencer toward the victim, Mr. Bourgoin. The victim Bourgoin replied with his own firearm, striking Mr. Anglade in the left arm,” lawyers from both sides of the case wrote in the statement of facts.
Despite the allegation contained in the document, Bourgoin has not been charged with shooting Anglade.
Prosecutor Philippe Vallières-Roland said Bourgoin refused to talk to the Montreal police after the failed attempt on his life. Shoofey said Bourgoin even refused to provide a statement confirming he was a victim.
Investigators are certain Anglade had an accomplice waiting in a vehicle parked nearby, but they have not been able to identify the person.
Anglade left the pistol at the crime scene but, Vallières-Roland said, the police were only able to link Anglade to what happened when he showed up at a hospital in Terrebonne hours later with a gunshot wound in his left arm. Traces of his blood were found in his home in Montreal North and in a rented vehicle that was driven by Anglade’s accomplice. Images of the vehicle were captured on at least one surveillance camera outside the restaurant.
With time served factored into the sentence, Anglade is left with a 22-month prison term.
Any possible motive behind the shooting was not mentioned during the hearing on Wednesday. But during Anglade’s bail hearing in 2018, a Montreal detective testified that Anglade is believed to be tied to other homicides. Vallières-Roland told Morin that the Crown will keep some of the evidence gathered when Anglade was arrested because of an ongoing investigation.
Anglade is a close associate of Frédérick Silva, an alleged hit man who is charged with carrying out four murders, including the Dec. 20, 2018 fatal shooting of Sébastien Beauchamp, another former member of the Rockers. Beauchamp was also killed in St-Léonard.
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Source: Montreal Gazette