Maurice Boucher dies at 69

One of the key figures in Quebec’s criminal history and instigator of one of the deadliest conflicts in Canada, former Hells Angels Maurice Boucher, died Sunday afternoon in the Sainte-Anne- des-Plaines, learned The Press.

Daniel Renaud
The Press

Boucher, 69, suffered from throat cancer that had become generalized. The 60-year-old, who was incarcerated in the Special Handling Unit (SDU) of the Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines penitentiary north of Montreal, the only super maximum unit in Canada – where the most dangerous criminals in the country are incarcerated – , knew he was seriously ill for a few years but refused any treatment, according to our sources.

In recent weeks, he had finally agreed to be transferred to a regional hospital set up on the grounds of the Correctional Services of Canada, in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, where he had been receiving palliative care for a few days.

His family were reportedly notified a few days ago that his health was rapidly deteriorating.

Boucher had been serving a 22-year life sentence, with no possibility of parole for at least 25 years, for the murders of two prison guards, Pierre Rondeau and Diane Lavigne, committed in the late 1990s, when the war bikers was raging in Quebec.

During his long incarceration, Boucher had not calmed down, notably plotting the murder of boss Raynald Desjardins and taking part in an attack on a fellow prisoner in 2015, crimes which earned him other convictions which added to his long sadness.

Instigator of a bloody war

Born in June 1953 in Causapscal in Bas-Saint-Laurent, Maurice Boucher was very young when he and his family settled in Montreal.

His criminal career began 20 years later, in 1973, with a robbery case.

During the 1980s, he was notably sentenced to 23 months in prison for thefts and for a case of armed sexual assault committed against a teenager.

Boucher also had a history of gun possession.

First a member of the SS, a defunct group of bikers based in the Pointe-aux-Trembles district, in the east of Montreal, Boucher had become in 1987 a member of the Hells Angels of the Montreal section, then based in Sorel.

In the mid-1990s, Boucher had co-founded the Hells Angels Nomads chapter, made up of a “table” of cocaine importers, whose goal was to take control of the distribution and sale of this drug in Montreal and in Quebec.

But the members of the Rock Machine motorcycle club and their allies, made up of family clans and independent traffickers, did not intend to let it go, and so began in 1994 a war that lasted eight years and claimed 160 lives. , including twenty innocent victims, and as many wounded.

In 1997, the Hells Angels killed two prison guards, Pierre Rondeau and Diane Lavigne, and injured another, Robert Corriveau, presumably to ensure the loyalty of the killers and to destabilize justice in Quebec.

The following year Maurice Boucher was arrested and charged with the two murders and the attempted murder.

He stood trial but was acquitted. He emerged triumphant from the Montreal courthouse, escorted by bikers, and attended a boxing gala the same evening at the old Forum, where he was even applauded by spectators.

On March 28, 2001, members of the Carcajou Squad carried out Operation Spring 2001 and dismantled the Nomads and their most active training club, the Rockers.

But at the time of the strike, Boucher was already in prison because the Court of Appeal had overturned the verdict of not guilty for the murders of the prison guards against him.

The biker had undergone a second trial in 2002, at the end of which he was found guilty of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment, thanks in particular to the testimony of one of the killers, Stéphane “Godasse” Gagné, who became a repentant witness.

During the biker war, and after his acquittal at the end of his first trial, Maurice Boucher was regularly seen having a coffee at Place Versailles, near the elevator leading to the SPVM’s specialized investigations offices, to taunt the police. said some of them now retired.

During the war, Boucher had a contract on his head and had been followed by the contract killer Gérald Gallant who, however, had never been able to fulfill his mission.

During his long incarceration, Boucher had been the victim of a few attacks by fellow prisoners, including one with homemade picks that occurred in the courtyard of the Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines penitentiary in October 2010.

Four years later, the Montreal Journal revealed that Boucher had been expelled from the ranks of the Hells Angels.

This expulsion did not, however, prevent him from continuing to receive money from the faithful, from the sale of narcotics, $4,000 per month according to the evidence obtained during the Magot-Mastiff investigation, by which the Sûreté du Québec dismantled in November 2015 a biker-mafia-gang alliance that ran organized crime in Montreal.

During the investigation, the police had discovered that Boucher, his daughter Alexandra Mongeau and gang leader Gregory Woolley had conspired to assassinate the kingpin Raynald Desjardins. Boucher had been arrested and charged for this plot. He pleaded guilty and received an additional ten-year sentence.

Sentencing him in 2018, Superior Court Judge Eric Downs said the case showed Boucher was not on the path to rehabilitation.

In 2015, Boucher was also arrested for attacking a fellow prisoner with a pickaxe and received another two-year sentence in 2019.

To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.