A former gang leader, expelled from Canada in 2014, but returned to the country two years later, was arrested overnight from Saturday to Sunday, in connection with the attempted murder of a Russian national in Estérel on Friday, learned The Press.
Posted at 10:25 a.m.
Updated at 4:57 p.m.
The suspect is Richard Goodridge, 53, presumed president of an “inclusive” biker group and former gang leader, formerly associated with kingpin Ducarme Joseph.
According to our information, Goodridge was apprehended by investigators from the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) and members of the Tactical Intervention Group (GTI) on the night of Saturday to Sunday in his residence in the Chomedey sector, in Laval.
His appearance must take place this weekend by videoconference, said the SQ. He was released in the meantime, pending further investigation. No charges have yet been filed against him, the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) said on Sunday.
Goodridge is suspected of having taken part in the attempted murder committed Friday afternoon in the parking lot of the Estérel Resort hotel, in the Laurentians, on Valeriy Tarasenco, a businessman who was the subject of complaints of fraud and which would have been associated with a young woman of Russian origin who infiltrated the entourage of the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, last year.
PHOTO DENIS GERMAIN, SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Last Friday, the Sûreté du Québec was contacted around 12:45 p.m. for an “armed attack” on Chemin Fridolin-Simard, in the Laurentians.
The SQ is still looking for other suspects in this case.
Filed for a long time
In 2014, an immigration commissioner ordered Goodridge deported to his home country of Guyana for serious criminality, but he returned two years later, presumably because he challenged his deportation and obtained his citizenship, information that the authorities have never confirmed.
Richard Goodridge made headlines again last year as The Press revealed that he was the leader of a new biker group, the Moors, who wanted to be more inclusive. It is not known if this group still exists.
During the 1990s, Goodridge would have been part of the Scorpions, a clique that gravitated around the Rockers, a school club of the Hells Angels that has now disappeared.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Richard Goodridge
According to some reports, he was close to Dany Kane, a member of the Rockers who became a mole for the police in the Spring 2001 investigation that led to the dismantling of this club-school and the Hells Angels Nomad.
In 1999, Goodridge was observed as a bodyguard in a motorcade in which was the warrior leader of the Hells Angels, Maurice Boucher, who died a few weeks ago.
In the mid-2000s, Goodridge founded, with the late kingpin Ducarme Joseph, the street gang 67 in Montreal. The two men then fell out, becoming sworn enemies. After Joseph’s departure in 2005, the 67 became the Loyalties, led by Goodridge.
Four attempted murders
During the 1990s and 2000s, Richard Goodridge was the victim of at least four attempted murders, including one in Toronto in which a projectile severed his finger.
Police suspect him of being involved in the March 2010 attack on Ducarme Joseph’s Flawnego clothing store in Old Montreal, which left two dead and two injured.
In the hours following the attack, the police contacted the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux and urgently shut down a strip club in downtown Montreal of which Goodridge was allegedly the manager, for fear of reprisals.
Although he is well known to the police, Richard Goodridge has little criminal record. He was pulled over from a car with a gun in it in Toronto in 2004.
In Quebec, he was found guilty of two charges of possession of a weapon and theft of a credit card. He was acquitted or benefited from a stay of proceedings in several other cases.
With Vincent Larin, The Press
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