Hardened criminal Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau, sentenced in 2018 to the harshest sentence in modern Quebec history, will be able to apply for parole 10 years earlier. The Court of Appeal, however, on Tuesday dismissed his appeal on his guilt.
Famous for his spectacular escape from Saint-Jérôme prison in 2013, the 46-year-old boss was found guilty in 2017 by a jury for his involvement in two murders and two attempted murders. He was thus sentenced to life imprisonment.
Judge France Charbonneau had imposed on Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau a record sentence at the time: 35 years before eligibility for parole. To justify such a severe sentence, the judge had insisted on the extreme dangerousness of the offender, his personality on the verge of psychopathy and his “almost non-existent” possibility of rehabilitation.
However, the courts can no longer accumulate sentences for murder since the Bissonnette judgment of the Supreme Court last year. The Quebec mosque mass killer had his parole ineligibility period reduced from 40 to 25 years.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, the Crown did not contest Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau’s request to also see his period of inadmissibility reduced from 35 years to 25 years. Remember that a first degree murder automatically leads to life imprisonment without the possibility of release for 25 years.
The “conductor” of crimes
Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau did not himself shoot the four victims. The mobster had ordered his henchman Ryan Wolfson to commit the crimes. In 2012, Wolfson executed Pierre-Paul Fortier, a drug trafficker, and shot Frédérick Murdock in an attempted murder of his boss, Vincent Pietrantonio.
“The desire for revenge and the lure of gain are the main drivers [de l’accusé]. […] He was the great conductor of all these crimes, Wolfson having acted under his guidance, ”concluded Judge Charbonneau in 2018.
“The appellant demonstrates no reviewable error,” concluded the Quebec Court of Appeal on Tuesday. Me Steve Baribeau and M.e Alexis Marcotte Bélanger piloted the case for the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions, while Mr.e Julie Giroux defended the offender.
” It’s finish. The families of the victims and Mr. Dannick Lessard will, I hope, be able to turn the page and continue to move forward after all these years of legal proceedings,” commented Mr.e Baribeau.
In 2017, Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his helicopter escape from Saint-Jérôme prison. This case had struck the imagination in 2013. Accomplices of Hudon-Barbeau had requisitioned a tourist helicopter by pointing a firearm at the pilot.
Hudon-Barbeau and another inmate then managed to board the craft by clinging to a rope, under the gaze of correctional officers. The police immediately intercepted the fugitives in Sainte-Adèle.