Massive sale of Xanax in the United States | The lawyers of a Montreal suspect denounce his conditions of detention

The lawyers of a Montrealer who risks extradition to the United States for drug trafficking addressed the court to ensure that the Rivière-des-Prairies prison gives him access to his medication and to a doctor.

Hugo Joncas
The Press

The representatives of Alexandre Beaudry, 31, also ask that the establishment allow them to meet their client and ensure that he has received the documents left at the reception for him.

Beaudry is imprisoned at the request of the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The United States accuses him of having sold millions of contraband Xanax tablets on the hidden web (dark web), under different pseudonyms. He would have pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars in bitcoins from 2015 to 2017.

His lawyers plan to request his release within two weeks pending the continuation of the legal process for his extradition to Connecticut. Until then, they want to obtain improvements to his conditions of detention.

Arrested last week, the suspect is said to be suffering from severe back pain. However, his representatives are unable to ensure that he takes all the medication he needs at the Rivière-des-Prairies prison, according to what they explained in court on Friday morning.

“Although the infirmary has his list of medications, he doesn’t take them all, for some reason that I don’t know,” said Claude Boucher, one of Beaudry’s lawyers.

His communications with the prison only added to the confusion, he said.

“There is one who told me that she could not answer me, he explained to judge Éliane Perreault. The other told me that she has no right to speak to me.

” Lack of staff ”

Claude Boucher adds that he has a lot of trouble getting in touch with Beaudry. “We manage to speak to him, but at the moment, he has been detained for eight days and we have been unable to meet him,” said the criminal lawyer.

The prison reportedly invoked a “lack of staff” to deny him access to his client.

“The lawyers’ office is closed,” says Claude Boucher. We can’t set the date. You have to call the same day and they tell us if there are visits. »

At Friday morning’s hearing, the case clerk said she inquired with the prison. The establishment allegedly claimed that the situation was linked to a system of “COVID-19 bubbles”.

“Recommendations” of the judge

At the request of his lawyers, Judge Éliane Perreault “recommended” that the prison give Beaudry all the medication prescribed to him and have him see a doctor.

She also asks the detention facility to provide proof that it has received the documents from her lawyers, and to allow her to meet them as soon as possible.

Questioned by The Press, the Ministry of Public Security and the office of Minister Geneviève Guilbault did not comment. Unable to know if adjustments will be made.

” Ashamed ”

According to another lawyer for Mr. Beaudry, Debora De Thomasis, the situation in which her client finds himself is representative of a generalized problem in Quebec prisons.

“It’s shameful what’s happening,” she said. It is unworthy of a democratic country. »

It ensures that federal penitentiaries provide much easier access to inmates.

According to the Quebec Association of Defense Lawyers, Beaudry’s case is far from isolated. “Detention conditions in general are contrary to primary expectations of human dignity,” indignant Marie-Pier Boulet, president of the organization.

According to her, Quebec is currently flouting the fundamental rights of detainees.

Detention facilities remain silent when lawyers complain about it, she adds. “No matter how much we write to them, point out problems to them, the answers do not come. »

At the Montreal Defense Lawyers Association, Élizabeth Ménard deplores the “completely contradictory” information she receives from prisons.

According to her, the courts do not even always manage to make themselves obeyed by the detention establishments. “Judges sometimes ask for detainees to be brought to court, but they are not brought! »