The jury at the trial of Marie-Josée Viau and Guy Dion has just declared Marie-Josée Viau guilty of conspiracy and two counts of second degree murder, and acquitted her spouse on all counts.
Marie Josée Viau and Guy Dion were accused of conspiracy and premeditated murders of Vincenzo and Giuseppe Falduto, killed in the couple’s garage, in Saint-Jude, near Saint-Hyacinthe, on June 30, 2016.
Immediately after the verdict, Superior Court Judge Éric Downs ordered the detention of Mr.me Viau. He said counts of conspiracy and second degree murder carry a sentence of life in prison, with no eligibility for parole for ten years.
The jury recommended that Marie-Josée Viau’s parole ineligibility period be ten years.
The deliberations were made by 11 jurors, one of them having been hospitalized the same day of their confinement. The jurors were on their ninth day of deliberations. On October 31, they asked to hear parts of the testimony of Marie-Josée Viau and Guy Dion again.
Trapped by a mole
Vincenzo and Giuseppe Falduto were shot dead in the garage of the Viau-Dion couple by a mafia hitman who became a mole for the Sûreté du Québec two and a half years later.
The former hired killer, whose name must be kept silent under a publication ban, won the trust of Marie-Josée Viau and Guy Dion during the summer of 2019, brought the Falduto murders back to discussions and recorded the defendants without their knowledge.
Marie-Josée Viau and Guy Dion were arrested on October 16, 2019.
The Pursuit claimed that Marie-Josée Viau and Guy Dion knew that the murders were to occur on their property that day and that the couple then removed all traces of the crime and burned the bodies of the victims in the open, which ‘denied the two accused during their testimony under oath.
Press however revealed last week that the two defendants made compromising confessions to investigators on the day of their arrest, but that the judge ruled this evidence inadmissible after finding that constitutional rights – the right to counsel – did not been respected by the police.
The tapes made without the knowledge of the accused and the 15 days of testimony of the former hitman turned civilian undercover agent (ACI) were the spearhead of the evidence that the Prosecution presented during this trial of five month. On these recordings, Marie-Josée Viau spoke much more than her spouse, a factor that the jury obviously took into consideration.
The murders of brothers Vincenzo and Giuseppe Falduto were committed as part of a conflict between Calabrian factions and the Sicilian clan of the Montreal mafia.
To reach Daniel Renaud, dial 514 285-7000, extension 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of Press.