Girard Anglade, accomplice from the start of Frédérick Silva, this former hitman currently at the center of a major investigation targeting Montreal organized crime, pleaded guilty Friday morning to one count of conspiracy aimed at helping the murderer flee justice .
Judge André Vincent of the Superior Court endorsed a joint suggestion from the Prosecution and the Defense, and sentenced Anglade to 37 months of imprisonment.
But subtracting the period spent in preventive detention, which totals 37 months, Anglade was released the same day.
The 46-year-old was scheduled to face a jury trial starting Monday on charges of conspiracy and helping Silva obtain a passport, but Judge Vincent ordered jury selection to be canceled.
At the request of the Prosecution, represented by Me Nathalie Kléber, of the Serious Crime and Special Affairs Office, Judge Vincent ordered a stay of proceedings on the charge of obtaining a false passport.
Spy phone
Frédérick Silva shot and killed the customer of a Montreal strip bar in May 2017, following a conflict between the killer’s friends and those of the victim.
The following June, investigators and members of the tactical intervention group narrowly missed Silva who had gone to a cinema in Laval.
Immediately after this failed operation, a pan-Canadian arrest warrant was issued against Frédérick Silva who then found himself at the heart of a run that lasted almost two years, before being arrested by SPVM police officers in February 2019 .
Two years earlier, in February 2017, Silva also attempted to kill mafia clan boss Salvatore Scoppa.
According to a summary of the facts read in court by Anglade’s lawyer, Me Debora de Thomasis, Anglade was among a group of friends who accompanied Silva when the latter attempted to kill Scoppa, but he said he was not aware of the shooter’s intentions before the crime was committed.
In August 2017, while the SPVM had launched a major investigation called Mégalo to find Silva, a police double agent posed as a criminal, approached the killer’s partner, and gave the latter a bouquet of flowers and a cell phone, in order for Silva to call him back.
The cell phone was actually a spy phone and the police hoped to be able to trace Silva with it.
But Anglade threw away the flowers, called back the man who had given the device to Silva’s partner, said that he no longer had any contact with the latter and that he would never give him the phone.
Subsequently, Anglade undertook some steps and communications to allow Silva to obtain a false passport in the name of a certain David Guérard.
Long roadmap
Anglade has been detained for six years, since he was convicted of discharging a firearm in the case of the attempted murder of motorcyclist Jean-Guy Bourgouin while the latter was leaving a restaurant in the borough of Saint-Léonard in January 2018.
He was charged with conspiracy and obtaining a false passport in January 2022 and a new period of preventive detention then began, preventing him from leaving prison between the two cases.
Anglade has a history dating back to 1998, including assault causing harm, breaking and entering, robbery with a firearm, robbery with a firearm and possession of a weapon. He repeatedly failed to comply with orders prohibiting him from possessing a weapon.
The names Anglade and Silva appear together for the first time in an article by The Canadian Press on a home invasion crime committed almost 20 years ago.
“I hope for you that this will be the last sentence and that it will end,” Judge Vincent told him, before wishing him good luck.
To contact Daniel Renaud, call 514 285-7000, ext. 4918, write to [email protected] or write to the postal address of The Press.