GANGSTERISM RULING TO AFFECT STREET GANGS

Verdict Against Small-Time Thugs Lowers Bar for Organized-Crime
Charge, Lawyer Says

MONTREAL -- Convicted street-gang members could face tougher
sentences in the wake of a landmark trial in Montreal where, for the
first time, a judge has recognized a small local street gang as a
criminal organization.

Prosecutors said that yesterday's verdict by Quebec Court Judge
Jean-Pierre Bonin against the Pelletier Street Gang effectively
lowers the bar they have to meet to prove someone belongs to a
criminal organization, under the so-called gangsterism charge.

That provision of the Criminal Code, first introduced in 1997 to
fight bikers, enables the Crown to demand longer sentences for
convicted offenders shown to also be members of an established
criminal enterprise.

The challenge in this case is that a street gang usually doesn't have
the formal hierarchy and discipline that bikers or traditional crime
syndicates exhibit, prosecutor Jean-Pierre Saint-Jean told reporters.

"In the future, even when we deal with groups that aren't as
well-structured as the Hells Angels, we'll be able to invoke this
section [of the Criminal Code]," Mr. Saint-Jean said.

"It will make a big difference."

Former provincial police biker expert Guy Ouellette predicted the
ruling would have an impact on street gangs across Canada.

"If they thought they were untouchable because they weren't as
organized as the bikers or other organized-crime families, they're
now all in the same pot."

Under the current law, which was amended five years ago, a criminal
organization can be merely three people whose main activity is to
commit offences for the benefit of their group.

"This legislation is really in its infancy," said Steven Skurka, the
lawyer for two Woodbridge, Ont., Hells Angels who were the first
defendants convicted under the current law.

The Montreal case is "undoubtedly an important decision but it's
hardly the last time this legislation will be scrutinized," Mr. Skurka said.

Lawyers for the defendants in the Montreal trial -- which unfolded
over three months at the special high-security Gouin courthouse built
for the megatrials against the Hells Angels from 2002 to 2004 -- said
the judge had interpreted the law too loosely, that he had not drawn
a distinction between a criminal group and people who are merely conspiring.

They said they would appeal. Similarly, Mr. Skurka's case will be
heard by the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

The Pelletier Street group was accused of trafficking crack cocaine
in north-end Montreal. "A band of criminals literally took hostage a
corner of Pelletier Street," Judge Bonin wrote in his 79-page ruling.

He found all of the accused guilty of trafficking and five of them
guilty of gangsterism.

Judge Bonin relied on wiretaps and testimonies of undercover agents
showing that the defendants bought cocaine by the kilo, acted as a
concerted group, used code when describing drug deals and "declared
war" against another gang.

In one wiretap, the accused Valter Fernandes is heard warning
another, Bernard Mathieu, that "the guys on Pelletier" have been
identified by police.

Mr. Mathieu was described as the leader of the group. He is heard on
a wiretap reassuring a member of a rival gang who was to enter the
Pelletier Street area. "When you arrive, you are under my protection,
my friend," he said.

In another case, an undercover officer buying crack from accused
Clinton Saint-Thomas was told the sellers had altogether relocated to
another street to escape police attention. "There's nothing left on
Pelletier. We've moved here."

Street gangs have drawn much police and media attention in Montreal
because more established organizations, such as the Hells Angels and
the Mafia, have suffered from crackdowns in recent years, leaving a
vacuum for less-structured groups to fill.

The year-long police investigation against the Pelletier Street Gang
involved 100,000 wiretaps, most of them in creole since all but one
of the 15 accused is of Haitian origin.