ANGEL WITH BLOODY HANDS

Quebec Biker, Who Killed A Government Witness, Will Be Sentenced
Today

Richard Vallee, once a leading member of Quebec's Hells Angels,
expressed some remorse for killing a government witness about to
testify against him -- he was sorry that his victim was driving a
classic Porsche sports car when he blew him up in 1993.

After a career marked by drugs, death plots, surprise acquittals and
unlikely prison escapes, Vallee will stand today in a New York
courtroom to learn whether he will spend the rest of his life in jail.

On July 28, 1993, a thunderous explosion tore apart a white, 1977
Porsche, sending both car and body parts across the large parking lot
of Bowl-Mart in Rouses Point, N.Y., about an hour's drive south of
Montreal.

When the victim was identified as Lee Carter, 31, who worked part-time
as a bartender at the bowling lane and lived in an adjacent trailer,
New York police looked north for answers. Mr. Carter was known as the
sole witness who could finger Vallee, a founding member of the elite
Quebec Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, in a
cross-border cocaine smuggling conspiracy.

The Nomads were the architects of the biker war that would claim more
than 160 lives.

Mr. Carter's troubles, however, started in May, 1992, when he was
asked by an acquaintance to move cocaine into Canada.

Mr. Carter, whose namesake father said his son "just wanted to do the
right thing," feigned interest and then called police, offering to
work for them undercover.

Working with police, Mr. Carter brought 54 kilograms of fake cocaine
into Canada and, at a Montreal motel, was introduced to "Rick" who
told him where to deliver the load. Mr. Carter later identified Vallee
as the man he met and Vallee and fellow conspirators were soon arrested.

In March, 1993, as Vallee's trial approached, his lawyer wrote to the
Quebec prosecutor of the case. The letter, U.S. prosecutors claim in
court documents, "intended to ferret out what witnesses or evidence
connected Vallee to the cocaine." The lawyer was told Mr. Carter was
the only witness who was willing and able to identify Vallee.

Mr. Carter did not get a chance to give his testimony; a month before
the trial he started his Porsche on a sunny morning after it had
secretly been loaded with explosives. Because of the murder of the
only witness against Vallee, his drug charges were dismissed.

Police in Canada and the United States were fairly sure Vallee was
behind the bombing and slowly built a case against him.

A neighbour of Mr. Carter said that two days earlier a man who looked
like Vallee was asking where Mr. Carter lived. New York police
recovered the detonator used in the blast and a year later police in
Quebec seized a nearly identical detonator from a man who was visiting
Vallee's apartment. Quebec police next searched the apartment of an
associate of Vallee's and found a bomb-making kit with Vallee's
fingerprints on it.

Then, in 1995, Serge Quesnel, a Hells Angels assassin, agreed to
cooperate with police. He told officers that Vallee once learned that
Quesnel's mother's maiden name was Carter.

"He said, 'Is she any relation to the guy that I blew up in the
States?' " Quesnel said.

The subject came up a second time: "I was telling him how much the
cops hate me because I had killed a guy; they knew it but they weren't
able to pin it on me. And he said to me, he goes, 'Well the police
hate me even more because I killed one of their witnesses in a drug
deal in New York,' " Quesnel said.

"And he said that it was actually a bit of a shame because the guy was
driving a really nice car and he had to blow up the car, so it was a
shame."

Vallee was arrested in Trois-Rivieres in 1995 and charged in Mr.
Carter's death. He was told there were two witnesses against him.
Vallee was unfazed.

"You know what happened to Carter, I blew him up and he did not come
to testify. The other two witnesses will also not come to testify," he
told officers, according to court documents. Bold action followed
those bold words.

In 1997, Vallee concocted a prison fight that gave him a broken jaw
and he was taken to a Montreal hospital. There, two days before he was
to be sent to the United States, a gun-wielding man confronted guards
and helped Vallee flee on a motorcycle.

For years he was a fugitive, featured on both the U.S. Marshals' Most
Wanted list and the popular TV show America's Most Wanted.

In 2003, he again fooled police when he was stopped in Montreal for
drunk driving. After giving officers forged documents and claiming he
was a businessman from Costa Rica, he was allowed to walk out of the
police station. It was not until the next day, when his fingerprints
were checked, that mortified officers learned they had again let
Vallee escape.

He did not go far, however, and was arrested days later as he left a
Montreal depanneur.

In September in Albany, N.Y., Vallee faced a jury trial for -- as
William Pericak, the Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case,
put it -- "procuring the unavailability of the witness by murder."

Although the case was circumstantial and Vallee denied his
involvement, an anonymous jury found him guilty.

Judge Thomas McAvoy will sentence Vallee this morning. Mr. Pericak is
seeking a life term and $1.4-million in restitution to Mr. Carter's
family for the loss of his income.

"When you go to jail here we have a thing called the Inmate Financial
Responsibility Program where you work," Mr. Pericak said.

"It is our hope that Mr. Vallee works every single day for the rest of
his life and that every single day a fraction of that money gets paid
to the family of Lee Carter so that each day he has a reminder of what
he did."