SENTENCES SEND GANGS MESSAGE

Pelletier Leader Gets 10 Years. First Time Federal Gangsterism Law
Used To Shut Down A Street Gang In Canada

Gang leader Bernard Mathieu got a 10-year prison sentence, the
"delivery boy" got almost five years, and other members of the
Pelletier Ave. gang received something in between for their roles in
dealing drugs, arms and fear in Montreal North.

With those sentences handed down yesterday, Quebec Court Judge
Jean-Pierre Bonin brought an end to a five-month megatrial and the
gang's 10-year hold on the neighbourhood, which had left high school
students hooked on crack and residents cowering in their homes.

It was the first time the federal gangsterism law was successfully
used to shut down a street gang in Canada - an example other provinces
should follow, crown prosecutor Jean-Pierre St-Jean said.

"If I was a member of a street gang in Montreal, I'd try to move
somewhere else in Canada," St-Jean said yesterday.

"The message (these sentences send) is that if you sell dope in front
of a school, you'll have problems with the justice administration. Now
the street is calm. ... People are free to go out and they don't have
to be afraid of anything."

Mathieu was arrested in 2005, along with more than 25 people tied to
his network - five of whom were eventually tried and convicted of
committing offences for the benefit of a criminal organization.

The investigation began after two men delivering drugs in the area
were shot dead in 2003. Using wiretaps and surveillance, police
gathered evidence that the gang was, in the judge's words, "holding
the street hostage," dealing drugs and using violence.

Phone calls and secret meetings also showed Mathieu, the small,
bespectacled man in the prisoner's box yesterday, was the gang's leader.

Prosecutor Eric de Champlain said yesterday it was thanks to the
gangsterism convictions, which impose consecutive sentences, that
Mathieu and others got relatively severe terms, despite having thin,
if any, criminal records.

Also sentenced yesterday were Mathieu's cousin, Jean-Robert
Pierre-Antoine, who was given six years for trafficking and
gangsterism; Hansley Joseph and Jean-Pierre Joseph, who got six years
and 41/2 years, respectively, for drug trafficking; and Serge Hadley
Mussotte, who leased property on Christophe Colombe Ave. to serve as a
cache for drugs and weapons. Mussotte, considered the "delivery boy,"
was sentenced to four years and nine months for trafficking and conspiracy.

But if the Crown was rejoicing in yesterday's developments, defence
lawyer Clemente Monterosso and his client were not. Mathieu has always
denied being the gang's leader.

The defence says it will appeal both the conviction and the sentence
for gangsterism - which added three years to Mathieu's overall sentence.

"The law on gangsterism is too vague and imprecise. It has to be
restricted," Monterosso said.

"One has to know beforehand: What do we have the right to do? What is
the difference between conspiracy and gangsterism?"

Monterosso will also be fighting for his client on another front.
Mathieu, 35, born in Haiti but in Canada since age 8, faces
deportation. The immigration law enacted in 1999 says a permanent
resident sentenced to more than two years in a federal prison faces
automatic deportation, with no right to appeal.

"Mathieu has been here 27 years. Whatever he became, he became it here
in Canada. It has nothing to do with Haiti," Monterosso said.