BIKER GANG MEMBERS EACH FINED $100,000

Top-Ranking Hells Stadnick, Stockford Already Sentenced To 20 Years In
Prison

Authorities have been unable to find where two top-ranking Hells
Angels from Ontario have stashed the $2 million in drug profits they
are supposed to have earned, so a Quebec Superior Court Justice has
ordered each of them to pay a fine of $100,000.

The Crown had asked that Walter Stadnick and Donald Stockford each
fork over fines of $1 million in lieu of forfeiting their drug profits
as part of proceeds of crime legislation designed to send out the
message illegal activity doesn't pay.

But Judge Jerry Zigman said the request for the hefty fines - or
another five years in jail - was unreasonable given the rather modest
means the two bikers claim to have and fruitless efforts by police to
uncover where they've hidden their money.

"The evidence led at trial shows that the accused, prior to their
arrests, were living a comfortable lifestyle without the trappings of
luxury," Zigman said in his decision. "Although the forensic
accounting report produced by the Crown at trial was unable to locate
the millions of dollars generated by the accused's drug trafficking,
it did conclude that the accused had an unidentifiable source or
sources of funds.

"The court has no doubt that these funds are the profits from their
drug trafficking and that the profits cannot, on the exercise of due
diligence, be located."

Stadnick and Stockford have two years to pay up - or else they'll have
an extra 18 months tacked on to the end of the 20-year sentences
Zigman handed them this month.

A deal has also been struck with defence lawyers and the wives of the
two bikers over the seizing of assets purchased with the proceeds of
crime.

Stadnick and Stockford's wives are to take out new mortgages on their
homes instead of having them confiscated.

Stadnick's wife, Kathi Anderson, is to hand over $90,000 to the Quebec
attorney general instead of losing the family's Hamilton, Ont., house.

Stadnick's 1994 Harley Davidson, 1993 Chevy Blazer and antique Buick
are also to be seized.

Stockford's wife, Christine, is to put up $50,000 for their house in
Ancaster, Ont.

The pair were found guilty in June of conspiracy to murder, drug
trafficking and gangsterism for their part in a Hells Angels-driven
biker war to monopolize Quebec's drug trade in the late 1990s. They
were arrested in a police crackdown on the bloody biker war in the
spring of 2001.

As elite Nomads in the Montreal chapter of the Hells Angels, Stadnick
and Stockford were involved in the gang's $111-million drug cartel in
1999 and 2000. Their share of the business, about $10 million, flowed
through an account dubbed Gertrude.

They are estimated to have brought in more than $2 million after they
reimbursed the gang's bank for the cost of the 267 kilograms of
cocaine and 173 kilograms of hashish they imported to sell through the
organization.