Hitman has murder charge stayed
A man who acted as a hitman for organized crime in four separate shootings he allegedly carried out in 2012 saw one of the murder charges he faced be placed under a stay of proceedings on Friday after a Superior Court judge ruled it took too long for the Crown to bring him to trial.
Ryan Wolfson, 45, smiled when Justice Guy Cournoyer ruled the Crown created too many delays in bringing him to a trial that was supposed to begin in September. Last year, the Crown made a decision to have Wolfson undergo two murder trials for a crime spree in 2012 as opposed to having one trial on all charges last fall. He was convicted of one murder in October, but on Friday a stay of proceedings was placed on a different murder charge. The case involved the killing of Pierre-Paul Fortier, a 27-year-old man who was shot on Oct. 18, 2012, in back of a hotel in St-Sauveur.
“The prosecution possessed all of the tools necessary to have the accused judged within a reasonable delay, but they did not use them. Despite the insistence of the accused to have his rights recognized, (the prosecution) wasn’t concerned,” Cournoyer said as he read from his 41-page decision. “The pathway of the case allows one to think that if the prosecution had been vigilant, nothing would have prevented it from setting the date of the second trial a little bit after the first.”
The decision makes Wolfson the second person charged with murder in Quebec who has seen their case placed under a stay of proceedings because of the Supreme Court of Canada decision made last summer, which is known as the Jordan ruling.
The fact Wolfson is already serving a life sentence for murder meant little to Fortier’s parents, who were in attendance at the Montreal courthouse Friday when Cournoyer made his decision.
“It mocks justice. They had enough to convict him,” said Fortier’s father, Jean-Jacques. “I find it ridiculous to put this all on the back of (the prosecution).”
Defence lawyer Alexandra Longueville reminded reporters Cournoyer’s decision changes little because Wolfson automatically received a life sentence when he was convicted of murder in October. But, she added, there was a principle involved.
On Oct. 7, a jury at the St-Jérôme courthouse found Wolfson guilty of the first-degree murder of Frederick Murdock, a man who was acting as a bodyguard for Vincent Pietrantonio on Oct. 10, 2012, when a gunman burst into Pietrantonio’s home — on Chertsey Rd. in Ste-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson, about 80 kilometres northwest of Montreal — and shot both men. The same jury also found Wolfson guilty of the attempted murder of Pietrantonio as well as an attempt made on the life of Pietrantonio’s son, Tommy, who was shot on Sept. 29, 2012, inside a pub in Ste-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson.
The Crown’s theory during the trial was Wolfson, a longtime associate of the Hells Angels, carried out both shootings while acting as a hitman for Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau, 40, one of two men who would later pull off a brazen escape from the St-Jérôme Detention Centre on March 17, 2013. Wolfson was arrested with Hudon-Barbeau on Nov. 3, 2012, while both men were at a strip club in downtown Montreal. Wolfson was found to be in possession of the firearm used to kill Murdock. During Wolfson’s trial last fall, the jury was told the motive behind the attempts to kill the Pietrantonios involved a debt.
Another charge Wolfson faced for the Oct. 27, 2012, attempted murder of Dannick Lessard, 36, was also stayed on Friday. The police believe Hudon-Barbeau asked Wolfson to kill Lessard because Lessard had testified as a witness when Hudon-Barbeau was tried for a double murder carried out in Montreal in a club in 2006. Lessard was a bouncer in the club in 2006. He was a player with the North American Hockey League when he was shot in 2012. He was struck by nine bullets, but managed to survive.