Former cop tied to Hells Angels gets parole
Benoît Roberge, the former Montreal police detective who is serving a seven-year prison term for selling sensitive information to a Hells Angel, says he now realizes he worked police informants for far too long.
During a hearing before the Parole Board of Canada held Tuesday morning, he said that working constantly with criminals, especially those who led double lives as informants, caused him to live in “a grey area” where his morals became elastic. The hearing ended with him being granted full parole.
“I should have changed jobs long before I was (selling information to Hells Angel René Charlebois). I was in it way too long,” Roberge told the parole board.
Before he was arrested on Sept. 25, 2013, Roberge had a good reputation among his colleagues for his ability to convince hardened criminals tied to gangs to become informants or prosecution witnesses.
In 2014, Roberge pleaded guilty to participating in the activities of a criminal organization (commonly referred to as gangsterism) and breach of trust. Because he was convicted of gangsterism, he was required to serve at least half his sentence before he became eligible for full parole. He was granted day parole in August.
Roberge said he made a “series of rookie mistakes” while working Charlebois — who was inside a penitentiary at the time — for information. He said he became caught in a trap where the Hells Angel was in a position to ruin his reputation.
He said he decided to sell Charlebois information involving three informants in exchange for $125,000 so he could cover his legals bills if he were to be arrested, as he was. He said the money was supposed to serve as a legal fund so his family wouldn’t be left broke. He ended up turning over most of the money when he was arrested.
“I never should have had that fear — the fear of losing everything,” he told the parole board. “The money was secondary to losing my reputation.”
When asked by parole board member Michel Pallascio whether he had, in fact, “lost everything,” Roberge replied: “I am alive. I have my family. I am in good health.”
He elaborated later that volunteer work he did while on day parole taught him to appreciate what he has.
Roberge still has concerns for his safety. He requested that reporters who attended the hearing be excused from the hearing room — inside a minimum-security penitentiary in Laval — while he provided details on how he plans to live on full parole for the first time. He was eligible for full parole on March 19, so the parole board’s decision on Tuesday took effect immediately. The parole board required that he continue doing volunteer work for the first six months of his release.
Roberge’s secret began to unravel when Charlebois, who was serving a life sentence for having murdered a police informant, escaped from a penitentiary on Sept. 14, 2013. He committed suicide on Sept. 25, 2013, while on the lam. It was a friend of Charlebois who exposed Roberge’s corruption when he handed over a series of recordings to the police. It turned out Charlebois had managed to secretly record the telephone conversations he had with Roberge while he was incarcerated.
A written summary of his previous parole decision made in March (extending his day parole for two months) includes a mention that he sold the information to a Hells Angel because he felt he had been “betrayed” by his colleagues and “cultivated a desire for revenge.”
He changed his tune on Tuesday while saying recent conversations with a psychologist caused him to see things differently. He blamed his ego and his ambitious nature for leading him to make bad choices while he conversed with Charlebois.
“I want to be careful. I don’t want to harm the reputation of (the Montreal police). This (hearing) will be covered by the media. But there is a culture that builds up and it can paralyze (detectives who work informants),” he said. “We don’t realize that morality is elastic by choice. (It’s hard to tell) when we are living it.”
A lawyer who represented Roberge at the hearing later elaborated that Roberge was given considerable leeway while he worked informants. This generated frustration when his superiors intervened, the lawyer said.
Roberge began working as a police officer in 1985 and quickly ascended to the rank of detectivesergeant. After Quebec’s biker gang war began in 1994, he was recruited to a special squad assembled specifically to investigate the Hells Angels and the Alliance, a collection of criminal organizations who opposed the notorious biker gang ’s attempts to monopolize drug trafficking across Quebec. When the conflict came to an end in 2002, more than 160 people had been killed, including several innocent victims. Roberge retired from the Montreal police force in August 2013, and was working as an investigator for Revenue Quebec when he was arrested.
Roberge’s sentence will expire on July 3, 2021.