Mile End bank robber faces possibility of indefinite sentence
Career criminal could be labelled dangerous offender following 2016 heist
A career criminal who staged a brazen robbery at a bank in Mile End while he was drunk and high on cocaine is staring down the possibility of an indefinite sentence after having recently undergone a psychiatric evaluation that determined he should be declared a dangerous offender.
Alain Ste-Marie, 47, was convicted in March on nine charges related to the robbery during which he and a woman stormed into a branch of the Toronto Dominion Bank on Bernard Ave. on Sept. 2, 2016, but made off with only $410. Last month, as part of the sentencing stage of the case, prosecutor Geneviève Boutet asked Quebec Court Judge Guylaine Rivest to grant the harshest sentence possible in Canada — a dangerous offender designation with an indefinite sentence.
If Rivest agrees with the request, it will ultimately be up to the Parole Board of Canada to determine when Ste-Marie should be released.
Boutet’s request was based on Ste-Marie’s lengthy criminal record and an evaluation done in June by psychiatrist Louis Morrissette.
“(Ste-Marie) is now 47 and he received his first sentence at the age of 20. Following that, it appears there wasn’t a period between 12 to 18 months where he wasn’t incarcerated or under arrest,” Boutet wrote in her request.
Ste-Marie, who escaped from detention centres in 1992 and 2007, is quoted in the court document as having told Morrissette: “It is better to rob a bank because the employees are paid to be potential victims.”
Morrissette determined that Ste-Marie should be declared a dangerous offender, writing: “(I)t is impossible to formulate a treatment plan that allows to adequately manage (Ste-Marie’s) high risk of re-offending.”
On Thursday, defence lawyer Catherine Daniel Houle informed Rivest that Ste-Marie is trying to find another psychiatrist to counter Morrissette’s assessment but hasn’t had any luck. The case will return to court next week.
In March, Rivest found SteMarie guilty of all nine charges he faced in connection with the Sept. 2, 2016 bank robbery. including armed robbery, conspiracy, using a fake firearm to carry out a crime and breaking and entering. The latter charge involved how SteMarie broke into a home on Clark St. to hide from the police.
His accomplice in the robbery, Geneviève Dallaire, 37, received a sentence of 30 months. She was left with a 12-month prison term after sentencing on Aug. 29, 2017. Dallaire, a former prostitute, stood by at the entrance to the bank armed with a cigarette lighter that looked like a handgun and ordered clients to remain inside.
After they exited the bank, SteMarie and Dallaire jumped into a taxi and ordered the driver to flee the area. Within seconds, the taxi was blocked by a police vehicle and the cabbie jumped out. Ste-Marie took the wheel and crashed into another car. Dallaire was arrested on the spot following the collision while Ste-Marie fled on foot but was arrested four days later.
Dallaire and Ste-Marie were also charged as suspects in an earlier bank robbery, carried out on Aug. 18, 2016, on St-Hubert St. Following her arrest in the Mile End robbery, Dallaire was identified for the St-Hubert robbery by a witness based on seeing her photo. She and Ste-Marie were charged with the St-Hubert robbery but were acquitted due to a lack of evidence.
According to a decision made by the Commission québécoise des libérations conditionnelles (CQLC) last year, when Dallaire was turned down for a release, she told the provincial parole board that she and Ste-Marie carried out the Mile End robbery while drunk and high on cocaine. She also said she had not slept for days before the robbery was carried out.