OPP informant ‘sold a lot of cocaine’
Police paid dealer $600,000 for his role in smashing drug-smuggling ring
Chris Tessier was “living like a rock star,” the paid police agent told his OPP handlers as he raked in a cool $3 million a year dealing cocaine before signing a $600,000 contract for his co-operation in taking down an interprovincial cocaine ring.
Tessier shrugged in court Thursday and said his “bad memory” failed him when he testified earlier his annual income was just a fraction of that — between $200,000 and $300,000 — though he would frequent casinos with wads of cash, in some years clearing $1 million in winnings at blackjack tables.
“I couldn’t remember what I said. I can’t remember what I made,” Tessier said. “We sold a lot of cocaine. I made a lot of money. If I said at the time it was $3 million, it would have been close to that.”
Tessier turned police informant and was a paid agent in two operations targeting David “Hollywood” Bullen, who eventually pleaded guilty to 25 charges in 2016’s Project Wildwood, including conspiracy to traffic cocaine and marijuana, trafficking firearms, possessing the proceeds of crime and breaching several court orders.
Bullen died of a heart attack while in jail in December 2018.
Tessier was paid around $600,000, including $350,000 for his six days of testimony, for a sixweek investigation, turning over wiretapped conversations and text exchanges with Bullen and others to his Ontario Provincial Police handlers.
Two of his Wildwood co-conspirators, Eric Corbeil, who arranged deliveries of cocaine by the kilo from Montreal to Ottawa, and “runner” Martin LeBlanc were sentenced in February for their roles in the drug-smuggling ring.
Two other alleged members, Todd Coughlin and Richard Craig, pleaded not guilty to drug charges. Their defence lawyers — Coughlin is represented by Natasha Calvinho and Craig is represented by Mark Ertel — grilled the cocaine dealer-turned-police agent on the witness stand Thursday.
Under cross-examination, Tessier acknowledged he had paid no tax on his earnings from the cocaine trade or from his work as a police agent.
“I was waiting for it all to be over with to report it,” Tessier said.
When Ertel suggested Tessier was still committing crimes by failing to declare his income, he smirked and said, “I’ll get my accountant to look into it.”
Ertel called the police contract Tessier signed a “betrayal” of Bullen, his partner in crime.
“That partner is dead now, and the irony is you’re a big multi-kilo drug dealer and you’re taking guys down who are small-time,” Ertel said Thursday.
Police charged Coughlin and Craig after a raid that netted 35 grams of cocaine (with an estimated $2,200 street value) and 112 grams of cannabis resin (valued at around $1,000).
The Crown has also presented evidence of four deals between Tessier and Craig, each for about $13,500 in cocaine.
Two days after signing the police contract on Sept. 28, 2016, he started selling cocaine again, but claimed in court it was only to one client and he turned those proceeds over to police.
“I was told to lead my life the way I had led it,” Tessier testified. “They told me not to burn my cover and to do what I had always done.”
Tessier claimed the police contact who told him that was OPP Insp. Paul Horne, who died earlier this year.
Between police operations, Tessier continued selling kilograms of cocaine at a time, acting as Bullen’s right-hand man while Bullen was under house arrest as the kingpin of another cocaine ring that was busted in a 2013 operation called Project Adelaide.
Police at that time raided 25 homes and businesses on a drug-trafficking trail from Montreal to Mont-Tremblant and seized 2.5 kilos of cocaine, handguns, a half a million dollars in cash, seven vehicles and a Robinson R44 helicopter.
Tessier first wore a wire as a police agent in 2015, when he was paid $30,000 to co-operate with Project Riverstone, a short-lived operation that turned up no evidence against Bullen, who police at the time suspected of ordering a hit on the “disloyal” associate who had double-crossed him two years earlier in Project Adelaide.
Tessier told Calvinho in court Thursday the OPP wanted to “pull the pin” and launch the operation, but he told his handlers an investigation would be an “uphill battle.”
The operation was aborted and Tessier went back to distributing kilos of cocaine to lower-level dealers. By August 2016, when Wildwood was set to launch, Tessier said he was supplying cocaine and collecting cash daily from 20 to 25 people. Bullen at the time couldn’t leave his house because of strict bail conditions from his prior arrest.
Once he signed on as an agent, Tessier said he “whittled down” his client list by telling them he was out of product and “put them off ” until his customers started going elsewhere.
While Bullen was his prime target, Tessier said other people “got caught up in it.”
“When I couldn’t communicate with Bullen directly, (Craig) got wrapped up in it,” Tessier said. “I have no control over it. It is what it is.”
Asked if he cared about Bullen, Tessier answered without hesitation, “Absolutely not.”
As for Craig, he told court, “I hope he gets off.”