B.C. wants biker evidence used in suit
The B.C. director of civil forfeiture wants criminal convictions against several Hells Angels admitted as evidence in an upcoming civil trial over the seizure of three biker clubhouses.
Lawyer Brent Olthuis, representing the government agency, argued in B.C. Supreme Court on Tuesday that admitting the biker convictions and related court rulings would be appropriate in the civil case.
Olthuis told Justice Barry Davies that the convictions are relevant to show the reputation of the Hells Angels, who he referred to as the HAMC.
“We are wanting to introduce these convictions ... against the HAMC members primarily in aid of the allegations … as to the main purposes and activities of the HAMC and the members of that club and their awareness of the club’s public reputation,” Olthuis said.
“These convictions are clearly probative.”
He also said that several of the Hells Angels defendants refused to answer questions about the convictions during pre-trial discovery sessions.
The long-running civil forfeiture case began in 2007 when the government seized the Hells Angels’ Nanaimo clubhouse, alleging that he had been used for criminal purposes.
The director of civil forfeiture later made the same allegations in lawsuits he filed to seize biker clubhouses for the East End Vancouver and Kelowna chapters.
And the Hells Angels filed a countersuit in 2012, seeking to get B.C.’s Civil Forfeiture Act declared unconstitutional.
The trial has been delayed several times, but is now set to begin next month at the Vancouver Law Courts.
The government’s amended claim alleges that if the Hells Angels get to keep the clubhouses they will be used in the future “to enhance the ability of a criminal organization, namely the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, to commit indictable offences.”
Olthuis said it was a more efficient use of the court’s time to enter all the criminal convictions and related rulings into evidence rather than have to call evidence about the individual prosecutions.