Longtime Hells Angel member dies months after record sentence
VANCOUVER — Retired Vancouver Police biker specialist Brad Stephen remembers the first time he met Hells Angel David Giles in the mid-1990s.
Stephen pulled him over on Dundas in East Vancouver after seeing Giles “peel out” of the parking lot of the old Drake Hotel.
“I remember it vividly,” Stephen recalled. “I pulled him over and he just oozed hatred for law enforcement. You could just feel the disdain coming from his pores.”
Stephen said he was polite with the powerful biker, welcoming him to the West Coast, where he had just relocated.
“I remember him opening his wallet. He wanted to make sure that I saw his platinum American Express,” Stephen said, adding that at that time, the card carried a credit limit of $100,000.
Giles died in an Abbotsford hospital Saturday, just three months after he was handed a record sentence for his role in a massive international cocaine conspiracy.
B.C. Justice Carol Ross gave the ailing 67-year-old biker an 18-year sentence, minus credit for time served, leaving a net term of just over 11 years.
It was the longest sentence ever given to a B.C. Hells Angel.
Ross said Giles was one of the leaders in a plot to smuggle half a tonne of cocaine into B.C. Undercover cops posing as South American drug exporters had duped Giles and his associates in a sophisticated multinational sting.
The judge rejected a call for a more lenient term from Giles’ lawyer Paul Gill, who said his client was critically ill and needed a liver transplant.
Giles had been incarcerated at the Pacific Institution, acting assistant warden Ronnie Gill said in a statement.
She said Giles’ family had been notified of his death, as had the police and the B.C. Coroners Service.
Giles and associates were convicted last September. He was sentenced on March 31, 2017, after an unsuccessful fight to have the case thrown out due to the length of time it took to get to trial.
Giles had once served on the national executive of the Hells Angels and was close to Montreal HA president and convicted killer Maurice (Mom) Boucher.
He moved from the Montreal chapter to Halifax, then to Vancouver’s East End chapter, before becoming one of the first Kelowna Hells Angels when the bikers expanded with a new chapter there in 2007.
Giles was the target of police in the so-called “E-Predicate” investigation, resulting in his arrest on a series of charges in August 2012 and his conviction four years later.
During the investigation, Giles and his associates gave police a $4-million down payment and arranged for an initial shipment of 200 kilograms of cocaine to be delivered to a Burnaby warehouse on Aug. 25, 2012.
“Considering the nature of this transaction, the quantity of drugs involved, the intention for it to be an ongoing venture, Mr. Giles’ role and Mr. Giles’ personal circumstances, I have concluded that the fit sentence is 18 years,” Ross said.
Ross also noted that Giles had a tough early life — born in Saint John, N.B., to an alcoholic mother who died early. He finished Grade 5 and was then “committed to a reformatory that has become notorious for abuse.”
He went on to foster care and a life of crime, though his last conviction before E-Predicate was in 1984 for trafficking.
Giles spent 35 years of his life as a Hells Angel. But his status with the club was uncertain at the time of his death.
Hells Angels spokesman Ricky Ciarniello did not respond to a request for comment.