Former UN gangster denies supplying murder gun

Weapon belonged to associate, Vallee trial hears

A defence lawyer suggested Monday that a former United Nations gangster provided the assault rifle used to kill Kevin LeClair, despite the man claiming the murder weapon came from an associate.

Mike Tammen, lawyer for accused killer Cory Vallee, grilled the former UN member over the origins of the AR-15 used in the February 2009 killing.

Earlier, the witness, who can only be identified as C due to a sweeping publication ban, claimed the gun had been taken from a safe without his knowledge while he was holding it for a drug trade associate named Nguyen Minh Trung Do.

C told Justice Janice Dillon that he was involved in some “business” with Do, who he referred to as “Trung” throughout his testimony.

Vallee is charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers over several months in 2008 and 2009, as well as the first-degree murder of their associate LeClair.

C is the second of four former UN gangsters-turned Crown witnesses testifying against Vallee.

He has already testified that Vallee told him within a week of the LeClair murder that he had killed him using the AR-15.

C testified that he had to compensate Trung $10,000 for the assault rifle used in the hit, as well as a second AR-15 that also had to be discarded afterwards.

He claimed Monday that he went to Trung’s Coal Harbour apartment after the slaying to pay him in cash.

“Did you communicate with him through BlackBerry to let him know you were coming?” Tammen asked.

“Most likely, yes,” C replied. Asked Tammen: “When you gave him the money, did he count it?” Probably, C said. Tammen then noted that Trung had been paralyzed from the neck down in a nightclub shooting in Mexico in December 2008 and was still in Vancouver’s GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre for months after the LeClair shooting.

And he accused C of lying at the trial about the true owner of the AR-15.

“Those were your guns … not Trung’s. Would you agree?” Tammen asked.

“No, I would not,” C replied. Tammen suggested C “made up this story about storing the guns for Trung to distance yourself from the actual guns used to kill LeClair. Isn’t that right?”

C again denied Tammen’s claim, although he admitted he couldn’t recall details of how and when he paid the compensation to his friend, who later died of a drug overdose.

Now in his eighth day on the stand at the judge-alone trial, C has admitted he provided the loaded AK-47 that was used to kill stereo installer Jonathan Barber on May 9, 2008 as he drove a Porsche owned by the Bacons.

That night, he was in the front passenger seat of a truck driven by Jesse “Egon” Adkins when UN gangster Barzan Tilli-Choli blasted the AK-47 at the Porsche from the back seat of the truck, he testified.

They mistakenly thought they had killed Jamie Bacon.

Tammen asked C why he hadn’t tried to stop Tilli-Choli when he saw him roll down the window just before the shooting on Kingsway in Burnaby.

“You could have said, ‘Don’t do it. It’s not the time,’ ” Tammen said.

“I could have,” C said, agreeing that he had not tried to stop the hit. “I wish I did.”

The trial continues.