Murder plot against reporter revealed at trial
In a chilling moment, court told about plan to kill, frame rival gang, Kim Bolan writes.
The Cory Vallee murder trial has offered a fascinating glimpse into the violent world of the notorious United Nations gang and its targets.
United Nations members turned Crown witnesses have testified that the gang plotted against rivals, killed young street-level dealers and even arranged a hit on one of its own members, who was hiding out in Mexico.
One of those witnesses, a man who can only be identified as C due to a publication ban, also described discussions he had with the gang’s leader in 2011 about killing me.
It was almost 4 p.m. on May 4 when Crown prosecutor Helen James asked C about those discussions. I was the only reporter in the courtroom.
“At some point during your career with the UN, you discussed with Conor D’Monte the possibility of killing a journalist. Is that correct?”
Replied C: “That’s correct.” He said D’Monte, a senior UN member who is now a fugitive, had gotten the address of the journalist “through a property check.”
“Who is the journalist?” James asked.
“Kim Bolan,” C replied. Although I’ve had threats before, it is still disturbing that in Canada, journalists can be at risk for violence or death just for doing our jobs.
Writing about threats as a Canadian journalist seems trite compared to what others around the world face in exposing organized crime, government corruption or violent extremists.
And besides, I am a hard-nosed news type. Nothing makes me cringe more than inserting myself into a story.
My earlier threats have gone unreported, such as the time in February 2009 when a dead rat, shoved into a Ziploc, arrived in the newsroom in a dripping envelope addressed to me. It contained a note saying I would be killed if I didn’t stop my gang reporting.
I thought long and hard about writing these details of C’s testimony. After talking to my editors, we decided it was important for readers to know.
So back to Courtroom 66. The only others present were undercover police, sheriffs, 10 lawyers, the court clerk and Justice Janice Dillon. And of course there was Vallee, accused of conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers, as well as the murder of their pal Kevin LeClair.
C explained that D’Monte had given him my address and that he “stopped by there twice.”
“And what was the plan?” James asked.
“Part of the thought was that we had a lot of scrutiny onto us — if we were going to proceed with killing her, that it be done during the Surrey Six trial to make it look like maybe the RS did it,” he said, referencing the rival Red Scorpion gang.
“And what were the UN’s feelings towards Kim Bolan? Why would they want to possibly kill her?” James asked.
“They just hated all the attention. They hated all the attention and the way she reported on our gang,” he said.
He said the UN objected to my reporting because they thought I was “giving other gangs a lot of intel on us, which we didn’t like.”
They called off the plan because “the police attention we would get from doing that wouldn’t have been worth it.”
He also talked about my blog, The Real Scoop, which I started in 2008 just as the Lower Mainland gang war was heating up. I post stories on the blog and readers post comments, although I go through them daily and delete some.
“Sometimes, other people would post information we didn’t previously know on the blog,” C said.
He also posted comments. “What sort of thing would you write on there?” James asked.
“False information,” he said. “To, I guess, throw the police or the general public off of … who the real suspects are at certain times.”
He said that after the LeClair murder in February 2009 and the slaying of Jonathan Barber in May 2008, he wrote anonymous comments suggesting the Bacon brothers were behind the killings. While I don’t remember the comments C claims to have written, if he named someone as a suspect, I would have deleted the allegation.
C agreed with James that he hoped by posting false information “the police would check the blog and be thrown off and start investigating other suspects.”
“I was trying to take the attention off the UN,” he said.
A few days later, under crossexamination, C provided more details to defence lawyer Mike Tammen.
C said he had driven up my block and down the alley behind my house. He agreed that scouting out my house “was to try to confirm the intelligence or information that Conor had received and passed on.”
“If you were able to confirm, it would make any plan to carry out this killing at least a little bit more feasible. Right?” Tammen asked.
“Yep,” C replied. Listening to this evidence after hearing C testify about smashing the face of a debtor with a sledgehammer and arranging the cartel hit of a close United Nations friend was somewhat chilling. But I also felt a sense of detachment — I had never met C or D’Monte.
Writing about the UN and the murders linked to the gang is part of my job, and it’s a job I will continue to do because it’s important to shine a light on these dark corners in our community, even when I don’t like what I see.
Editor’s note: Postmedia takes seriously the safety of all its reporters and has worked closely with police when their safety has been threatened. kbolan@postmedia.com blog: vancouversun.com/ tag/real-scoop twitter.com/ kbolan