Vallee trial evidence paints picture of a ‘tit-for-tat’ gang war: Crown
When the United Nations gang was hunting the Bacon brothers and their fellow Red Scorpions a decade ago, it was not your average murder conspiracy, a prosecutor said in B.C. Supreme Court on Thursday.
In fact, shootings and murders that went on for months could more accurately be described as a war, Crown Alex Burton said in closing submissions at the Cory Vallee murder trial.
“We have an unusual set of circumstances here. We essentially have a war going on between these two groups,” Burton said. “They are almost like tit-for-tat killings going back and forth.”
Vallee is charged with conspiring to kill Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie Bacon between Jan. 1, 2008 and Feb. 8, 2009, as well as the Feb. 6, 2009 murder of their associate Kevin LeClair.
Over months of evidence presented last year, four former UN gangsters-turned Crown witnesses pointed the finger at Vallee, telling Justice Janice Dillon that he was brought in as a hitman to kill the Bacons.
Vallee’s lawyers are expected to attack the credibility of those witnesses during their closing arguments next week, pointing to their admitted criminal histories.
But Burton told Dillon on Thursday that there is corroborating evidence for the testimony of the men, known only as A, B, C and D due to a sweeping publication ban.
He pointed to intercepted conversations between gang founder Clay Roueche and several UN members who earlier pleaded guilty to their roles in the conspiracy.
“The acts and declarations of the co-conspirators provide context for the evidence that the primary role of the accused in this event was that of a shooter or a hitman,” Burton said.
“Hitman is not a term of art. It is just a word used to describe somebody’s role. It is not a television character necessarily, who has all these tools. It just means that it was the person’s job and that’s what the Crown is trying to prove in this case.”
Burton also said “evidence that comes from co-conspirators assists in establishing the facts and provides the background and foundation for the evidence that (Vallee) was responsible for the death of Kevin LeClair.”
Roueche was captured on wiretap talking to UN member Ion Kroitoru while at the W Hotel in Montreal on April 18 and 19, 2008, he said.
“Those intercepts from Montreal, we say are objective and independent proof that not only was there a conspiracy to kill the Bacons and Red Scorpions, but that somebody named Frankie had been hired by Roueche to impose a debt, which I believe is the language used in the intercept itself,” Burton said.
He said the Crown’s position is that Vallee was known both as “Frankie” and “Panther” in UN circles.
Burton noted that Roueche and Kroitoru were complaining that Frankie was not getting the job done and was not available 24 hours a day for the UN’s business.
Other intercepted conversations from inside Roueche’s Coquitlam apartment in 2008 also related to the plot against the Bacons, Burton said.
“They discuss subjects that are consistent with the conspiracy — again the evidence (A, B, C and D) are talking about — blocker cars, conversations about the Bacon and (Red Scorpion) vehicles. They are discussing various murders and in fact in one of the intercepts there is a conversation about terrorizing the Bacons,” he said.
The conversations took place before Roueche was arrested in the U.S. in May 2008 on drug smuggling and money laundering charges. He later pleaded guilty and is serving a 30-year sentence.
Kroitoru pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2013 and died last year of a heart attack while living in a Toronto halfway house.
The prosecution team is expected to complete its closing arguments Monday, after which Vallee’s defence team will have four days to make submissions on his behalf.
The trial is taking place at the Vancouver Law Courts.