Trial reporter hears of plot to kill her
Court told that gang members scoped out house
Kim Bolan, a reporter for the Vancouver Sun since 1984, has won or been shortlisted for many awards, including the first Press Freedom Award from the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom, for continuing to investigate the Air India bombing in the face of death threats. Here, she describes her recent experience covering the murder trial of alleged hitman Cory Vallee:
The Cory Vallee murder trial in Vancouver has offered a fascinating glimpse into the violent world of the notorious United Nations gang and its targets.
UN 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. Generally, Canadian reporters work in an environment envied by our colleagues in places like Mexico, Iraq or Syria. Writing about threats as a Canadian journalist seems trite compared to what others around the world face in exposing organized crime, government corruption or extremists.
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 (notorious B.C. gangsters) 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. I post stories on the blog and readers post comments.
“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.”
“I was trying to take the attention off the UN.”
A few days later under cross-examination, 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 UN 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, even when I don’t like what I see.
THEY HATED ALL THE ATTENTION AND THE WAY SHE REPORTED ON OUR GANG.