Man who escaped in helicopter pleads guilty to murder conspiracy
Pomerleau sentenced to 26 years in prison for series of offences
Serge Pomerleau, one of three men who escaped by helicopter from a detention centre near Quebec City last year, pleaded guilty on Friday to taking part in a conspiracy that resulted in the murder of a man in Laval six years ago. Pomerleau, 51, entered the plea on Friday at the Montreal courthouse. The plea comes just three months before Pomerleau was to stand trial, in Montreal, on two first-degree murder charges as well as conspiracy charges.
Pomerleau admitted he was part of a plot to murder Johnny Coutu. The victim was killed in Laval on July 13, 2009. As part of the same hearing, two charges of first-degree murder were stayed. The murder charges involved Coutu’s death as well as the death of Benoît Denis, a man who was killed in Joliette in 2010.
Superior Court Justice Eliane Perreault accepted the guilty plea and sentenced Pomerleau to an overall prison term of 26 years for the murder conspiracy as well as a series of other offences he admitted to on Friday. Among other things, Pomerleau also admitted to having committed perjury when he testified in his defence last year while he was on trial, in Quebec City, for drug trafficking.
A publication ban was ordered on a series of details, explaining what was behind Coutu’s murder, that were read into the court record. The ban was imposed because two other accused are scheduled to go to trial before a jury in January.
Pomerleau was already serving a 22-year prison term he received in December after he was convicted on several charges related to his role in running a massive drug-trafficking ring based in Val d’Or and for having escaped from the Orsainville Detention Centre. On June 7, 2014, Pomerleau and two other men escaped from a provincial detention centre near Quebec City after a helicopter landed in the jail’s courtyard and managed to leave with all three on board. They were found, two weeks later, hiding in an expensive condo in Old Montreal.
The 26-year sentence he received on Friday is concurrent to the one he was already serving and another seven years could be added, consecutively, to the 26 years if Pomerleau is unable to pay $3 million in fines he was ordered to pay in his previous convictions.
The 26-year sentence began on Friday, which means the time he had previously served awaiting the outcome of his case, roughly five years, does not factor into it. Pomerleau appeared before Perreault via a video link-up between the Montreal courthouse and the Donnacona Institution, a maximumsecurity federal penitentiary near Quebec City. His lawyer, Mathieu Rondeau Poissant, said negotiations towards the guilty pleas Pomerleau made on Friday had been ongoing for more than a year.