Quebec gangster can leave halfway house, return to Trois-Rivières
Raymond Desfossés must wear tracking device and is not allowed to leave city without permission
One of Quebec’s most notorious gangsters has succeeded in his efforts to have the Parole Board of Canada lift a condition that required him to reside at a halfway house for the past six months.
“I am chained like a dog to a halfway house. So if someone wanted to kill me it is very easy for them to find me,” Raymond Desfossés, 67, said during a hearing Friday morning at a federal penitentiary in Laval.
Desfossés was addressing a question put to him by Michel Lafrenière, the parole board member who presided over his hearing, as to how he would handle the possibility of someone seeking revenge for the crimes that led to his 18-year prison term.
Lafrenière said it is the kind of stressful situation that could prompt a career criminal, like Desfossés, to use violence to protect himself.
Such a situation could put public safety in jeopardy, Lafrenière said.
“That is a question I have asked myself often. I have had no sign of (someone seeking revenge) while I was incarcerated. Will someone go after me? It is possible. But I have had no sign of this,” Desfossés said.
He has good reason to be concerned because part of his sentence involves how he hired Gerald Gallant, 67, a hit man, to kill six of his rivals between 1980 and 2001.
While he was initially charged with six counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder, he was able to plead guilty to taking part in a general conspiracy to commit murder.
On Feb. 20, 2014, his sentence for the conspiracy was combined to one he was already serving and turned into an 18-year prison term.
Desfossés reached the twothirds mark of the sentence, his statutory release date, last year and the parole board decided to impose the halfway-house condition. He challenged the decision and the board’s appeal division agreed he wasn’t treated fairly and heard him out Friday.
Gallant became a police informant following his arrest, in 2006, for a murder he carried out for Desfossés in Ste-Adèle. Gallant admitted to killing 28 people in all and told the police that Desfossés also hired him, in 2000, to kill then-Hells Angels leader Maurice (Mom) Boucher. Gallant called off the hit because he noticed Boucher appeared to be under constant police surveillance.
Gallant told investigators he and three other men were supposed to split $250,000 if they had carried out the contract successfully.
“This is all hypothetical,” Desfossés said when asked a second time whether his life might be in danger. “I’d like to hear how someone else answers that question. It is not my intention to commit another crime. I am no longer thinking like that.”
Desfossés was an influential leader in the West End Gang before he was arrested in September 2004 in Project Calvette, an investigation into his efforts to smuggle cocaine into Canada. Desfossés was serving a sentence for the crimes uncovered by Project Calvette when Gallant decided to work with the police and told investigators who ordered or helped him with the murders.
Desfossés sided with The Alliance, a group of criminal organizations who opposed the Hells Angels during Quebec’s biker gang war, a conflict that ran between 1994 and 2002. Some of the murders he paid Gallant for were carried out within the context of that conflict, most notably the July 7, 2000, murder of Robert (Bob) Savard, a loan shark with close ties to the Hells Angels and Boucher.
I have had no sign of (someone seeking revenge) while I was incarcerated. Will someone go after me? It is possible.
“Listen, I didn’t walk to trouble. I ran to trouble,” Desfossés said while insisting he now realizes his actions are responsible for the time he has spent behind bars since the 1970s.
This prompted Lafrenière to ask Desfossés what advice he would give to a young inmate serving a first sentence at a penitentiary.
“(Crime) is not a good choice for a life,” Desfossés said. “Violence brings nothing good. If you can negotiate something, do it. You don’t get medals for what I did.”
While lifting the halfway house condition, Lafrenière took note of the fact Desfossés performed volunteer work at a homeless shelter on René-Lévesque Blvd. E. and reported back to his halfway house in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve every night without incident for six months.
A parole officer also mentioned that Desfossés took up tennis to keep himself busy when he wasn’t volunteering. During Friday’s hearing, he told Lafrenière that he often ran into people “from the milieu” at the halfway house, but reported every conversation to his parole officers.
With Friday’s decision, Desfossés is now allowed to return to his home in Trois-Rivières, but is required to wear a GPS bracelet that will allow Correctional Service Canada to monitor his movements at all times. He is not allowed to leave the city limits of Trois Rivières without permission.