Kidnap plot `about loyalty,' parole board hears
Organized crime figure renounces ties to Mafia in making case for release
A notorious organized crime figure who used to be tied to the Montreal Mafia was told Thursday he'll have to wait a few days before the Parole Board of Canada decides on whether he should be granted day parole.
Following a parole hearing that lasted more than two hours, parole board member Marie-claude Frenette told Christian Deschênes, 64, that she and fellow member Véronique Buisson will probably need until the start of next week to make a decision in his case.
Deschênes is serving a 45-year sentence that began in 1988 and grew as he reoffended while out on previous releases.
“His case imposes prudence,” Frenette said early in the hearing.
Deschênes's latest sentence involves the holdup of an armoured car at Marché Central, and his plans to kidnap Francesco Arcadi, who was acting as the street boss of the Rizzuto organization at the time.
It came out in court that Deschênes planned to abduct Arcadi along with another man tied to the Rizzuto organization and hold them for ransom. It was alleged that Deschênes felt he was owed $2 million for his past work in a drug smuggling effort.
While serving his sentence for smuggling cocaine and hashish, Deschênes learned the skill of welding to help him obtain a job on the outside. Instead he used his new skills to build a cage in which he intended to hold the two men.
The Sûreté du Québec was investigating the armed robbery when it uncovered the plot to kidnap the two men. Deschênes and an accomplice were arrested while on their way to the Rizzuto organization's hangout in St-léonard.
On Thursday, Deschênes said there was actually a different motive behind “what happened in 2001.”
“In 2001 they killed the son of my best friend. That's what it was about. It was about loyalty,” he said, without identifying the friend.
Deschênes said that, when he was released in 2000, he had no plans to return to organized crime. He had a job and was making an honest living, he said, but the death of his friend's son “sucked me back” into the criminal world.
“I did what I had to do,” he said. “It was loyalty to one person. They killed him for some nebulous reason.”
In October, Deschênes was granted unescorted leave privileges. On Thursday he said he wants to be granted day parole because his longtime girlfriend is very ill and he wants to be able to comfort her before she dies.
He told the two parole board members that he's willing to wear an Gps-locator bracelet in order to be released.
“I am now loyal to the people I love,” Deschênes said after his parole officer informed the board that his case management team — the people who prepare an offender for a release — supports his release plan.
Deschênes went on to say that if he happened to meet someone from the organized crime milieu today, while out on parole, he would be polite but would also report the encounter to his parole officer.
“I think that the milieu has more important things to deal with than me,” he added, while arguing he has removed himself from that world.
His previous crimes included plots to smuggle 14 tonnes of hashish into Canada in 1986 (a conspiracy the police believed involved the now deceased Montreal Mafia leader Vito Rizzuto) and then 4,000 kilos of cocaine in 1992.
On Thursday, Deschênes said he decided to no longer be involved in drugs in the mid-1990s because two people he was close to saw their lives destroyed by drug addiction.
He also said that reoffending is not an option.
“If I return (to a penitentiary) I will die,” he said