One victim in Mob war was killed by mistake, informant testifies
One of the men murdered during an internal conflict in the Montreal Mafia in 2016 was killed in error, an informant testifying at a Montreal murder trial said on Friday.
The informant is the key witness in the murder trial of Marie-josée Viau, 46, and Guy Dion, 49, a couple from a rural town accused of first-degree murder and conspiracy in the deaths of brothers Vincenzo and Giuseppe Falduto. The informant first took the witness stand on Thursday and said he shot the brothers on June 30, 2016, inside the couple's garage in St-jude while Viau and Dion made noise to drown out the gunfire. For example, he said Dion mowed the lawn outside the garage as he shot Vincenzo first and then killed Giuseppe.
He also said he killed the brothers on orders from Salvatore Scoppa, as part of a conflict between Calabrian and Sicilian groups that make up the Montreal Mafia. According to the informant, Scoppa and his brother Andrea (Andrew) Scoppa were part of a group on the Calabrian side and wanted to “eliminate” many of the people who sided with the Sicilians.
“Sal and Andrew were real bandits,” the informant said of the Scoppa brothers, who are now dead. “They were in the Mafia. Andrew was a guy at the table (of decision-makers) and Sal was a guy in the Mafia. They imported drugs and trafficked in drugs.
“For example, Andrew told me: `My brother makes half the money that I make in Park Ex.' I knew that in Park Ex, Andrew was making $2 million a year.”
On Friday, the informant said one of the people shot by Scoppa's group was killed by mistake. He was referring to Vincenzo Spagnolo, a 65-year-old man who was killed in October 2016 in Laval. The informant said the people who carried out the hit were supposed to kill Spagnolo's son Nick.
“We had done surveillance (on Nick Spagnolo) to see the environment,” the informant said, adding that one of his accomplices told him Nick Spagnolo had changed his habits after the Falduto brothers were killed.
The people who killed Spagnolo “were paid $20,000,” the informant said. “They collected $20,000. The job was done by guys who made an error and killed Mr. Spagnolo instead of his junior. (His son) wasn't even in the house.”
The informant also revealed on Thursday that he was the gunman in the murder of Rocco Sollecito, a Montreal Mafia leader who was killed in May 2016, also in Laval.
While answering additional questions about Sollecito's murder from prosecutor Pascal Lescarbeau on Friday, the informant said the location selected for the slaying, a bus stop on St-elzéar Blvd. W., wasn't the first choice.
In the days leading up to the shooting, the informant said, he and his accomplices, who cannot be named for the time being, staked out another location — a construction site near Sollecito's home. That plan was dropped, he said, because there were too many security cameras near the site.
He said that he told one of his accomplices: “You have been following (Sollecito) for 30 days parked near cameras. You're a total imbecile.”
The informant said that after killing the Falduto brothers, he was asked to kill two other men he considered to be friends.
One was Arsène (BM) Mompoint — who was killed in Kanesatake last month — and the other was a man the informant described as Mompoint's “right-hand man.”
“I refused. I said `yes' to (the Calabrians), but I refused. I went to go see them (but) BM had been arrested” at that point in 2016, the informant said, adding he warned Mompoint's associate.
The informant also said he ultimately ended up working for both sides in the conflict, late in 2016, after one of the people working for the Calabrians decided it was time to betray Salvatore Scoppa and kill him.
“In either November or October 2016 (an accomplice whose name cannot be published for the time being) asked if I could get rid of Sal Scoppa and if I could find money for his head. (The accomplice) sent me to the other side, but he betrayed me,” the informant said, adding he eventually went to see a man named Charlie Renda who, he alleged, was on the Sicilian side of the conflict.
“In December, (Renda) gave me a 22 (calibre firearm) with a silencer because I said we didn't have tools where we were working. He gave me that and an amount of $40,000. I was supposed to get $100,000 plus another $100,000 if I killed (another accomplice whose name cannot be published) for them because he did Lorenzo,” the informant said in reference to Lorenzo Giordano, another leader on the Sicilian side of the conflict who was killed in Laval in 2016.
The informant added that he did not carry out the contract for Renda.
The trial will resume on Monday.