Lawyer urges Quebec biker client to turn himself in
Escape from prison by Hells Angel embarrasses Quebec prison system
Two days after one of his most infamous clients escaped from prison by walking out the front door, lawyer Dimitrios Strapatsas urged Francis Boucher to surrender before he wound up dead.
“I would suggest he turns himself into police ... otherwise, I fear he could run into a ‘cowboy’ police officer who might take some extreme measures because of his name,” Strapatsas said in a public plea published in the Journal de Montréal.
That name, Boucher, is among the most feared in Quebec criminal circles.
Francis’s father, Maurice “Mom” Boucher, was head of the Hells Angels’ Montreal chapter during a brutal 1990s turf war in which more than 150 people were killed.
The Quebec Biker War was defined by deadly bombings and a concerted effort to intimidate police officers and juries. Two of the slain, Diane Lavigne and Pierre Rondeau, were randomly selected prison guards the elder Maurice ordered killed in a bid to put the province’s entire justice system on edge.
His son’s rap sheet isn’t nearly as long as his father’s, but he’s still a certified outlaw biker.
In his 20s, the younger Boucher, a member of a Hells affiliate known as the Rockers, was sentenced to 10 years for gangsterism, conspiracy to commit murder and drug-trafficking.
After his parole, he was arrested again in 2011 for domestic assault.
His latest prison term was a 117day sentence for uttering death threats against police officers. Last November, police were called when Boucher was reportedly bothering patrons at a Montreal-area bar.
As the officers dragged him away, the extremely drunk man screamed “You don’t know who you’re dealing with!” and “You’re making a mistake.”
“How can the son of one of the most famous criminals in Quebec, who is known by everyone in the prison world, walk out of a detention centre so easily?” Lise Thériault, the province’s public safety minister, said in Quebec City Wednesday.
“When people go into detention centres, we expect them to get out only when their sentence is up.”
Boucher’s escape, which came only two months before he was due to be freed anyway, appears to have been remarkably easy.
Corrections officials provided few details about the slip-up, attributing it alternately to “trickery” or even a simple clerical error. But, according to Quebec media reports, Boucher assumed the identity of another inmate who had the same last name.
As emergency police units scour the province for the fugitive, an unnamed guard has been suspended. Thierry Larivière, a spokesman for the labour federation that represents prison guards, confirmed the paid suspension but would not elaborate.
The brazen escape of a Boucher has been another black eye for a Quebec prison system that has lately seemed remarkably inept at keeping its inmates behind bars.
In 2013, a prison in St-Jérôme attracted global attention after two prisoners escaped by climbing a rope into a hovering helicopter. A mere 14 months later, another helicopter escape was orchestrated at the province’s Orsainville detention centre.
Earlier this year there was a similar “clerical error” prison escape. Shamy Saint-Jean, 19, left the Rivière-des-Prairies detention centre after posing as his brother, who was scheduled to be released.
Boucher had been held at Bordeaux Prison, a 100-year-old institution well-known for high-profile disciplinary breaches. In 2013, video emerged from the jail showing inmates cooking crack cocaine in their cells.
A year later, Michael SimoneauMeunier posted Facebook photos of himself enjoying an expensive cognac and a marijuana-stuffed cigar in his cell. “Living da jail life,” wrote the 15-time offender.
Prison doesn’t seem to be much of a barrier to the elder Boucher, who was sentenced to life in 2002 for his role in the deaths of Lavigne and Rondeau.
Although the 61-year-old now resides in Canada’s only supermax prison — and was formally ejected from the Hells Angels last year — he is reportedly still running a Montreal drug network, police sources told QMI this month.
Quebec accidentally freed 182 prisoners in 2006-14, the Journal de Montréal reports.
Of the province’s jails, Bordeaux is among the more vigilant, having seen only 14 prematurely sprung detainees in eight years. At Rivièredes-Prairies, by contrast, 42 prisoners were released in error.
I fear he could run into a ‘cowboy’ police officer ...