Accused takes stand in firearms trial

Clint James McLaughlin, who is accused of 17 firearms offences, denied the charges against him at his trial on Wednesday and said his former friend Noel Harder had threatened to place the contraband on his property.

McLaughlin, 39, testified that he never possessed the weapons, which Harder alleges he obtained from McLaughlin’s garage in March 2014, when McLaughlin was under court orders prohibiting such possession.

The accused also denied evidence against him that was provided earlier by Mariana Cracogna, who was his fiancee at the time of the alleged offences. Months after the alleged incidents, McLaughlin kidnapped and beat Cracogna. He later pleaded guilty to that crime and is now serving a six-year sentence.

McLaughlin answered “yes” when asked by Crown prosecutor Lynn Hinz if Cracogna was “mistaken” when she said McLaughlin called Noel Harder to pick up guns from the garage of the house where they lived on March 28, 2014, and when she said she opened the garage for Harder and watched him pull out two black bags that were stored there.

McLaughlin testified he had never seen several of the rifles and shotguns, ammunition and a duffel bag that formed part of the evidence against him, but he had seen some of them before, such as a .357-calibre handgun, which he said Harder once pointed at him and pulled the trigger, although it wasn’t loaded.

He said he had also seen a .38 special handgun and a Turkish tactical rifle that were seized by police who stopped Harder as he drove away from the house where McLaughlin was under house arrest.

McLaughlin said Harder thought he had tipped off police that he had the weapons, and threatened him as a result.

Defence lawyer Nicholas Stooshinoff referred to transcripts of intercepted phone recordings heard earlier in the trial, on which Harder was heard to say, “It would be funny if they ( guns) just showed up at your house,” and, “You never know. There’s a lot of hiding spots around your place.”

McLaughlin denied being part of the Fallen Saints Motorcycle Club, saying such a club didn’t even exist before he was imprisoned.

The idea of a recreational riding club had been tossed around by Harder and himself and various people whose names he couldn’t be sure of, he said. He agreed that he and Harder used to sell cocaine together, rode motorcycles together and talked about forming a club. The name Fallen Angels hadn’t been decided upon by the time he went to prison, he said.

Court has heard that police surveilled both men in connection with Project Forseti, a drug and gun investigation targeting biker clubs and their alleged connection to organized crime in Saskatchewan.

After leaving Cracogna’s home, Harder was caught with eight firearms — four rifles, two shotguns and two restricted handguns — that he said came from McLaughlin. He said he offered to work with police on Project Forseti and was released the next day without charges. Harder officially signed on as a police agent in September 2014.

The guns found in Harder’s truck form the 17 charges laid against McLaughlin. They include three counts each of unauthorized possession of a prohibited firearm, possession of stolen firearms, unauthorized transfer of a firearm and possessing firearms while prohibited to do so.

An RCMP witness said one of McLaughlin’s fingerprints was found on one of the weapons.