KELOWNA GANGSTER HEADED BACK TO JAIL FOR MASSIVE WEAPONS STASH

Hells Angel Joseph Skreptak is going back to jail after a judge convicted him of possessing a small arsenal of weapons when police stopped him near Salmon Arm.

The Kelowna gang-member was in an SUV containing three loaded handguns, a sawed-off shotgun, ammunition, a baseball bat, balaclavas, a cellphone jammer and walkie talkies. He and the driver, Cory Montemurro, were each found guilty of 11 charges, most of them weapons-related.

Both must serve prison terms of at least three years, the minimum for carrying a loaded firearm. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Geoff Barrow set their sentencing for November.

Skreptak, 47, recently completed a 26-month jail term for aggravated assault. A judge sentenced him last year for using his membership in the Hells Angels to intimidate two teenagers and punch a man’s face in four years ago.

He was riding with Montemurro and two other men on the Trans-Canada Highway when a Mountie stopped them one night in November 2010. The officer smelled marijuana and later stopped their Jeep Cherokee a second time when another Mountie could help with the arrests.

Montemurro, the driver, carried a springloaded folding knife in his sock.

Skreptak, who rode in the front passenger seat, wore a Hells Angels T-shirt and had a cellphone with a sticker reading “support your lo- cal Hells Angels Kelowna.”

In the trunk, police found the .12-gauge pumpaction shotgun in a shopping bag with the handle protruding so the grip could be held with the gun in the bag. RCMP had the vehicle towed to the Salmon Arm detachment.

Skreptak was carrying six grams of marijuana. When police had him remove his pants, a sock containing nine rounds of .38-cal ammunition rolled out. He used his cellphone to call his lawyer and then smashed it on the police desk, saying “try to get something out of that,” court heard.

Bags in the hatchback contained a knife, bear spray, a set of body armour, shotgun shells and six magazines of 9-mm ammunition. Behind the bags were the bat and a one-metre length of hickory pole.

Police found a 9-mm CZ pistol attached to a 10round magazine under the driver’s seat. The gun was registered to Montemurro. In the centre console was a pair of ripped boxer shorts that could be used as a face mask, Barrow said.

Investigators went back to the site of the arrest. They found a 9-mm Glock handgun with no serial number in the ditch close by, as well as a .38 Colt revolver in its holster. The weapons matched the ammunition in the car and had no snow on them after a recent snowfall.

Days later, the arresting officer discovered a cigarette package tucked under the floor mat of his police car. Written on it were directions to a house off the highway at Bolton Road in Tappen.

At trial, Skreptak told the court he was househunting and arranged with a mortgage broker to check out a property near Salmon Arm. He was surprised to see three men in the car that picked him up in Kelowna but didn’t ask why two of them were tagging along.

After they viewed the property, the homeowner gave him a bag of weed and they smoked a joint, he said.

When police stopped the SUV, someone in the back seat said “hide that sock, Skrep.” Without knowing what was in it, he found the sock and put it in his sock, he said.

Skreptak had been a Hells Angel member for 10 years, he said, and denied the club was a criminal organization.

The judge found his testimony “utterly unbelievable.”

A whopper, the judge said, was Skreptak’s claim the men were driving with guns, body armour, balaclavas and bear spray for no reason he was aware of.

Crown counsel Sandra Dworkin argued all four were involved in a nefarious plan to use or threaten to use firearms. The four guns matched the number of men in the car. All of them were loaded except for the shotgun, which had ammunition readily available.

Montemurro had a licence to transport the CZ pistol to and from a shooting range but could only load it at target practice.

The judge found Montemurro guilty of carrying a concealed weapon (the springloaded knife) and Skreptak of marijuana possession.