‘Jordan Rule’ aids release of high-profile B.C. Hells Angel
For years, friends of incarcerated Hells Angel Larry Amero have pasted “Free Larry” stickers on their Harleys to demand his release.
On Wednesday, they finally got their wish after a judge in Quebec stayed organized crime and cocaine importation charges against the prominent B.C. gangster.
Prosecutor Philippe Vallières-Roland confirmed to Postmedia News the charges were stayed because of the length of time the case took to get to trial.
Last year, the Supreme Court of Canada set a 30-month limit for prosecutions at the provincial Supreme Court level to be completed, except in exceptional circumstances.
Amero is the highest-profile B.C. gangster to have his case thrown out under the so-called Jordan Rule.
The 40-year-old biker has been in jail since his arrest in Montreal in November 2012 as a prime target in Quebec police’s Project Loquace, which resulted in more than 100 arrests.
Amero and several associates, including now-convicted killer and former B.C. gangster Rabih Alkhalil, were alleged to be ringleaders in a major coalition of organized criminals trying to control cocaine distribution across Canada.
Police said they found documentation in the penthouse Amero shared with Alkhalil showing millions of dollars in drug transactions, some of which were here in B.C.
Amero, who grew up in Metro Vancouver, joined the Hells Angels program as a hangaround in 2002 and became a full-patch member of the White Rock chapter of the biker gang three years later.
Months before his arrest, he joined the breakaway West Point chapter, now operating out of a rented south Langley home near the U.S. border.
Hells Angels spokesman Rick Ciarniello did not respond to a request for comment on Amero’s release.
Sgt. Brenda Winpenny of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit said police would take the appropriate action if Amero resumes his position in the Lower Mainland underworld.
“We are very aware of the current gang landscape and the conflicts and if he chooses to involve himself in that, we would dedicate as many resources as possible to address that,” Winpenny said.
When Amero was arrested in 2012, the B.C. head of CFSEU said Amero and two others charged in Quebec were “key figures” in B.C. gang violence.
Amero had formed the Wolf Pack alliance with some members of the Red Scorpion gang and some Independent Soldiers.
Amero, Scorpion Jonathan Bacon and Independent Soldier James Riach were in a Porsche Cayenne outside Kelowna’s Delta Grand Hotel in August 2011 when it was shot up by masked gunmen.
Bacon was killed in the shooting, while Amero was seriously injured. Riach escaped injury.
Three rival gangsters — Jujhar Khun-Khun, Michael Jones and Jason McBride — are currently on trial in Kelowna on first-degree murder charges.