Ex-gangster tells court gang leader fled for Vietnam
A former United Nations gang member testified Thursday that he was told fugitive gang leader Conor D’Monte was hiding out in Vietnam.
The man, who can only be identified as A due to a sweeping publication ban, told B.C. Supreme Court that UN member Amir Eghtesad passed along the details of D’Monte’s whereabouts several years ago.
Witness A spent his fourth day on the stand at the trial of alleged UN hitman Cory Vallee. Vallee is charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers over several months in 2008 and 2009, as well as the first-degree murder of Bacon pal Kevin LeClair on Feb. 6, 2009.
D’Monte was charged with the same conspiracy and murder in January 2011, but fled the country. He remains on the RCMP’s most wanted list and is the subject of an Interpol alert indicating he has been charged with murder in Canada.
Vallee also fled the country, but was later located in Mexico and returned to B.C.
When Witness A decided to co-operate with the police, he said he didn’t think he would have to testify against Vallee, who he was told was with D’Monte.
“I thought it was going to be pretty unlikely because I thought he was going to be in Vietnam,” A told Judge Janice Dillon.
A said he decided to become a Crown witness because “I just wanted to change my life.”
At the time, he had been told by police that a former friend and gangmate, known only as D at the Vallee trial, was already co-operating. That made him “sad,” he said. He knew co-operating could put him in danger “because people who rat out … usually bad things happen,” A testified.
He said he had hoped he would get a payout from the police for co-operating, but was never offered any money, nor received any.
Two other former gang members who testified earlier at the Vallee trial — D and C — received payouts of $300,000 and $400,000 each, according to earlier testimony.
Witness A tried to explain to prosecutor Elizabeth Rennie why the UN gang wanted the Bacon brothers — Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie — dead.
“We started beefing with them like in 2006,” he said.
“What do you mean by beefing?” Rennie asked.
A replied: “Just having problems with them. … Like drugs and gang stuff. We didn’t like each other.”
Asked to be more specific about the root cause of the deadly gang war, A struggled to answer.
“I don’t know. I don’t really know how to explain it. It doesn’t really make sense to me to this day,” he said.
He told Rennie that the UN was behind the shooting of Jonathan Bacon outside his family’s Abbotsford home in September 2006, as well as the murder of Bacon friend Dave Tumber a few months earlier.
Both shootings fuelled the animosity, he said.
The UN later blamed the Bacons for the May 2008 murder of gang member Duane Meyer, who was shot outside an Abbotsford house where his children were staying.
A has already testified that Vallee was brought into the murder conspiracy by UN leader Clay Roueche specifically to kill the Bacons.
He said he helped Vallee by driving him around the Lower Mainland and scouting out locations that the Bacons frequented, and gathering intelligence on their vehicles and licence plate numbers.
Jonathan Bacon survived the 2006 shooting, but was killed in Kelowna in August 2011.
Jarrod Bacon recently returned to jail after violating parole conditions and Jamie Bacon remains in custody awaiting trial in the October 2007 Surrey Six murder case.
Vallee’s trial continues.