HOUSES DIVIDED?
Former police agent takes stand at Hells Angel clubhouses civil forfeiture trial
An agent who infiltrated the East End Hells Angels more than a decade ago described in B.C. Supreme Court on Monday how he overheard a biker tell a prospect in the clubhouse to “take care” of someone believed to have robbed him.
Micheal Plante testified that he then helped the prospect, Randy Potts, hunt for the suspect by waiting outside the man’s house for weeks.
Plante told Justice Barry Davies that he and Potts had “the intent of shooting him. We both had weapons with silencers. Mr. Potts had a sub-machine gun. I had a .45.”
He said Potts had given him the gun, but that they ended up not carrying out the hit.
Plante was called to testify for the B.C. Director of Civil Forfeiture, who is trying to get Hells Angels clubhouses in East Vancouver, Nanaimo and Kelowna forfeited to the government as the instruments of criminal activity. The Hells Angels have counter-sued the B.C. government, claiming the Civil Forfeiture Act is unconstitutional.
Plante, who now lives under a new identity, earlier testified at several criminal trials stemming from the RCMP’s E-Pandora massive investigation in the mid-2000s into the East End Hells Angels.
He told Davies on Monday that he met with police to become an informant and later an agent after getting arrested in a beating and abduction case for which he spent 11 days in jail.
Plante said he knew Potts years earlier when Potts and another man were selling cocaine out of Surrey’s Dell Hotel, where Plante once worked as a bouncer.
Plante described resuming his friendship with Potts after he came into a Vancouver bar with full-patch East End Hells Angel Lloyd “Louie” Robinson. At the time, Potts was an official “friend” of the Hells Angels, but later got accepted into the club’s program as a prospect and was eventually made a “full-patch” member.
Plante was later invited to train Robinson at the gym inside the East End clubhouse, at 3598 East Georgia St.
He described the inside of the building, with a bar, meeting table and Hells Angels paraphernalia everywhere. He would do odd jobs around the clubhouse, including cleaning up, taking empties out, and security outside during “church meetings” where full-patch members discuss their business. Plante told Davies that there was an “emergency” church meeting after Potts had his vest, “flasher” patch, truck and keys stolen by the suspect they later hunted. The robbery happened after Potts was drinking one night with Plante and two other Hells Angels. Potts had to explain himself to the bikers, Plante testified. Plante stood guard outside during the meeting, he told Davies.
Afterwards, he saw a fullpatch biker at the clubhouse “take Mr. Potts to the backroom and he said it will be fine, just take care of it, get rid of him and it will be fine.”
“Mr. Potts said to me he was instructed that he had to get rid of the person who punched him out,” Plante said. “He instructed me to come with him and help him.”
Another emergency meeting was called after Plante mentioned to Potts that he heard Jamie Holland, a member of the Nomads chapter, comment about how prospects in his unit “don’t clean toilets. We’re gangsters.”
The comment was relayed to the East End leaders who took it as an insult and investigated it, bringing all those with knowledge of the comment in to be interviewed.
Plante said he was called to the clubhouse and arrived to see all the East End chapter members seated at the bar, with all the Nomads around the meeting table. One of the Nomads told Plante he had been recorded discussing the comment, but when the recording was played “all you heard on the tape was cars going by,” Plante said.
Plante told government lawyer Brent Olthuis that he signed a contract with the director of civil forfeiture to be paid $80,000 to testify. He earlier received $1 million for his work as an RCMP agent in the various criminal proceedings.
Plante is expected to be on the stand all week, before returning in February 2019 for cross-examination.
He testified that for a period of time, the bar in the East End clubhouse had a jar on it, labelled Juels Stanton Defence Fund. Stanton was an East End member facing charges before being kicked out of the Hells Angels.
“Once a week, his wife would come by and pick up the jar,” Plante said.
Several of the former Hells Angels who Plante mentioned Monday are now dead. Former East End member David Giles died in jail last year after being convicted in an international cocaine conspiracy case. Former Nomad Bob Green was shot to death in Langley two years ago. Stanton was gunned down in the yard of his Vancouver house in 2010. Former Nomad Holland was murdered in Toronto in October of 2017. Others, like Potts, have since left the club.