Canada - ~Judge stops Crown from proceeding on criminal organization charges against Hells Angels~
VANCOUVER - B.C. Supreme Court Justice Peter Leask on Friday decided to grant a defence application that the Crown cannot proceed at trial on charges that allege the East End chapter of the Hells Angels is a criminal organization.
"My decision is the Crown is estopped from leading evidence that the East End charter Hells Angels is a criminal organization," the judge ruled.
He said he would provide written reasons for his decision later.
"Well, what are we going to do next," Leask then said, smiling, after making his six-second ruling.
The accused, Randy Potts, a Hells Angel member was also smiling after the ruling. His co-accused, John Punko, was appearing via video monitor, which could not be seen from the public gallery.
When prosecutor Martha Devlin told the judge the Crown was ready to proceed on the remaining drug charges against Potts and Punko, the judge suggested defence counsel would be interesting in the Crown's position on sentence.
Defence lawyers Bonnie Craig and Richard Cairns had previously told the judge that their client would be agreeable to entering a guilty plea if the Crown dropped the criminal organization charges.
It is the third failed prosecution on criminal organization charges against the Hells Angels arising from a $10-million police investigation code-named E-Pandora.
RCMP Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, a former senior officer involved in the investigation that targetted the East End Hells Angels, said outside of court Friday he was surprised by Leask's ruling.
"It was unexpected but we'll sit down with the Crown and see what our avenues of appeal are," he said.
"We'll continue to investigate criminal organizations to the best of our ability and bring the evidence to court," Shinkaruk added.
"I believe the Hells Angels will continue to be a criminal organization and will operate as such," he said.
Shinkaruk pointed out that despite no ruling in B.C. that the Hells Angels is a criminal organization, such rulings have been made by courts in Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec.
Potts and Punko will return to court Dec. 7 to face trial or plead guilty to the remaining charges. The drug trial was scheduled to begin Dec. 14 and to last three months.
The two Hells Angels members had faced a total of nine charges at trial, including two that alleged they directed the production and distribution of methamphetamine in association with or for the benefit of a criminal organization, namely the East End charter of the Hells Angels.
The defence argued in its application that the Crown should be stopped from prosecuting the criminal organization charges because a jury at another trial that ended last summer acquitted Potts and Punko of criminal organization charges, so they should not be punished twice.
Devlin argued that the criminal organization charges should not be dropped because the judge could not speculate on why the jury came to the verdict it did on the criminal organzation charges.
The 10-month trial that ended last July with the jury convicting Potts and Punko on weapons charges.
Potts was convicted last July of four offences: having control of illegal grenades, possessing a loaded Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol, possessing an Intratec 9-mm semi-automatic pistol, a Ruger .22-calibre semi-automatic rifle and Voere bolt-action rifle and a .44 Ruger revolver.
The judge found Potts held the arsenal of weapons for the East End Hells Angels.
Potts, 49, was sentenced to a seven-year sentence for controlling the arsenal but effectively received a sentence of time served after being double credit for four years served in pre-trial custody.
Punko, 43, was convicted of the unauthorized possession of a loaded Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol.
He was sentenced to 15 months in jail for illegal possession of a loaded semi-automatic pistol and a consecutive sentence of four years for counselling a police agent to do damage to a Surrey home where Punko was trying to collect a large amount of money from a man.
It was effectively a sentence of time served but Punko was recently denied bail by Leask. Potts is free on bail.
Disclaimer: The opinions in this article are solely those of the writer, and may not reflect the beliefs of anyone at Outlaw Biker World.
This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Home
