The RCMP’s refusal to disclose how it was able to intercept messages from smartphones during a major investigation into two distinct groups tied to the Montreal Mafia is believed to be one factor that will force the Crown to seek a stay of proceedings in cases involving 37 people on Tuesday.
Defence lawyers representing clients arrested in connection with Project Clemenza were informed of the development late last week. Charges filed against 38 people in all are expected to be placed under a stay of proceedings on Tuesday. But one of those 38, Ali Awada, 28, was killed in Montreal this year. Awada’s death has yet to be registered by the court.
Charges are expected to be stayed in connection with investigations that uncovered drug trafficking, a kidnapping, a large stash of weapons and arson fires.
At least a few of the people whose cases will be affected by the Crown’s decision are alleged to be influential players in the Montreal Mafia. Perhaps the most significant is Liborio Cuntrera, 48, an alleged leader in the Mafia before he returned from a vacation in Italy last year and turned himself in to the RCMP when he was informed that a warrant was out for his arrest. At least one of the three charges Cuntrera faces is expected to be stayed on Tuesday.
Cuntrera’s co-accused in the same indictment, Marco Pizzi, 47, is expected to see charges stayed as well. But based on the list sent to lawyers on Friday, Pizzi will likely remain charged with drug trafficking in another indictment filed in Project Clemenza in May last year.
In another case, charges are expected to be stayed against eight men accused of being involved in a kidnapping when a man was held against his will for roughly three months early in 2011. That includes Antonio Bastone, 54, and his younger brother Roberto, 44, who were alleged to be the leaders of one group targeted in Project Clemenza when the RCMP held a press conference in 2014.
Gina Conforti, 39, a St-Léonard resident who was found to be living with Giuseppe De Vito (the leader of the other group specifically targeted in Project Clemenza) in 2010, while he was wanted on drug-smuggling charges in another investigation, is expected to see charges filed against her in two indictments placed under a stay of proceedings as well. De Vito died of cyanide poisoning on July 8, 2013, while serving time inside the Donnacona Institution, a federal penitentiary near Quebec City.
Defence lawyers involved in the case said on Monday it appears the RCMP’s refusal to disclose how it managed to intercept personal messages sent via smartphones (that the users assumed were encrypted) is behind the major development in the case. At issue is how the RCMP used a mobile device identifier (MDI) for the investigation.
The Crown’s refusal to disclose the methods used by the RCMP to defence lawyers is believed to be behind why the Crown decided in 2016 to place a stay of proceedings on several first-degree murder charges in the death of Salvatore Montagna who was murdered in 2011. Instead, several men, including Raynald Desjardins, opted to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit murder, a far less serious offence in the Criminal Code.
Defence lawyers in the Salvatore Montagna case took their request to have the information divulged to them all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Crown apparently decided to accept the guilty pleas before Canada’s top court heard the case. A decision made on the issue, on Nov. 18, 2015 by Quebec Superior Court Justice Michael Stober, was heavily redacted when it was made public last year.
“The same motion would have been at issue (in Project Clemenza cases),” defence lawyer Eric Sutton told the Montreal Gazette on Monday.
Other defence lawyers involved in the case were of a similar opinion.
“You could see this on the horizon as far back as a year ago. They simply do not want to disclose the information,” said another defence lawyer who asked that his name not be published.
Sutton said other factors might have come into play. He noted the Crown is not required to divulge why it will suddenly decide to stop prosecuting a case. Arrests in Project Clemenza were made in three stages — beginning in 2014 and ending in May 2016. Some of the first people arrested have waited long enough to begin filing motions arguing there has been an unreasonable delay in bringing their cases to trial. Last summer, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a person accused in Superior Court should expect to wait only 30 months for his or her trial to begin.
“Clearly that was a concern in this case,” Sutton said. “There were (other) disclosure issues as well.”
Charges are expected to be be stayed against the following accused:
Hussein Abdallah, Giuseppe Arcoraci, Ali Awada, Davide Barberio, Antonio Bastone, Roberto Bastone, Mathieu Bouchard, Martino Caputo, Alberto Castronovo, Steve Cecere, Gina Conforti, Liborio Cuntrera, Jocelyne Daoust, Mike Di Battista, Michele Di Marco, Sophie Dubé, Alain Duhamel, Giuseppe Fetta, Jaime Flores, Giovanni Gerbasi, Louis-Marie Hébert, Mona Hrtschan, Robert Jetté, Hicham Kachouh, Mike Markos Karounis, Michele Lanni, Fenel Milhomme, Roberto Olacirequi-Martinez, Marcello Paolucci, Andrew Michael Poux, Riccardo Preteroti, Marco Pizzi, Pasquale Silvano, Patrizio Silvano, Luigi Simeone, Jenica Teleu, Angelo Testani, Frédéric Tremblay-Cazes.
