A career criminal who staged a brazen robbery at a bank in Mile End while he was drunk and high on cocaine is staring down the possibility of an indefinite sentence after having recently undergone a psychiatric evaluation that determined he should be declared a dangerous offender.
Alain Ste-Marie, 47, was convicted in March on nine charges related to the robbery during which he and a woman stormed into a branch of the Toronto Dominion Bank on Bernard Ave. on Sept. 2, 2016, but made off with only $410. Last month, as part of the sentencing stage of the case, prosecutor Geneviève Boutet asked Quebec Court Judge Guylaine Rivest to grant the harshest sentence possible in Canada — a dangerous offender designation with an indefinite sentence.
If Rivest agrees with the request, it will ultimately be up to the Parole Board of Canada to determine when Ste-Marie should be released.
Boutet’s request was based on Ste-Marie’s lengthy criminal record and an evaluation done in June by psychiatrist Louis Morrissette.
“(Ste-Marie) is now 47 and he received his first sentence at the age of 20. Following that, it appears there wasn’t a period between 12 to 18 months where he wasn’t incarcerated or under arrest,” Boutet wrote in her request. Ste-Marie, who escaped from detention centres in 1992 and 2007, is quoted in the court document as having told Morrissette: “It is better to rob a bank because the employees are paid to be potential victims.”
Morrissette determined that Ste-Marie should be declared a dangerous offender, writing: “(I)t is impossible to formulate a treatment plan that allows to adequately manage (Ste-Marie’s) high risk of re-offending.”
On Thursday, defence lawyer Catherine Daniel Houle, informed Rivest that Ste-Marie is trying to find another psychiatrist to counter Morrissette’s assessment but hasn’t had any luck yet. The case will return to court next week.
In March, Rivest found Ste-Marie guilty of all nine charges he faced in connection with the Sept. 2, 2016 bank robbery. including armed robbery, conspiracy, using a fake firearm to carry out a crime and breaking and entering. The latter charge involved how Ste-Marie broke into a home on Clark St. in order to hide from the police.
His accomplice in the robbery, Geneviève Dallaire, 37, received an overall sentence of 30 months. She was left with a 12-month prison term after sentencing on Aug. 29, 2017. Dallaire, a former prostitute, stood by at the entrance to the bank armed with a cigarette lighter that looked like a handgun and ordered clients to remain inside.
After they exited the bank, Ste-Marie and Dallaire jumped into a taxi and ordered the driver to flee the area. Within seconds, the taxi was blocked by a police vehicle and the cabbie managed to jump out. Ste-Marie took the wheel and ended up crashing into another car. Dallaire was arrested on the spot following the collision while Ste-Marie fled on foot but was arrested four days later.
Geneviève Dallaire (left) and Alain Ste-Marie at a bank robbery in Mile End on Sept. 2, 2016.
Dallaire and Ste-Marie were also charged as suspects in an earlier bank robbery, carried out on Aug. 18, 2016, on St-Hubert St. Following her arrest in the Mile End robbery, Dallaire was identified for the St-Hubert robbery by a witness based on seeing her photo. She and Ste-Marie were charged with the St-Hubert robbery but were acquitted due to a lack of evidence.
According to a decision made by the Commission québécoise des libérations conditionnelles (CQLC) last year, when Dallaire was turned down for a release, she told the provincial parole board that she and Ste-Marie carried out the Mile End robbery while drunk and high on cocaine. She also said she had not slept for days before the robbery was carried out.