A man who killed two prison guards under orders from the Hells Angels — and later turned informant against the notorious gang — has been granted his first step toward full parole.
According to Radio-Canada, Stéphane Gagné, 48, was granted permission to escorted temporary leaves from a federal penitentiary north of Montreal as he prepares for his eventual full parole, something that seemed unimaginable two decades ago.
The Parole Board of Canada made the decision following a hearing held Wednesday morning.
The decision means Gagneé can leave the penitentiary, escorted by a guard, to help him gradually prepare for life on the outside.
In 1997, Gagné killed two provincial prison guards and almost killed another as the Hells Angels Nomad chapter tried to intimidate the Quebec justice system.
He later turned informant on Maurice (Mom) Boucher, the Hells Angel who came up with the plan to kill prison guards.
On June 26, 1997, Gagné killed provincial prison guard Diane Lavigne while she was on her way home from work at the Montreal detention centre.
On Sept. 8, 1997, he took part in a shooting near the Rivière-des-Prairies detention centre that killed prison guard Pierre Rondeau and badly injured colleague Robert Corriveau while they were on a prisoner transport bus.
The killings were carried out after Boucher issued orders to his closest associates.
Boucher, who led the Hells Angels in Quebec through the biker gang war of 1994-2002, was aware the Nomads chapter was under police surveillance and wanted to intimidate the justice system. The incentive for killing guards was promotion in his vast criminal network.
Members of the Nomad chapter, which no longer exists, were the decision makers in the drug trafficking empire.
Gagné was set to become a member of the Rockers, another club Boucher created. Two men who helped him carry out the murders — André (Toots) Tousignant and Paul Fontaine — received promotions toward becoming full-patch Hells Angels.
After his arrest in 1997, Gagné became a witness for the prosecution. His testimony helped convict Boucher and Fontaine. Tousignant was murdered in 1998.
Gagné also testified in other trials that helped convict other gang members.
When he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, in 1998, Gagné’s parole eligibility date was set at Dec. 6, 2022 — after he had served 25 years of his life sentence.
In 2015, his lawyer, Sandra Brouillette, argued he merited a chance at Canada’s so-called faint-hope clause, which allows inmates like Gagné the chance to have their parole eligibility reduced by, at most, 10 years.
On Nov. 24 of that year, a jury set Gagné’s eligibility at roughly 19 years, making him eligible for full parole on Jan. 1, 2017.
The decision meant that Gagné could have asked for day parole within weeks, but he appears to have opted for the slower and standard route toward being released.
Details of how Gagné spent his time behind bars after he helped put away Boucher — one of Quebec’s most notorious criminals — became public information during his faint-hope clause hearing.
In October 2010, while revising his security classification, authorities learned Gagné had been using a chaplain as an intermediary to transfer letters to a journalist.
According to a document prepared for the hearing, the chaplain was fired and the secret correspondence showed Gagné could “play the system” while pretending to conform to it.
“It called into question the risk evaluation he represented in (a penitentiary) as well as the public’s safety,” the document stated.
In 2012, the girlfriend of another inmate housed with Gagné alleged he had threatened to shoot her in the head. The alleged threat was investigated by police but no charges were filed.
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