A West Island resident who used the Kirkland municipal library to send messages via email while he was plotting to smuggle drugs into Canada was found guilty by a jury on two of the four conspiracy charges he faced.
Louis Nagy, 59, of Beaconsfield, and three other men, including an Ontario stuntman who has worked on several blockbuster Hollywood movies, were all found guilty by a jury that had deliberated through the weekend and emerged with decisions on a total of 16 charges. Much of the evidence presented during the trial, which began at the Montreal courthouse last month, involved conversations intercepted by the RCMP during Project Célibataire, an investigation that also targeted prolific drug smuggler Alain Charron, 70.
The prosecution, led by prosecutor Carly Norris, presented hundreds of cryptic messages that were mostly sent through an email system that is part of Rediff, an Indian news and entertainment web portal. The men involved in the conspiracies would send the emails on computers that were generally accessible to the public in apparent efforts to make it difficult to determine who sent them. But the jury was also presented with evidence that the men were being followed by the RCMP while they used the computers.
Louis Nagy (right) with Dean Copko were photographed while under surveillance by the RCMP.
In one case, two men who were being investigated drove from Montreal to Kingston, Ont. in a snowstorm solely for the purpose of using computers in a hotel lobby to send messages to people on the supply side of the conspiracies in foreign countries, including India. Nagy was under surveillance while he used the email system based on Rediff’s portal to send messages from the library in Kirkland. Nagy and stuntman Dean Copkov were convicted on two charges alleging they conspired to smuggle hashish into Canada. They were both acquitted on two charges alleging they conspired to bring in cocaine.
Two other Ontario residents — Marco Milan, 53, and Robert Bryant, 69 — were each convicted on all four of the charges they faced.
Norris said she was “quite satisfied” with the jury’s verdict.
Charron was originally charged in Project Célibataire when arrests were first made in 2013, but the sole count he faced was dropped last year. He was convicted earlier this year in a different case that involved three large shipments of hashish that were destined for Canada. He was sentenced to a five-year prison term in June.
The sentencing stage of the Project Célibataire case will begin on Nov. 21.