| Michael "L'Animal" Lajoie-Smith |
| Michael Lajoie-Smith, nicknamed "L'Animal", was born in 1962. He joined the powerful Hells Angels Montreal chapter in the early 1980s and in the 1987, when made the organization's godfather to their Laval based puppet club, the Death Riders Motorcycle Club. Lajoie-Smith was now the head of a crew of drug dealers and thugs who intimidated bar owners into allowing the gang's drug pushers into their establishments. When the war with the Rock Machine erupted in 1994, Lajoie-Smith was responsible for battles fought on the north shore of the Mille-Iles River, in town like Terrebonne, Lachenaie, and Mascouche. On July 22, 1995, Lajoie-Smith viciously beat Alain Cadieux, an innocent |
| bystander, in the Le Marsolais bar in Cartierville. The 32 year old man was beaten so badly that he was in a vegititive state and will have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. A few months later, on October 13, 1995, Lajoie-Smith was arrested outside a bar in Montreal's north end with a loaded 9 mm firearm on him. He was c onvicted of possession of a restricted weapon and sentenced to five months in prison. And things only got worse for "L'Animal". The Angel's right-hand man Martin "Satan" Lacroix became an informant after his October 26, 1995 arrest and told police the names of Lajoie-Smith's crew of thugs and drug dealers. He also admitted that Lajoie-Smith had paid him $400 to plant a bomb in the Le Gascon stripclub. On August 30, 1996, Lajoie-Smith pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up the Le Gascon bar and about three months later, on December 5, 1996, admitted to maliciously battering Alain Cadieux. He was sentenced to six years in prison. With Lajoie-Smith behind bars, police, using the possession of goods obtained with the proceeds of crime, seized the biker's two houses, jewelry, a Cadillac, and two Harley Davidson motorcycles. His bank accounts were also frozen. On November 27, 1998, Lajoie-Smith's luxurious Laval home was burned down. The house, evaluated at $220,300, had 13 rooms, an outdoor swimming pool, a two car garage, and, like most Hells Angels homes, security cameras. It was torched shortly before the Government was going to place it up for sale. Lajoie-Smith continues to be a very influential member of the Hells Angels Montreal Chapter. He went up for parole in August 2001 but his request was denied. |
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