| Normand "Norm" Robitaille |
| Normand Robitaille was born in the late 1960s or early 1970s. He joined the Rockers biker gang, a Hells Angels puppet club, in the 1990s, maybe as early as it's formation in 1992. By that time, he had already been convicted of assault with a weapon and of impaired driving. On July 14, 1994, Robitaille was injured when gunmen fired upon him in the East-End of Montreal. He would survive another attempt on his life five years later, in June, 1999, when someone opened fire on him as he ate in a St-Laurent street restaurant. On February 8, 1995, Robitaille and Rocker Jean-Guy Bourgouin abducted Richard Bienvenu from his Boucherville home and tried to extort him for $425,000. |
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Armed with firearms, the two Rockers forced Bienvenu, still wearing his bathrobe, into his car and went to the Caisse populaire in Saint-Hyacinthe. Robitaille and Bourgouin told him to go into the bank and take $425,000 out of his account, while they waited in the car. Bienvenu told a cashier that had been abducted and police soon arrived at the scene and arrested the two would be extortionists. The two Rockers were found guilty of forcible confinement, unauthorized possession of a firearm, and concealing evidence on March 16, 1995. Judge Lucien Roy sentenced both men to 26 months in prison. In September, 1998, Robitaille and fellow bikers Jean-Guy Bourgouin and Gregory Wooley were involved in a fight with three players of the Montreal Alouettes CFL football team. The three bikers got into an altercation with players Anthony Calvillo, Stefen Reid, and Brian Clark outside the Kokino bar on St-Laurent street. The police was called and Bourgouin was charged with assault. Some time during the late 1990s, Robitaille was promoted from the Rockers to the Hells Angels elite Nomads chapter. As a Hells Angel, he became close to Maurice "Mom" Boucher and was often described as being the Hells leader's "right-hand man" in the papers. On July 4, 2000, Robitaille and called a meeting with the entire Rockers biker gang at a restaurant on the south shore of Montreal. At the reunion, Robitaille announced that he he had "negotiated with the Italians. The price of a kilo [of cocaine] is now $50,000." But, unknown to him, Rocker Danny Kane was secretly working for police and recorded the whole meeting. Robitaille's trust in Kane came back to haunt him again less than two months later, on July 25. When the Hells Angel wasn't looking, Kane swipped some papers from his hand bag. The papers, it turns out, allowed police to understand the Nomads accounting and the amount of cash the group pulled in from drug supplies annually. The documents revealed that the Nomads sold about 2000 kilos of cocaine and about the same amount of hashish every year. On February 15, 2001, Robitaille was arrested alongside fellow Nomads Denis "Pas Fiable" Houle, Gilles "Trooper" Mathieu. Richard "Dick" Mayrand, and Michel Rose, Nomads prospects Luc "Bordel" Bordeleau and Jean-Richard Lariviere, and Rocker Kenny Bédard at the Holiday Inn on Sherbrooke street. All eight bikers were armed, police said, and they found photographs of eight members of the Rock Machine/Bandidos biker gang. The men's pocket money, which totaled $39,197, was confiscated. In order to avoid gangsterism charges, the eight men agreed to plead guilty to weapons charges. Robitaille was sentenced to one year in prison and banned from possessing firearms for the rest of his life. Robitaille was among the over 100 Hells Angels and associates charged in Opération: Printemps 2001 on March 28, 2001. From prison, he learned that he was being charged with participating in 13 murders, as well as conspiracy and gangsterism. During a search of Robitaille's home, police found $199,980 in cash. Robitaille, Mom Boucher, and company were charged with the slayings of Johnny Plescio, Tony Plescio, Richard Parent, Pierre "Ti-Bum" Beauchamp, Marc "Cash" Belhumeur, Yvon "Momo" Roy, Patrick Turcotte, Pierre Bastien, Stéphane Morgan, Daniel Boulet, Serge Hervieux, Francis Gagnon, and Jean Rosa. Robitalle was also charged with conspiracy and gangsterism, and authorities seized three of his properties: a Candiac home worth $306,800, a Longueuil building valued at $236,000 and a La Prairie house worth $128,500. In prison, according to Rocker-turned-informant Serge "Pacha" Boutin, Robitaille became paranoid towards him. It is supposedly because of this attitude Robitaille showed him Boutin pleaded guilty and decided to cooperate with authorities. In September, 2003, Robitaille and eight others, including three other full-patch members of the Nomads, brought an abrupt end to the 11 month trail by pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit murder, drug trafficking, and gangsterism. The following week, the bikers received sentences ranging from 15 to 20 years in prison. Robitaille received 20 years, with the condition that they would have to serve half before being eligible for parole. |