Gerald Ward (perempit)

Gerald "Skinny" Ward ialah seorang rempit dan ketua penyebar dadah Kanada di Kampung Niagara sederum menjadi presiden ranting bahagian bagi KSM Hells Angels dan menjadi salah satu pengerusi penting Hells Angels di Kanada.

 Marga Jenayah Papalia 

Bermula sedari tahun 1965, Ward yang masih muda sebagai seorang samseng telah mempunyai 23 sabitan atas dakwaan penipuan, penjualan senjata api, dadah, perhiasaan curian di pasar gelap, dan mengganas kepada orang awam.  Dia dianggap oleh polis sebagai penyebar dadah besar di Semenanjung Niagara bagi keluarga Magaddino asal daerah Buffalo, New York melalui subsidi Kanadanya, keluarga Papalia Hamilton. Ward telah didakwa atas membunuh tiga kali dan rancangan pembunuhan satu kali, tetapi semua dakwaannya tidak berlanjut. Kerana licin bagaikan moa dalam sidang, seorang wartawan bernama Jerry Langton bahkan enggelari Ward dengan sebutan "seorang lelaki tangguh sepanjang masa".

Pada musim panas tajun 1997, Johnny Papalia, pemimpin daripada marga jenayah Papalia dan kakitangannya Carmen Barillaro dibunuh oleh seseorang. Hal itu menyebabkan anggota marga jenayah berpecah dan Ward berfokus pada pasar gelap daerahnya sendiri. Tidak lama semenjak itu Presiden Hells Angels Kanada Walter "Nurget" Stadnick memanggilnya bagi menyertai kelab motosikal. Polis menyebut jemputan itu sebagai "sidang jahat penjenayah". Seorang pegawai polis, Shawn Clarkson, dari salah satu unit Polis Air Terjun Niagara menyatakan: "Tiada siapapun yang berani menentang Hells Angels itu seperti yang dilakukan oleh Bos Barillaro atau Papalia. Papalia, walaupun dia telah berumur 73 tahun, dia tidak akan pernah bersetuju Hells Angels wujud di Ontario ini". Pada awalnya Ward menganggap kalau jemputan mereka hanya sekedar lawan bahkan ia sendiripun tidak tahu bagaimana menunggangi motosikal, tetapi setelah dirayu sedikit lebih lama akhirnya dia bersetuju bagi bekerja untuk Hells Angels. Len Isnor, ketua Unit Penguatkuasaan Anti-Rempit Polis Wilayah Ontario, pernah berkata bahawa: "Dari arkib yang kami kumpulkan, Ward tidak bukanlah seorang penunggang basikal. Tetapi temannya Stadnick dalam  sebuah wawancara berkata, 'Dia ialah bahagian daripada Hells Angels kini', dan si kulit kurus itu dengan cepat menjadi seorang rempit yang mahir".

Pada musim panas tahun 1998, Standick dan seluruh ranting Hells Angels Sherbrooke tiba di Niagara Falls. Polis memangil perarakan motosikal itu dengan sebutan "sidang jahat" bersama Ward". Ward menyediakan kokain bagi rakan-rakan baharunya itu dan menjadi pengedar dadah paling berkuasa di semenanjung Niagara. Ranting Sherbrooke Hells Angels popular sebagai salah satu ranting KSM Hells Angels paling ganas di Kanada, dan Stadnick konvoi bersama keseluruhan angota Sherbrooke ke daerah Air Terjun Niagara dipercayai sebagai tindakan intimidasi halus kepada polis darinya. Ward dan kelasi samsengnya sudaj dipersetujui pada sebagai bahagian dari mereka meskipun belum rasmi. Sebagai anggota baharu, Ward hanya boleh membeli barang dadah baharu daripada Hells Angels. Kelab motosikal itu telah menambahkan kekuatan pengaruhnya di pasar gelap semenanjung Niagara. Clarkson berkongsi pernyataan: "Saya sendiri hairan (Ward) benar-benar dilakukan, sama sahaja dia membuang harga dirinya tetapi menurut pandangan saya dia terpaksa melakukannya... mahu dia menyertai atau tidak, Hells Angels akan menyuruh sepuluh lelaki atau sepuluh lelaki yang lain dari Quebec memaksanya. Dia tidak ingin kuasa dadahnya dicerobohi dan itu ialah perkara terakhir yang harus Ia mengelak."  Clarkson memberi gambaran kelasi-kelasi Ward dalam aktiviti penjenayah: "Mereka ini ialah apa yang kami panggil sebagai 'penjenayah elit". Ward dan geng-geng bawahannya di sekitar daerah Niagara belum rasmi menjadi anggota Hells Angels sehingga tahun 2000.

 Bahagian Daripada Hells Angels 
Ward dan kelasi-kelasinya rasmi menjadi bahagian daripada KMS Hells Angels pada 29 Disember 2000 dalam sebuah upacara motosikal di Sorel, Quebec. Kedua kelasi Ward yang paling kuat iakni Kenneth "Wags" Wagner dan Tim Panetta juga menyertai upacara itu. Pada musim semi 2002, Ward memulakan tempat perarakan kelab motosikal rantingnya di Balan 855 Darby. 

Tamu yang menyertai upacara pembukaan itu ialah pemimpin Kelab Motosikal Outlaw Kanada, Mario "Mike the Wop" Parente, Clarkson menyatakan dalam keterangannya bahawa: "Mike sang Wop (Slanga Itali yang bermakna berjalan di turapan) dan si Kulit Kurus telah saling mengenal semenjak masih sekolah. Saat dia masuk menyertai upacara, banyak daripada bawahan muda Kulit Kurus yang merasa kecewa. Tetapi apa yang boleh mereka perbuat, dia ialah teman daripada pimpinan mereka".  

Selepas rasmi menjadi Hells Angels, Ward belajar bagaimana cara menunggangi motosikal. David Atwell, seorang Hells Angel yang nanti akan menjadi tapisan polis, bercakap tentang ranting Niagara: "...ranting itu kebanyakan anggotanya orang yang sudah mulai uzur (kebanyakan teman Ward pada saat itu sudah mendekati usia 60an) pecandu dan penyebar dadah rakan Stadnick. Presiden mereka Gerald "Skinny" Ward, sampai harus diajari cara menunggang motosikal. Mereka semua terpaksa di Ontario terpaksa harus menyertai Hells Angels. Jikalau tidak ingin menyertai maka tidak akan ada benda dadah". Atwell sempat bertemu dengan Ward pada bulan Mac 2001 saat berkhidmat menjadi pengawal Stadnick dan berkata: "Berbeza dengan apa yang diucapkan, meski masih amatur si Kulit Kurus sudah nampak seperti seorang perempit asli. Dadanya beraga, rambut panjang terikat ekor kuda yang berwarna kelabu dan jaket Harley... selepas berlatih dia menyampaikan keluh kesahnya kepadaku kalau dia pernah lama merana di dalam penjara, menunggu sidang bagi syaki pembunuhan. Kemudian aku terkejut saat tahu Ia lolos dari dakwaan itu dan dikurung dalam jel selama kurang daripada dua tahun."

Ward was close to having a monopoly of the cocaine trade in the Niagara peninsula and was well known in underworld circles for the high quality of his cocaine, which attracted drug dealers from all over Ontario, seeking to buy from him, and for rival drug dealers pretending to work for him in order to increase their prices. The cocaine Ward sold was between 81 and 90% pure. The police estimated that Ward was responsible for about 75% of all the cocaine sales in the Niagara peninsula. The police informer Steven "Hannibal" Gault testified in 2008: "They have complete control of the coke dealing in the whole Niagara region. Anyone steps in there, they'll kill him point-blank. You don't play with their game. So...all their lives are built upon drug dealing."

Atwell described the Hells Angels' Niagara chapter under the leadership of Ward as being the richest Hells Angel chapter in Ontario. The Niagara peninsula is one of the most popular tourist areas in Canada as millions of people come every year from across Canada, the United States and the rest of the world to see Niagara Falls. The journalists Julian Sher and William Marsden wrote the Niagara chapter of the Hell Angels made vast sums of money as many of the tourists purchased cocaine and visited strip clubs owned by the Hells Angels. Sher and Marsden wrote that although Toronto had more people than the Niagara peninsula, selling cocaine to the tourists made the Niagara chapter of the Hells Angels as wealthy as the Downtown Toronto chapter led by John "Winner" Neal, which was also a very well-off Angels chapter. Clarkson told Sher and Marsden: "There's always been large consumption and trafficking of cocaine here. There are many attractions down here — tourists, casinos — and it keeps on growing". Joining the Hells Angels allowed Ward to import French-Canadian strippers from Quebec to work as strippers in Niagara Falls, who proved to be very popular. Ward would break up a kilogram of cocaine and sold 2,000 half-grams at $40 dollars per shot. Ward operated out of a fortress-like clubhouse at 855 Darby Road in a rural district outside of Welland. Ward's clubhouse was the largest and best defended Hells Angels clubhouse in all of Ontario. Ward's clubhouse was a two-story building that was a direct copy of the Angels' clubhouse in Sherbrooke that stood out in the countryside as the entire building was painted red and white, the colors of the Hells Angels. Ward was always careful about what he said and had a stickler tapped to his mobile phone that read: "Be Careful What You Say On This Phone".

After Stadnick was arrested as part of Operation Springtime in March 2001, the new Hells Angels national leadership was a duumvirate that consisted of Ward together with the North Toronto chapter president Billy Miller. In July 2002, Ward and Miller put an end to a biker war that had brewing in London, Ontario by reassigning the Coates brothers away from London. Starting in August 2005, Ward began to sell cocaine to Steven Gault, the treasurer of the Angels' Oshawa chapter, who was secretly a police informer.  During his visits, Ward talked frankly with Gault about his business, saying his chapter was supposed to have at least six members as required by the Angel rules, but in fact had only three members. Besides for Ward, the Niagara chapter consisted only of Kenneth Wagner and Tim Panetta. Ward told Gault: "I'd like to put good, more good guys around, but fuck, it's hard to find good guys". To avoid being expelled from the Hells Angels, Ward had to borrow three members from other chapters, namely Jason "One Eye" Meyer of the Peterborough chapter; Johnny Cane of the Kitchener chapter, and Donny Bachenski of the Hamilton chapter, to keep the Niagara chapter up to the six men rule. Gault told Ward that he always became upset when an Angel was arrested, saying: "If you're busted as a Hells Angel it hurts me to begin with". Ward agreed, saying: "We're all brothers".

Ward told Gault that he was infuriated by drug dealers pretending to work for him in order to charge more for their cocaine. Ward spoke to Gault about how he had caught one drug dealer pretending to work for him, and forced him to pay him $10,000 dollars for using his name without permission. Gault's wire recorded Ward as saying: "I just got 10 grand off a guy two weeks ago. He used my name three times, my name personally." Ward also told Gault about how his son had caught a drug dealer who was pretending to work for him in a nightclub and confronted him, reporting that the dealer had expressed much dismay when he learned that the man who was confronting him was his son. Clarkson stated: "We don't often know what he did to those [minor drug dealers] but they ceased to be a problem for him. That just shows you how powerful the Hells Angels is. The patch carries a lot of weight". Ward told Gault that he was not buying in bulk as he reckoned that the price of cocaine would fall, leading to Gault to say the cocaine business was "like playing the stock market". Ward replied: "Pretty well the same thing. You're up, you're down.". In August 2005, Ward told Gault that there was a corrupt policeman "who knew a lot of stuff" and brought him "paperwork all the time."

Project Tandem
Due to the information provided by Gault, Ward was arrested on 28 September 2006 as part of Operation Tandem. Also charged with Ward were Kenneth "Wags" Wagner, Richard Beaulieu, Timothy Misue, Alain Lacroix and Deborah Fetz. Ward pleaded guilty to the drug charges on 26 September 2008 while denying the gangsterism charges, insisting he was acting on his own. At Ward's trial in the fall of 2008, Gault testified that various drug dealers would pay Ward $500 dollars per week for the right to sell drugs in the Niagara peninsula and that other drug dealers would pay Gard "tribute" in exchange for him not operating in their territories. On 1 October 2008, Timothy Panetta, the owner of Advantage Auto Sales, was charged with 12 counts of fraud as the police alleged that he had purchased salvaged automobiles in the United States and sold them as legitimate used cars in Canada.

On 12 December 2008, Ward was found guilty of the criminal organization charges as the court accepted the Crown's argument that Ward was selling drugs on behalf of the Hells Angels. In convicting Ward, Justice John McMahanon stated on 12 December 2008: "I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that one of the main purposes of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club in Canada is the facilitation or commission of serious offences, including trafficking in cocaine and other drugs, extortion and trafficking in firearms". One Hells Angels biker, Lorne Campbell, expressed admiration for the way that Ward refused to testify against the other Angels, saying: "He stayed solid. He got an extra 9 years after three in the bucket, but he stayed solid". On 26 March 2009, Ward was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In sentencing Ward, Justice McMahon described Ward as one of the "top" drug dealers in Ontario, describing him as being at the "pinnacle" of a drug dealing network that spread across Ontario. Ward's subordinate, Wagner, was also sentenced at the same trial to 11 years in prison. On 1 June 2009, the clubhouse of the Hells Angels' Niagara chapter was seized by the Crown under the grounds it was "considered a place where illegal activities took place". In March 2015, Ward was released on parole.

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Kategori:Orang dari Quebec
Kategori:Penjenayah Kanada