Chris's Crime Forum

Jury selection began Monday for the highly anticipated Bandido murder trial, but the initial stages were more about organizing potential jurors than choosing them.

The first of 2,000 possible jurors — the largest jury pool summoned in recent London history — were at the Middlesex courthouse, to be divided into smaller lots and ordered to return next week.

Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney told the morning pool the process is “is a very enormous undertaking.” The trial is expected to last four to six months. A group of about 200 potential jurors were summoned Monday morning.

Another 200 were called for the afternoon. Each group is divided into lots of 10. Most of the morning group, once divided into sub-groups of 10, was told to return March 3 when 125 potential jurors will be screened.

The rest were told to return March 4. The same process will continue until Friday. Six men are charged with eight counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of eight men with ties to the Bandido motorcycle club in April 2006.

The men’s bodies were found in vehicles parked haphazardly on a rural Elgin County road, southwest of London, on April 8, 2006. Wayne Kellestine, 59, and Frank Mather, 35, both of Dutton-Dunwich; Brett Gardiner, 24, of no fixed address; Michael Sandham, 39, Marcelo Aravena, 32, and Dwight Mushey, 41, all of Winnipeg, each face eight counts of first- degree murder in the deaths of the eight men believed to be part of the Bandidos.

All six accused appeared in another courtroom Monday, away from the jury panel. An audio-video link was in place so the panel could see the accused in the prisoners’ box and the accused could see them from their courtroom. Mather was there only briefly.

His lawyer, Robert Lockhart, told Heeney that Mather — who appeared pale — was feeling unwell and asked he be excused for the day. None of the potential jurors’ names was read in court, only their juror numbers and occupations.

Heeney noted all the panel members had received questionnaires to be returned. He said he wouldn’t deal with any reasons to be excused from the process — such as financial hardship — until next week. “I ask you to be patient,” he said.

One defence lawyer, Donald Crawford of London, representing Sandham, was pleased at how smoothly the morning session went. “My client is nervous, as I am,” he said. “Things are finally starting.

link

LONDON, Ont. — Gasps and sobs nearly drowned out court proceedings Wednesday as gruesome crime-scene photos detailing the fatal wounds and blood-stained bodies of eight men connected to the Bandidos outlaw motorcycle club were displayed.
The victims of Ontario’s largest-ever mass slaying were found stuffed into four vehicles in a rural farmer’s field in southwestern Ontario in April 2006.
Six men are standing trial on charges of first-degree murder, and the first day of evidence began in shocking fashion. Dozens of television screens in the high-tech courtroom flashed ghastly close-up photos depicting how the eight died.
Justice Thomas Heeney warned jurors to “steel themselves” as provincial police Const. Ross Stuart, the lead forensic investigator, ran court through the images.
When police approached the vehicles it was immediately obvious what was inside, Stuart told court.
Some bodies had been partially covered with clothing or blankets, one was rolled in an area rug, and another was left in a car trunk with no attempt to conceal it.
Stuart catalogued the victims, describing how their slumped, bloodied bodies were discovered.
Some of the swollen faces bore obvious gunshot wounds, with trails of dried blood caked down their faces. For others it wasn’t as obviously apparent how they died, although the visible blood and trauma to their bodies was unmistakable.
The Crown alleges the murdered men were shot one by one as the result of a feud between two chapters of the Bandidos.
The sobbing of family members was heard throughout Stuart’s testimony as he went through several angles for each of the slain victims.
The courtroom is equipped with individual screens for the judge, each of the 12 jurors, and the 18 lawyers representing the Crown and the accused, who also have their own screen to view evidence.
Large widescreen TVs are also setup for those in the body of court to view.
Charged in the deaths are Wayne Kellestine, 59, and Frank Mather, 35, of Dutton-Dunwich, Ont.; Brett Gardiner, 24, of no fixed address; and Michael Sandham, 39, Marcelo Aravena, 32, and Dwight Mushey, 41, all of Winnipeg.
The victims were George Jessome, 52; George Kriarakis, 28; Luis Manny Raposo, 41; Frank Salerno, 43, all of Toronto; John Muscedere, 48, of Chatham, Ont.; Paul Sinopoli, 30, of Sutton, Ont.; Jamie Flanz, 37, of Keswick, Ont.; and Michael Trotta, 31, of Mississauga, Ont.
The victims were all either members or associates of the Toronto chapter of the Bandidos.
The trial got underway Tuesday with the Crown’s opening statement and is expected to last as long as six months.

link

LONDON, Ont. – A London, Ont., court is hearing about the first discovery of eight bodies in what prosecutors allege was an internal cleansing of the Bandidos outlaw motorcyle gang.

The victims of the province’s largest-ever mass slaying were found in four abandoned vehicles left in an area marked by farm fields and forests in a rural Ontario hamlet in 2006.

Mary Steele, whose property abuts the crime scene, told court a neighbour alerted her and her husband to the strange discovery of several vehicles parked just off the road.

She testified the TV show “CSI” taught her not to touch anything as she approached the vehicles, so she only peeked inside.

Court heard she saw something in the back of the first vehicle but it was covered by a blanket and it wasn’t clear what it was.

The next two vehicles, a tow truck with a car hitched to it, had frost on the windows, so the couple went back inside and called police.

After curiosity got the best of them, they went back to the road to take another look and discovered the fourth vehicle, which had been driven deeper off the road.

“Our first thought was the cars were stolen,” she testified, and added she began to get nervous that there could be people in the vehicles who may have passed out after drinking.

She called police again and when they arrived and began investigating, she could see what happened.

“I could see a form,” she said.

“In retrospect, knowing what I know now it was one (victim).”

link

LONDON, Ont. — A search of victims’ homes after Ontario’s largest mass killing took police to a trailer, a rundown apartment building and a posh suburban home, resulting in the seizure of thousands of exhibits of evidence including a gun, a receipt for marijuana grow-op equipment and a plethora of Bandidos biker paraphernalia, court heard Friday.

The jury at the first-degree murder trial is hearing evidence about the slayings of eight men with ties to the outlaw motorcycle club who were found dead in four abandoned vehicles in rural southwestern Ontario in April 2006.

After two days of graphic testimony cataloguing the men’s autopsy photos and scores of bullet wounds and injuries, the jury was given a glimpse inside the lives of five victims and where they lived.

The men had wardrobes full of Bandidos gear, including their trademark leather vests emblazoned with the so-called “Fat Mexican” cartoon logo: a large-bellied man wearing a sombrero and clutching a gun and machete in either hand.

Each victim appeared to have collected numerous Bandidos T-shirts of various colours and designs and bearing the names of different chapters across the United States and the world.

Police also found Bandidos jackets and clothing from the Losers and Annihilators motorcycle clubs.

A number of custom Bandidos rings, in both silver and gold, were seized, along with brooches, belt buckles and other collectibles.

Provincial police Const. Ross Stuart told court about 6,000 photos were taken of the items seized from the homes.

In the first home shown to court, a modest Toronto house where 41-year-old Luis Raposo lived, police found a receipt for a US$77 eBay purchase of grow-op equipment. The receipt listed chopper(at)rogers.com as the buyer; court has heard Raposo’s nickname was Chopper.

Also seized in the house — along with a haul of Bandidos garb — was a computer, a list of names and phone numbers previously introduced in court, a motorcycle decorated with Bandidos stickers, and photos of Raposo and others wearing the motorcycle club’s colours.

In the Toronto home of 28-year-old George Kriarakis, police found some women’s Bandidos clothes, including thong underwear with the slogan, “Support the Fat Mexican,” and a pink tank top reading, “I Support My Local Bandidos.”

Court was also shown photos of Kriarakis posing with a puppy and professional shots taken with a blond woman as he posed in a Bandidos vest.

In the apartment of 48-year-old John Muscedere, police found more clothing and photos along with Bandidos Christmas cards. Police also seized a three-page email that the Crown said details Bandidos business.

Police also collected evidence at the suburban Milton, Ont., home of 31-year-old Michael Trotta but made the most notable discovery at the stylish Oakville, Ont., home of 43-year-old Frank Salerno.

During a search of a vehicle, a 1988 BMW, police found a box for a digital camera, court heard. Inside was a .32-calibre pistol and an ammunition magazine.

Police said they also searched the trailer of Jamie Flanz, 37, but found no Bandidos-related items.

The homes of the other two victims — Paul Sinopoli, 30, and George Jessome, 52 — had been searched in relation to another homicide investigation and court was not given details of that probe.

link

"It had to have been a setup. Who goes to a meeting dragging a car behind a tow truck if he suspects something is wrong?"

-- A Hells Angels source, April 2006

And that, allegedly, is how it came to pass, just as a rival biker predicated before the bodies were barely cold.

As Crown attorney Kevin Gowdey laid it out in his opening address to a London jury a little over a week ago, the biggest mass murder in contemporary Ontario history -- eight Bandidos bikers summarily executed, and stuffed into four abandoned vehicles -- was a setup from the get-go.

It was, claimed the Crown, a pre-recession corporate downsizing, nothing more. Just business.

No more Boxer, Chopper, Bam Bam, Pony, Crash, Big Paul, Little Mikey and Goldberg.

John Muscedere, Luis Manny Raposo, Frank Salerno, George Jessome, George Kriarakis, Paul Sinopoli, Michael Trotta and Jamie Flanz all reported to a meeting called by a trusted associate at a farmhouse outside of the town of Shedden and, instead of being given their walking papers, they were pink slipped in the strictest sense of the word, some even tortured before being shot multiple times.

The photographic evidence was so gruesome, in fact, that gasps and sobs from family members could be heard throughout the courtroom.

Six of the biker brotherhood are now standing trial for that gangbanging, including farmhouse owner and purported mastermind Wayne (Weiner) Kellestine, with the entire crew represented by a bank of 13 lawyers.

Despite speculation at the time, but immediately dismissed here by a long-time Hells Angels source, the Hells had played no role in the massacre in Shedden.

"We're in the clear on this one. It's not our doing," said the source, echoing a stance of denial that went up on the Hells Angels' website so quickly that the bodies in those abandoned cars near Shedden had yet been removed.

It was apparently all in-house.

"Eight men were shot dead one by one," Crown prosecutor Kevin Gowdey told the jury. "Good or bad, nice guys or not, they didn't deserve that."

Perhaps not, but it will not be for several months before the jury decides on the merits of the much-anticipated case and who, if any or all, will bear the guilt.

In retrospect, it has not been a good half-decade for outlaw bikers in this country, with their collective fraternity now officially legislated to be an organized crime syndicate -- their property and individual possessions now able to be seized, held, and then sold off upon conviction.

Next week, on Tuesday, another bank of lawyers will appear in a University Ave. courtroom for a judicial pre-trial hearing regarding the bust of approximately 30 Hells Angels in an April 2007 takedown called Project Develop, an impressive drug-and-racketeering sweep of 40 locations that involved 300 police officers from the GTA, including cops from Toronto, Niagara, Hamilton, Peel, Halton and the OPP.

According to Toronto lawyer Lenny Hochberg, six Hells members arrested during that raid are still in custody, two years now and counting, while the majority released on bail remain restricted by various forms of house arrest.

The Hells clubhouse on Toronto's Eastern Ave., meanwhile, has been sitting fallow ever since, its keys now held by the federal department of public works under authority of the Seized Property Management Directorate to await outcome of the trial.

As the Bandidos trial was just beginning, however, just how violent the outlaw biker world can be was on full display on the very same day in a Quebec City courtroom when a former biker contract killer pleaded guilty to 27 charges of first-degree murder, and 12 counts of attempted murder.

Yes, 27 counts of first-degree murder, with most of the crimes committed between 1994 and 2002 during the drug turf war between the Hells and other biker gangs, including the Quebec-based Rock Machine.

Gerald Gallant, 58, was arrested in Switzerland in 2006 during an investigation into cloned credit cards, and deported to Canada when his DNA linked him to a 2001 slaying in Ste.-Adele, just north of Montreal.

Following his conviction for that murder, Gallant rolled over and turned police informant, got some of his former associates jailed, and then pleaded guilty for killing 27 of his former biker affiliates -- knowing full well that after the Ste.-Adele killing and conviction, all the others were freebies.

In Canada, after all, there is no such thing as consecutive sentences and, even though Gallant will have to wait 25 years before applying for parole, there is no law that says he cannot apply when that day comes, or that he will not get parole from a sympathetic tribunal.

If he survives imprisonment, after all, he will be 83.

By then, he will just be a little old man who has served his mandated time -- having paid the consequences for the one murder that counted, but nothing for 27 others that didn't.

No matter what happens, it will be no different in London if and when the Crown proves its case.

It will be eight for the price of one -- "Good or bad, nice guys or not."

link

LONDON, Ont. — Threats over outstanding debts, ominous hints about a predicament, and idle chatter concerning prescription drugs and fast food were intercepted by police in the days and hours before eight bodies were found in rural southwestern Ontario, court heard Tuesday.
The jury at the trial of six men charged in Ontario’s largest ever mass slaying — the alleged first-degree murders of eight people connected to the Bandidos outlaw motorcycle club — heard from wiretap evidence spanning 28 phone calls.
The intercepts, dubbed “the victims’ trip to the farm for a meeting” by the Crown, document a sequence that began days before April 8, 2006, when police found the bodies stuffed in four vehicles in a farmer’s field near Shedden, Ont.
The Crown alleges the victims were lured to Wayne Kellestine’s farm before they died.
None of the six accused — including Kellestine — had their lines tapped, but two of the victims did, as did others associated with the Bandidos.
Caught numerous times on tape was victim Paul Sinopoli, who complains in several calls of stomach pain and tries to talk his way out of going to “church.”
“We just call it that because we meet once a week,” he says of the farm in one of the intercepted calls.
When Sinopoli told fellow victim Jamie Flanz that he planned to stay home on April 7, 2006 the response was a long silence.
Flanz finally let out a troubled, “ooohh,” and suggested that maybe Sinopoli should go out and also see a Tragically Hip cover band that was playing that night.
But Sinopoli insisted he couldn’t go.
“I can’t move, bro,” he said.
He also asked Flanz to feel out the anger of another victim, John (Boxer) Muscedere, who was apparently tiring of his complaints.
In less than two hours, Sinopoli would receive a call telling him that Muscedere was “freaking out” and that his attendance at the farm was mandatory.
“You’re on your last legs here, almost out the door,” said Frank (Bam Bam) Salerno, who also warned Sinopoli to bring money he owed to the meeting.
“Don’t come crying to me after, I’m telling you bro,” said Salerno, who would soon be dead in the alleged slaughter as well.
In another call to a woman only identified as Stephanie, Sinopoli tells of his need to go the farm and a meeting she will soon have.
“These people aren’t going to beat me up are they?” she says said with a nervous laugh.
He assured her they wouldn’t.
The wiretaps end with a call around 10:18 p.m. as Flanz arrives at his destination and the meeting is presumably about to begin.
The explosive evidence came as a result of another investigation into the December 2005 death of drug dealer Shawn Douse, which resulted in penitentiary terms for four men connected to the Bandidos.
Police sought taps on the phones of 14 primary and 15 secondary targets for that investigation, but ended up catching clues about the eight murders, which the Crown has characterized as an internal cleansing of the Bandidos.
The jury was back in court Tuesday after a week off, and Justice Thomas Heeney gave jurors further instructions based on the Crown’s opening statement.
Heeney reminded the jury that the opening was not evidence and only a set of allegations.
He also said the jury should come to its decision without prejudice or sympathy for any of the accused.

link

LONDON, Ont. — The floor of the barn of accused mass murderer Wayne Kellestine was reddish and partially wet a day after the murder of eight motorcycle club members, a court heard.

"It appeared to be smeared by a .. mop," said Const. Brad Sakalo of the Ontario Provincial Police paramilitary Tactics and Rescue Unit (TRU) today in the trial of Kellestine and five other men, each of whom are charged with eight counts of first degree murder.

Court heard that Kellestine's barn in Iona Station west of London was dusty and strewn with junk, including old mattresses, couches and freezers when OPP officers entered it on the evening of Sunday April 9, 2006.

The officers searched the barn a day after the bodies of eight Greater Toronto Area men connected to the Bandidos Motorcycle Club were found in vehicles abandoned by a cornfield, 14 kilometers from Kellestine's farm.

On the walls of the Kellestine barn were two Confederate flags and there was also an aluminum ladder, leading up to a loft, OPP Const. David Jones said.

In the middle of a large room in the barn was an empty freezer, covered by a tarp, with a radio scanner attached to a cable running upwards towards the roof, Jones said.

White plastic patio chairs were arranged in the large room in a circle, Sakolo said.

One of the few items in the barn that wasn't dusty was a bucket, which contained a bottle of bleach, Jones said.

"The overall appearance of the barn was totally derelict," Jones said.

"Everything in the barn appeared to be old and dusty."

Behind the barn was more junk, including a beer cooler, and a walkie-talkie device with "FRITZ SCH" written on white tape, stuck to its side.

Court also heard that police surveillance officers watched with binoculars as two men and a woman carried buckets back and forth outside Kellestine's farm earlier on April 9, 2006.

"It appeared to be two men and a woman," Const. Dean Croker of the OPP TRU team testified.

"It appeared to be plastic buckets."

The woman carrying buckets seemed to be straining with the weight of the load, Jones told court.

"The buckets seemed heavy," Jones testified. "She was walking slow, walking with purpose."

"They were passing each other back and forth," Jones continued,

"They seemed to be talking to each other as they passed back and forth."

Kellestine, 59, and five others are charged with the murders of the eight men connected to the Greater Toronto Area Bandidos Motorcycle Club.

Kellestine's long grey hair was pulled back in a ponytail as he sat in court today.

Each of the five men sits in a separate cubicle, separated from the others by a Plexiglas wall.

http://www.thestar.com/GTA/Crime/article/619423

LONDON, Ont. — Two unidentified men left the farmhouse of accused killer Wayne Kellestine hours after the murder of eight motorcycle club members and carefully searched the property and vehicles parked there, court heard today.

"They were looking through those vehicles, searching through them," Const. Clare Shantz of the Ontario Provincial Police told the first-degree murder trial of Kellestine and five other men, each of whom are charged with eight counts of first-degree murder.

The men searched the cars several times on the evening of Sat., April 8, 2006, and also appeared to be looking for something in the grass and under a porch, court heard today.

Court earlier heard that police found a chunk of what appeared to be flesh and a splattering of blood when they entered Kellestine's barn on April 9, 2006, the day after eight bullet-riddled bodies of Greater Toronto Area bikers connected with the Bandidos Motorcycle Club were found in abandoned vehicles, 14 kilometers from Kellestine's farm in Iona Station, west of London.

"There was a small piece of what appeared to be flesh," said Const. David Jones of the OPP paramilitary Tactics and Rescue Unit (TRU).

As he entered a main room of the barn, Jones said he also noticed "some splatter on the ground — on the cement floor."

The splatter was reddish, like blood, and a drop of what appeared to be blood was also found on a piece of wood, the police officer said.

Jones said he entered the barn shortly after the arrests of Kellestine and four others at the farm.

His purpose was to make sure there was no one hiding on the property, he said, adding that he didn't touch the item that appeared to be flesh or what appeared to be blood.

"It was potential evidence," Jones said. "... I'm not an identification officer."

He described the barn as dusty and strewn with junk, like old mattresses, couches and freezers. On the walls were two Confederate flags and there was also an aluminum ladder, leading up to a loft, he said.

In the middle of a large room was an empty freezer, covered by a tarp, with a radio scanner attached to a cable running upwards towards the roof, Jones said.

One of the few items in the barn that wasn't dusty was a bucket, which contained a bottle of bleach, he said.

"The overall appearance of the barn was totally derelect," Jones said.

"Everything in the barn appeared to be old and dusty."

Behind the barn was more junk, including a beer cooler, and a walkie-talkie device with "FRITZ SCH" written on white tape, stuck to its side.

Court also heard that police surveillance officers watched with binoculars as two men and a woman carried buckets back and forth outside Kellestine's farm earlier on April 9, 2006.

"It appeared to be two men and a woman," Const. Dean Croker of the OPP TRU team testified.

"It appeared to be plastic buckets."

The woman carrying buckets seemed to be straining with the weight of the load, Jones told court.

"The buckets seemed heavy," Jones testified. "She was walking slow, walking with purpose."

"They were passing each other back and forth," Jones continued. ".. They seemed to be talking to each other as they passed back and forth."

Kellestine, 59, and five others are charged with the murders of the eight men connected to the Greater Toronto Area Bandidos Motorcycle Club.

Kellestine's long grey hair was pulled back in a ponytail as he sat in court today.

Each of the six prisoners sits in a separate cubicle in the high-security courtroom, separated from the others by a Plexiglas wall.

Kellestine appeared to be taking notes throughout the day's testimony.

http://www.thestar.com/News/Ontario/article/620114

LONDON, Ont. — Three months before his murder, a Bandidos biker said life wouldn't be worth living, if Americans followed through with their threat to kick all Canadian members out of the outlaw motorcycle club, a mass murder trial heard.

"Our club is our life and there is nothing worth living for without it," John Muscedere, 48, of the Greater Toronto Area Bandidos said in an email to Bill Sartelle of the Bandidos Houston "Mother Chapter" or headquarters in January 2006.

He sent his email a week after he was told by email that he and the rest of the Canadian Bandidos were expelled from the international club.

Muscedere's email was introduced as evidence today in the trial of six men charged in the largest mass murder in modern Ontario history.

"I feel like a knife has been driven through my heart," Muscedere protested. "... There is no reason to take something the Canadian brothers value more than there (sic) life."

The bullet-riddled, beaten body of Muscedere, was found in an abandoned vehicle early on the morning of April 8, 2006, near a farmer's field near the hamlet of Shedden, about a half hour's drive west of London.

Also found shot to death and dumped in abandoned vehicles that morning were seven other men connected to the Greater Toronto Area Bandidos: Frank Salerno, 43, of Oakville; Jamie Flanz, 37, of Keswick: Paul Sinopoli, 30, of Jackson's Point; John Muscedere, 48, of Chatham; George Jessome, 52, Luis Manny Raposo, 41, and George Kriarakis, 28, all of Toronto and Michael Trotta, 31, of Mississauga.

Their Greater Toronto Area chapter of the Bandidos was nicknamed "The No Surrender Crew," and Muscedere vowed in the final months of his life that they would be true to their name and not quietly leave the club.

"Cut one we all bleed," Muscedere wrote in a Bandidos international message board. "I have been slashed. The No Surrender Crew will never surrender."

Court heard that Salerno described himself in an email to other Bandidos as "confused, dejected, emotionaly drained" when he got the news in an email from Sartelle on December 28, 2005, that the Canadians were no longer welcome in the international club.

Sartelle sent the Canadian bikers a terse email, telling them that the Americans were tired of trying to make contact with their Canadian "brothers."

The GTA bikers were ordered to return all club paraphernalia, including their club crests called the "Fat Mexican," a cartoon character of a Hispanic man brandishing a pistol and a machete.

"Canada charter is being pulled," Sartelle wrote the Canadian bikers. "Return all Bandido patches and property..."

Rather than quietly leave the club, the Toronto bikers instead tried to rally Bandidos from around the world to have an equal say on their fate.

"We would like a worldwide vote from all our brothers from around the world before we return our Bandido property," the Torontonians wrote in an email to bikers in Europe and Australia.

A January 16, 2006 email from Kriarakis noted that "Ontario is standing tall," indicating they were refusing to leave the club or return their paraphernalia, including club vests.

Kriarakis noted in an email to fellow club members in Texas that it was extremely difficult for them to go to the United States for club meetings.

"Give us a fair and reasonable chance," Kriarakis urged in an email.

Muscedere was more confrontational with the Americans.

"You are a peace (sic) of work," he told Sartelle by email.

Sartelle replied, ".. yes, I am a piece of work. And proud of who I am."

Another email, sent by Salerno on February 25, 2006, showed that the Toronto Bandidos were still refusing to quit the club, almost two months after they were ordered to leave.

Instead, they called for a "mandatory party" of Canadian Bandidos on March 18, 2006.

"We are Bandidos Canada," Salerno wrote. "Not Toronto or Winnipeg or Vancouver."

Bodies of the murdered bikers were found 14 kilometres from the farm of accused killer Wayne Kellestine, also a member of the GTA Bandidos.

Also charged with eight counts of first degree murder are Winnipeggers Michael Sandham, 37, Marcello Aravena, 33, Brett Gardiner, 24, and Dwight Mushey, 41 and Frank Mather, 35, of no fixed address.

The trial continues.

http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/622543

LONDON, Ont. -- Former East St. Paul police officer Michael Sandham portrayed himself as the guy in charge and the Bandidos biker with the plan to save the organization in Canada.

A month after eight men connected to the Toronto chapter of the biker gang were found shot to death in Elgin County on April 8, 2006, Sandham was busy dissing a remaining Toronto Bandido, recruiting more members for the Winnipeg chapter and schmoozing with the American superiors to boost his status within the organization.

He used several e-mail addresses with aliases, switching back and forth in a trail of e-mails shown to the jury yesterday at the first-degree murder trial of six men, including Sandham.

Everything began to crumble in early June 2006 after Sandham went to Texas to visit Bandidos leaders. They discovered Sandham, known as Bandido Taz, was an ex-police officer with the now-defunct East St. Paul police department outside Winnipeg.

"Taz was here in Houston last week. Within 10 hours of meeting him, the OPP and Biker Enforcement Unit from Canada was at my door," wrote "Bandido Jeff" in a stern e-mail ordering the suspension of all Bandidos membership in Canada.

Downfall

"As it turns out, Taz is or was a police officer in Winnipeg. When asked about it, he said 'Everybody in Toronto knew about it and didn't have a problem with it.' WE DO NOT HAVE OR NEVER WILL HAVE COPS OR EX-COPS IN OUR CLUB!!!"

More at the LINK