Gregory Wooley

THE GODFATHER OF THE STREET GANGS

As Vito Rizzuto was for the Italian mafia, Gregory Woolley is seen as the "godfather of blacks" forming gangs in Montreal.
This is how it is described by police informants from the gang community and cited in court documents of Operation Magot, which led to the arrest of Woolley in November 2015.
"We have seen how he plays a very, very major role [in the underworld]," said Captain David Bertrand, SPVM, who participated in this survey project. He changed the profile of organized crime in Montreal with his alliances. "
Rendezvous discoverers
His meetings on the only day of August 5, 2014 give a convincing example, according to the reports consulted by Le Journal.

The gang leader was also monitored during a meeting with mafioso Andrea Scoppa.
Spied on by a police surveillance team, Woolley left his home in Saint-Hubert around 11 am driving a gray Mercedes S450. He went to a downtown Montreal hotel to meet Andrea Scoppa, a big Mafia man with whom he scrambled the following year.

Gregory Woolley, left, with Hells Angels Salvatore Cazzetta (seen from the back) and Stéphane Jarry (right), all filmed by the police during the Magot investigation.
Two hours later, he parked his Mercedes near a restaurant on Newman Boulevard where two high-ranking Hells Angels, Salvatore Cazzetta and Stéphane Jarry, were waiting for him.
"All three of them give each other a handshake and a big hug with the pat on the back," the police officers said.

Woolley often met the one who was acting head of the Montreal mafia at that time, Stefano Sollecito.
Woolley completed his tour by going for an hour to talk with acting mafia boss Stefano Sollecito in an alleyway near an Italian café.
Paid "Coke"
Woolley was brewing millions of dollars in the narcotics market. With his right arm Dany "Lou" Cadet-Sprince, he directed "Les Bronzés", a clique that controlled the supply and trafficking of cocaine in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
Consumers sniffed about 40 kilos of coke a year from the Bronzés between 2011 and 2015, according to Judge Eric Downs.
And like the Hells Angels, Woolley levied a "tax" of a few thousand dollars a month on the "HO-MA" traffickers to have the right to sell their drugs.
Last October, Woolley was sentenced to eight years after convicted of conspiracy, drug trafficking and gangsterism. He could be released on parole by the end of 2020 as the court credited him with five years in pre-trial detention.
RECRUITED BY THE HELLS TO ELIMINATE COMPETITION
Before joining street gangs in a business alliance, Gregory Woolley took part in the Hells Angels' bloody war against a rival band, the Rock Machine.

On the morning of April 5, 2000, the person who was both a member of a Hells school club and leader of the new Syndicate street gang, went to Mirabel airport to catch a flight to the city. where he was born in Haiti, Port-au-Prince.

The security personnel immediately noticed the black sports bag he was carrying as hand luggage, adorned with a skull and identified with Rockers bikers.
Woolley calmly gave his bag to the agents to be examined by fluoroscopy. Suddenly, he asked to pick up his bag, but too late.
"I forgot something in my bag, I have to go and carry it in my car," he said in vain, according to the Mirabel police investigation report.
Officers were able to observe the barrel, barrel and buttstock on their monitor before alerting the police.
It was "by shucking his head" that he waited for the arrival of these. The weapon in question was a Smith & Wesson silver revolver loaded with three bullets.

The contents of his blue suitcase were also searched. Police found $ 8934, a Rockers scarf and a black wool hood.
He pleaded guilty on June 16, 2000 and was sentenced to two years in prison.
Accused of nine murders
"I do not want to see you," Gregory Woolley told the two investigators who arrested him for no fewer than nine murders on March 28, 2001.

He was held in Donnacona's maximum security penitentiary and was facing heavy charges in connection with Operation Spring 2001, which dealt a major blow to the Hells. He and several other bikers were charged with the killing of Rock Machine members or traffickers.

Among them were Johnny Plescio, a Rock Machine founder shot dead in his residence in Laval on September 8, 1998.

After the abortion of a 19-month mega-trial and an acquittal in a separate trial, Woolley was found not guilty of any of these murders.
But in June 2005, Woolley followed the lead of almost all of his acolytes and pleaded guilty to reduced charges of conspiracy, drug trafficking and gangsterism. He came out of jail in the summer of 2011.
The taxpayers then paid most of the bill for his defense, as for several Hells accused in this trick.
Her lawyer, Cristina Nedelcu, was awarded fees totaling $ 394,550 through Quebec legal aid.

Stator stabbed 187 times

An informant who had a sordid end told in court that Gregory Woolley had accompanied him as a "back-up" during his first murder because he was "used to".
Aime Simard had a short career in the Rockers' "football team", bringing together the most violent henchmen at the Hells club-school.
However, the jury did not believe him when Simard wanted to incriminate Woolley for the murder of the trafficker Jean-Marc Caissy, Ville-Émard, March 28, 1997.
Originally from Quebec City, Simard testified that he and Woolley each had a vehicle to go to a recreation center where Caissy played hockey that night.
The recruit said he executed the contract, adding that Woolley was armed and ready to intervene in case of a glitch.
Simard then had congratulations at a party at the Rockers' Lair on Gilford Street. The police intercepted a telephone conversation between him and Woolley, who was at home. The latter asked him if there was a lot of people at the party and if the guys were happy.
"Put it on, crunch! I feel almost like a p'lotte, so I'm kissing since I arrived here, "replied Simard.
On July 18, 1998, Woolley was acquitted.
Five years to the day after this verdict, Simard was killed by 187 stab wounds in a Saskatchewan penitentiary.
The detainee who stabbed him admitted that the Hells had paid him $ 25,000 for this crime.

Killing, for him, is like a citizen working from 9 to 5 ... "
It is with this sentence taken note by an investigator of the Carcajou squad that the informer Stéphane Sirois described the coolness of his ex-comrade Gregory Woolley.
The Rockers' striker had the reputation of being "very hardworking" and not afraid of anything, according to Sirois, a former member of the Hells school club.
On December 20, 1996, Pierre Beauchamps, a Rock Machine cocaine supplier, was shot at close range at the wheel of his minivan on a busy St. Catherine Street due to Christmas shopping.
Sirois claimed that Woolley admitted to him that he was the murderer. According to the informer, the accused had asked him to burn the coat he was wearing when he riddled Beauchamps with bullets. A coat that Sirois had offered him in the previous weeks.
Sirois' mission seemed to be won in advance because his testimony served to corroborate almost irrefutable scientific evidence in court.
In fact, Woolley's DNA was identified in a fisherman's hat found in a bin in the Bonaventure metro station. The same bin also contained a revolver, but the accused's fingerprints were not there.
A bit like during the famous trial of O.J. Simpson for the murder of his wife in 1995, Woolley ended up being acquitted as a result of numerous shortcomings in the Crown's case.
Due to a "lack of personnel", the police sent a rookie technician who was on his first-ever murder to document the crime scene.
This policeman not only made several mistakes as a beginner, but he also lied under oath to try to hide some blunders. A "disturbing" case in the eyes of the trial judge, which prompted the defense to evoke the possibility of producing evidence.
In addition, none of the police eyewitnesses had been able to assert under oath that the accused was indeed the gunman. One of them even said in court that it was no longer certain that the suspect was black.