Early history The founding chapter of the first iteration of Satan's Choice was established in 1956 in
Toronto, usually hanging around Aida's, a downtown restaurant. This version of the club was small in size, only numbering about 45 members, and had a very casual, non-criminal focus at the time. Don Norris, the president of the club, described its activities as "party, party, party". The newly founded club gained fame in Toronto thanks to the 1965
documentary film ''Satan's Choice''. Charismatic and handsome, Guindon was the "star" of the documentary directed by
Donald Shebib. Prior to the 1960s, Toronto had a very staid image of "Toronto the Good", a city whose people were mostly hard-working, conservative God-fearing
Protestants of
British descent, a bastion of
Victorian values that was prosperous, safe and well run, but also rather boring and conventional. A British visitor to Toronto in 1896 stated: "Sunday is as melancholy and suicidal sort of day as
Puritan principles can make it". In the 1960s, it was common for young people to Toronto to embrace a "hip" image, choosing ways of life that were quite contrary to the traditional Anglo-Protestant Victorian values that had previously defined Toronto, which were viewed by the young people as conformist, dull and stifling. The outlaw biker subculture came to be seen as a symbol of rebellion and freedom with many of the younger people having a very romantic and idealized image of the bikers, who were admired for their "authenticity". Bikers were viewed as dangerous men who were, however, "cool" and "hip" in their rejection of "Toronto the Good" values. One young woman interviewed in the documentary said she liked riding with Satan's Choice because they were "not phony" and were "real". The Ontario outlaw biker subculture was violent, but in the 1960s the violence was usually limited to brawls and it was most unusual for bikers to kill each other. The unwillingness of outlaw bikers to testify against one another in court following their code made it difficult for the authorities to prosecute them for their frequent street fights, which contributed to their "cool" image as men who successfully broke the law. Shebib said of Satan's Choice in 1965: "It was a lot of booze, broads, and bikes. It wasn't organized crime as it became. But I don't think you wanted to cross them". In ''Satan's Choice'', Guindon together with the rest of his club professed to reject materialism as they maintained that the only possessions they held dear were their motorcycles. In the documentary, Guindon and the rest of his club claimed to be rejecting what they called the mindless conformity of Canadian society. That Guindon and his followers were rigidly conforming to the code of outlaw biker subculture that originated in California in the late 1940s apparently escaped them. Shebib's documentary, with its sympathetic picture of Satan's Choice as "rebels" against "Toronto the Good" values, gave them an immense amount of publicity in 1960s Toronto. Through the values of outlaw biker subculture that celebrated violence, macho masculinity and the acquisition of wealth contrasted with the counterculture values of the
hippies, the two subcultures saw themselves as fellow outcasts from Canadian society, and hippies tended to glamorize outlaw bikers as the 1960s progressed. Although Guindon and his gang were often into trouble with the law owing to their frequent brawling with other outlaw bikers, in general Satan's Choice were not involved in organized crime in its early years, engaging only in petty crime. One of the first reports in the media about Satan's Choice was a story in the
Toronto Star on 29 August 1966, reporting "Five arrested in motorcycle rumble". The report stated: "A policeman had a guitar smashed over his head during a brawl in a local hotel cocktail lounge Saturday after two motorcycle clubs ganged up on a musician. Police say about 12 members of the Golden Hawk Riders and Satan's Choice were out to get even with a musician after he fought with a Golden Hawk Friday and kicked over his motorcycle". Reports such as this were typical of the media reports about Satan's Choice in the 1960s, which rarely mentioned serious crimes. Police raids in the 1960s discovered that Satan's Choice members possessed guns, brass knuckles and marijuana, the latter which were as much for their own use as to sell. One policeman stated about Satan's Choice in the 1960s: "They were rough guys, for sure. But they weren't gangsters; we'd pick them up for little things-simple assault, vandalism, trespassing, public drunkenness, that sort of thing". By contrast, Sergeant
John Harris of the
Hamilton police believed that Satan's Choice were always involved in organized crime, saying: "Guindon had a right-hand man named Arnold Kelly, who was never a member, never wanted to be. He made his money in construction and owned a resort north of
Orillia... But he arranged everything – drug deals, beatings, shootings – he was probably more dangerous than Guindon himself". In 1967, a black outlaw biker from
Montreal, Rod MacLeod, arrived at a biker's convention at
Wasaga Beach to meet Guindon. MacLeod wanted to form the first Satan's Choice chapter in
la belle province. Guindon approved the request, making MacLeod the first black chapter president anywhere in Canada, leading in Montreal a multiracial, multilingual chapter made of blacks and whites, English-Canadians and French-Canadians of about 20 members. Outlaw biker clubs tended to shun non-white applicants, and Guindon was highly unusual in allowing a black man to lead a chapter. Members tended to leave as quickly as they arrived as Guindon recalled: "In a year or two you'd lost at least a hundred members. They'd come and go so fast". Oshawa, as the first chapter, held the pride of place as Guindon stated: "The Oshawa chapter always stood proud. We'd fight anybody and ride to the fight".
Lorne Campbell, a founding member of Satan's Choice and one of Guindon's principal lieutenants remembered: "There wasn't machine guns or knives back then, but there were pretty serious fights". Guindon recruited a university drop-out turned chef,
Howard Doyle Berry, aka "Pigpen", of
Peterborough into Satan's Choice, who became his principal lieutenant. To compensate for his solidly respectable middle-class background, the former Classics student Berry embraced a slovenly, disheveled look and purposely led a life of poor hygiene, hence the unflattering moniker "Pigpen". Berry liked to offend and disgust people via such antics such as vomiting over new members; attaching the remains of a dead skunk he found on the road to his Satan's Choice jacket; and bringing and eating his own feces when invited to dine with other Choice members. At a cottage near
Coboconk, Berry served to initiate new members by dumping outhouse buckets over their heads while also vomiting over them. Through Guindon found Berry repulsive, his willingness to do anything made him useful and he came to serve as his principal enforcer.
Cecil Kirby stated about Berry: "There are guys who would start fights and then they'd say 'Come and help me'. I can't stand people like that. Be a stand-up guy. He was a stand-up guy. That's what I liked about him". Berry once fought
Howard "Baldy" Chard, the chief enforcer for the gangster
Johnny Papalia, which added to his legend. One teenage recruit to Satan's Choice,
Gary "Nutty" Comeau, attended a Satan's Choice party at the Blue Bird Inn in Richmond Hill full of bikers dancing with numerous women, many of whom were topless, to rock music while alcohol and marijuana were served free in plentiful amounts. Comeau, a product of conservative education in Catholic schools, described the party as like nothing he had seen before as it was like a scene out of "Sodom an Gomorrah" and decided on the spot to commit to Satan's Choice as it represented "freedom". On 25 September 1967, Guindon held the first national convention of Satan's Choice at a farmhouse in
Markham Township just outside of Toronto, which was also attended by the Vagabonds club. Attending the convention were the members from the chapters from Oshawa,
Ottawa,
Guelph,
St. Catharines,
Windsor, Montreal, Preston,
Kingston, Peterborough, and Hamilton. Amid much riotous drinking in a barn where the convention was being held, 23 police officers raided the barn about midnight, but came under a shower of empty beer bottles, forcing them to retreat. The police had not left behind any men to guard their cars which were parked outside of the barn, and as a result, while the police were being showered with bottles, some of the bikers had trashed the parked police cruisers, ripped out the radios and punctured their tires, forcing the policemen to walk back to the station. At about 4:00 am, the enraged police returned with a greater force of 84 officers who engaged in a fierce brawl with the bikers. On their second attempt, the police had plastic shields that allowed them to advance on the barn despite the shower of empty beer bottles being thrown at them. The police arrested 55 bikers plus 9 women who also attending the party. The police smashed up the motorcycles of the bikers in retaliation for the damage done to their cruisers. Journalists who saw the scene the next morning described it as looking like a war zone. The incident at the barn in Markham attracted much media attention, as did the fact that the police seized at the barn a mixture of weapons such as sawed-off shotguns, handguns, axes and bike chains together with an immense quantity of alcohol and marijuana. Arrested together with Guindon at the barn were his second wife Barbara Ann and his right-hand man Howard Berry. On Sunday morning as those arrested were taken into the
Don Jail, there were a number of journalists from the local television stations present and the bikers blew kisses to the cameras. On Monday after the Saturday night raid, the arrested bikers were taken to a courthouse, which became the most popular "tourist attraction" in Toronto that day as one journalist from
The Globe and Mail newspaper described it with a large crowd waiting outside the courthouse, many of whom were high school students who were there to cheer on the bikers as they were marched into the courthouse to be fined. In the end, the judge fined Satan's Choice a thousand dollars, most of it in the form of $10 fines for each individual for being present in a place where alcohol was being illegally served plus $3.50 fine for court costs. The Markham incident was not considered a triumph for the forces of law and order with public opinion on the side of the bikers, who were felt to be victims of excessive force. By the end of the 1960s, Guindon had emerged as something of a
folk hero in Toronto while Satan's Choice had become the best known and largest outlaw biker club in Canada. In 1969, Satan's Choice reached its peak strength of 400 members as the club grew rapidly in the 1960s. By this point, Satan's Choice had chapters in Toronto, Oshawa, Preston (modern Cambridge), Hamilton, Windsor, Ottawa, Kingston, Guelph, St. Catharines, Peterborough,
Vancouver, and Montreal. Guindon was forced to disband the Vancouver chapter after drug use of its members became too excessive even for him. For a time in the late 1960s, Satan's Choice was the closest thing Canada had to a national outlaw biker club with chapters in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec, which caused the club to have the most media attention by far. In 1968, the Hells Angels national president Sonny Barger sent a delegate to Toronto to ask Guindon to join the Hells Angels, a request that was refused. On 15 May 1969, Guindon was convicted of rape and during his time in prison, which lasted on and off until 1974 as Guindon kept being sent back to prison for violating his parole, the acting national president was Garnet "Mother" McEwen. In October 1969, during a field day in Hamilton, every Satan's Choice member took part as a demonstration of power against the rival Wild Ones club. As all 400 members rode in, the Wild Ones were so intimidated that they abandoned the field.
Criminalization Towards the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s, Satan's Choice slowly developed into an organized crime group as a result of the large potential profits from criminal activities. While they were involved in a number of criminal activities that were typical for biker gangs, such as
robbery,
theft,
assault, and running
prostitution rings, they were notably deeply involved in drug production and trafficking. The club operated a number of drug labs out of remote cabins in
northern Ontario, with production focusing especially on
PCP and
methamphetamines, better known in the area as "Canadian Blue". The remoteness of northern Ontario made it possible to hide drug labs and to manufacture drugs on a scale that was difficult in the more populous region of
southern Ontario. This success emboldened elements of Satan's Choice, in particular their Toronto chapter, into sparking a gang war with two rival biker gangs in the city, the Black Diamond Riders MC and the Vagabonds MC. However, the rest of the group's chapters met and ended the war, making peace with the two rival groups and disciplining the leaders of the Toronto chapter. During this time period, Satan's Choice had grown rapidly, reaching a peak strength of more than 400 by 1970. Despite crackdowns by authorities, the club still maintained a membership of over 350 in 1977, across thirteen chapters in Ontario and
Quebec. At this point, Satan's Choice still maintained the position of the second largest motorcycle club in the world behind only the Hells Angels. The stories about Satan's Choice started to change from that of a hedonist types who liked to party hard to darker stories such as the case of a Kitchener man beaten to death in a back ally brawl and that of a Markham woman who tried to break up with her Choice boyfriend, only to be found lying semi-conscious and naked outside with serious vaginal bleeding caused by rape. Satan's Choice members were the suspects in the murder of a Vancouver businessman, believed to have been a case of murder for hire. Former Satan's Choice member
Cecil Kirby wrote in his 1986 memoirs
Mafia Enforcer that Satan's Choice members specialized in seducing the female clerks who operated the Ontario Provincial Police's computers and were always willing to share information from the computers with their boyfriends. Kirby stated that there was one clerk who had access to the most classified information and:"Club members carried her number in their wallets. If a member was worried about the cops, all he had to do was call her number, and she'd access the police computer to see if there were any warrants on him. When we spotted a rival gang member, we'd also use her to see if there were any outstanding fugitive warrants on him. If there were, we'd have someone in the club call up the cops and tip them off where that rival was and who was with him. It was a good way of avoiding trouble and getting rid of rival gang members. We could also check out anybody's criminal record through that computer. This helped us spot people trying to infiltrate us from rival gangs or the cops". Kirby concluded that Satan's Choice "had the upper hand in Toronto because we had the best intelligence network around. We were able to move on the other gangs faster than they could move on us because we had such good sources and good information on the habits of the other gangs". In 1973, the Ontario government decided to put all the outlaw biker clubs out of business, and had the Intelligence Branch of the
Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) set up a Special Squad with the unfortunate acronym of the SS dedicated entirely to pursuing outlaw bikers. The Special Squad was later renamed the Anti-Biker Unit. Unlike other organized groups such as the
Mafia, the outlaw biker subculture was perceived by public by 1973 as especially dangerous. It was understood by members of the Special Squad that "legal niceties" need not be upheld as the politicians demanded convictions to show the public that action was being taken. Corporal
Terry Hall of the Special Squad called the campaign against Satan's Choice "reverse intimidation" as the Special Squad sought to intimidate bikers via the same means used by the bikers themselves. The American journalist
Mick Lowe wrote that, starting in 1973, Hall "had inhabited a strange nether region on the fringes of Canadian law enforcement" as he went after bikers via very ruthless and often illegal means, making him into a "black legend among Canadian bikers" who feared him as a policeman who did not follow the law. Even Hall's appearance with his long hair and beard and a generally disheveled look made him appear more like an outlaw biker than a policeman. One consequence of the "reverse intimidation" campaign was to reduce Satan's Choice membership from the all-time high of about 400 members in 1969 to about 110 in 1977. An additional and unintended result of "reverse intimidation" campaign was to drive out the genuine motorcycle enthusiasts out of Satan's Choice while leaving behind only those committed to organized crime who were willing to accept imprisonment from time to time as a consequence of their lifestyle. The campaign waged by Hall and other Special Squad members failed in its purpose as the number of outlaw bikers in Ontario went from about 500 in 1973 to about 800 in 1978 as the profits from organized crime led more men to join outlaw biker clubs. During the trial, Campbell testified that he had killed Matiyek and the eight accused were innocent. The journalist
Jerry Langton wrote that the trial was "comical" as some of the witnesses for the Crown "changed their testimony three or even four times... Much of the Crown's evidence contradicted itself". The conviction of six of the eight accused of Matiyek's murder despite Campbell's testimony on the witness stand that he had killed him was highly controversial in 1979 and remains so. At the time, a journalist wrote "Who actually fired the gun was never established..." at the trial. The "Port Hope 8" case became a
cause célèbre in the 1980s–1990s, attracting even international attention. Lowe charged that there was a police conspiracy to frame the accused, noting that exculpatory evidence, such as Comeau's jacket that would have supported his story that he had been shot, mysteriously disappeared after the police seized it. In 1988, the Oshawa chapter president Campbell served as a guest lecturer at the
University of Ottawa law school class, where he spoke about the Port Hope case as a miscarriage of justice, becoming the first and only Satan's Choice chapter president to ever give a university lecture.
The Beta Club Although Satan's Choice was not as powerful as it once been before 1977, the club was described as still having a "cocky attitude" in the 1980s and 1990s, being the second most powerful club in Ontario after the Outlaws. In 1981, Satan's Choice made an alliance with the Lobos and the Chosen Few gangs to improve their bargaining power against their rivals, the Outlaws. In October 1982, the Toronto clubhouse was burned down in a case of arson. In 1983, a Satan's Choice-turned-Outlaw, David Eugene Séquin, stormed into the clubhouse of the Chosen Few in
Emeryville, where he killed three people and wounded three more. Séquin fled to the United States and was killed in a shoot-out in Illinois in July 1985. On 8 September 1983, Guy "Frenchie" Gilbert of Satan's Choice Kitchener chapter was having lunch at
Le Petit Bourg restaurant in
Longueuil, Quebec with
Yves Buteau, the national president of the Hells Angels, to discuss "patching over" to join the Hells Angels. As Gilbert, Buteau and another Hells Angel, René Lamoureaux, were leaving the restaurant, they were ambushed in the parking lot by an Outlaw, Gino Goudreau, who gunned down all three men. Lamoureaux was badly wounded, but survived while Buteau and Gilbert were both killed. Gilbert's murder put a temporary end to the efforts of the Kitchener chapter to join the Hells Angels. A series of police raids in 1983 in
Madoc discovered a methamphetamine factory operated jointly by Satan's Choice and the Para-Dice Riders that produced about $3.6 million worth of methamphetamine per month. Another set of raids in 1984 seized two small-caliber handguns, marijuana and marijuana oil, and a small amount of cocaine from four private residences in
Scarborough. In 1984, a Satan's Choice member was killed in Kitchener while riding his motorcycle by a gunman in a car that drove up next to him. On 19 November 1984, Guindon was released on parole for good behavior and despite his parole conditions, resumed his association with his club. Guindon went to Windsor to beat up Bill Hulko, the former president of the Choice Windsor chapter who had gone over to the Outlaws in 1977. Putting his boxing skills to good use, Guindon recalled: "I soaked him right in the fucking head... He did nothing... I just wanted to see where his balls were. He didn't have his balls that fucking day". Between 1985 and 1988, Guindon opened up four new chapters in Ontario, adding about 95 new members. By the 1980s, Satan's Choice had moved into selling cocaine, and a pipeline was opened to move cocaine from Toronto to Alberta, where many oil workers used cocaine to ease the tedium of their jobs. In 1985, a second version of Satan's Choice Hamilton chapter opened up on St. Matthew's Avenue which was very close to the Outlaws' Hamilton clubhouse at 402 Birch Avenue. In August 1985, a biker war in Hamilton led to the murder of two Satan's Choice members, Allan Kinloch and Brent Roddick; an Outlaw, James Lewis; and a member of the
Red Devils, Michael Carey. When Roddick's body was found on 25 August 1985, it was the fourth murder of a biker in Hamilton that month. The day after Roddick's murder, Satan's Choice disbanded their Hamilton chapter with its members relocating to the Kitchener chapter. In 1986, the
Nanaimo chapter of the Hells Angels put on an "Angels Acres" party on
Vancouver Island that was attended by 2,500 people. A number of bikers from Satan's Choice together with the Para-Dice Riders, and the Vagabonds from Ontario; the
Rebels from Alberta and Saskatchewan; the Vikings from
Quebec City; and the
Grim Reapers from Alberta attended the party, which reflected the growth of Hells Angels influence. Starting in 1981, Kevin Roy Hawkins worked as an anti-biker police detective in Kitchener who spent much time pursuing the Kitchener chapter of Satan's Choice. Hawkins saw a stripper named Cherie Graham perform at the Breslau Hotel in
Breslau in March 1984 and fell in love with her, abandoning his wife later that spring to move in with Graham. Through Graham, Hawkins got to know the president of her stripper agency, Claude "Gootch" Morin, who was also the president of Satan's Choice's Kitchener chapter. As Hawkins was deeply in debt owing to the costs associated with his divorce, the police allege that he began to sell information to Morin. Morin is alleged to have paid him $5,000 in cash at their first meeting and promised another $10,000 in cash if his information proved to be useful. The police allege that Hawkins told Morin about a police raid planned in Hamilton and based on the information he is said to have provided, Morin was able to deduce the identity of the informer, whom he promptly had killed. Detective John Harris of the Hamilton police stated about the murder: "At first we thought it was a drug deal gone bad. But when Hawkins went down, we were all more careful about what we said". In March 1987, Graham contacted the police, alleging that Hawkins was physically abusive and was involved with Satan' Choice. As the Kitchener chapter was the most powerful and wealthiest chapter, Wattel had an oversized say in the running of Satan's Choice. Though the majority of Satan's Choice members favored an alliance with the Hells Angels, Guindon made the decision that individual members of Satan's Choice were free to do business with the Hells Angels, but there would be no official alliance nor a "patch over" to the Angels. In 1995, a third attempt was made to set up a Satan's Choice chapter in Hamilton. The president of the new Hamilton chapter was the professional wrestler
Ion Croitoru. The decision to open a chapter was regarded as an insult to Mario Parente, the president of the Outlaws' Hamilton chapter. One policeman stated: "Oh, they hated Parente. And they knew it would piss him off to have another club in what he considered to be his town". By 1995, the Satan's Choice chapters in northern Ontario were buying the majority of their cocaine from the Hells Angels' Montreal chapter as well as the Hamilton chapter under Croitoru. Both the Hamilton chapter and the Sudbury chapter purchased the vast majority of their drugs from
Richard "Rick" Vallée of the Angels Nomad chapter.
War with the Loners In 1995, Satan's Choice made an alliance with the Diablos, a club led by a former Choice member, Frank Lenti, resulting in a biker war in the summer of 1995 with the Loners, a club which Lenti had founded before he was expelled from it the previous year. Langton wrote: "So desperate were the big biker gangs for every square inch of southern Ontario – especially prime real estate like
Woodbridge – the Diablos were immediately courted". Satan's Choice agreed to sell drugs to the Diablos and offered the possibility of joining Satan's Choice, which angered the Loners, who were buying their drugs from the Hells Angels. Under pressure from the Hells Angels, the Loners came into conflict with the Diablos in the summer of 1995, who called upon Satan's Choice for help. On 18 July 1995, a Diablo threw a homemade bomb at a tow truck owned by a Loner. Two days later, a Loner shot two Diablos, although the injuries to both men were only very slight. Brawls between the Loners and Satan's Choice became common in the summer of 1995, causing injuries to multiple people. Satan's Choice ambushed three Loners in Woodbridge, shooting three of them, who all survived their wounds. Several businesses belonging to members of both clubs, such as a tattoo parlor, a motorcycle repair shop and a bar, were bombed. On 1 August 1995, the Toronto clubhouse of Satan's Choice on Kintyre Avenue – which was backing the Diablos – was hit by a rocket fired from a military rocket launcher by the Loners. The Canadian journalist Yves Lavigne wrote the explosion caused by the rocket "tore a large hole in the door and blew windows out of three neighboring houses, but did not injure the five bikers inside the building". Later the same night at 3:35 am, Satan's Choice tossed a bomb through the window of the Pluto's Place tattoo parlor owned by a Loner on Lake Shore Boulevard, setting off a fire that caused $50, 000 in damage. The next day three Molotov cocktails were tossed at Bazooka Jacks bar in Markham that was popular with Satan's Choice members. On 16 August 1995, Satan's Choice struck back by firing a rocket – again from a military rocket launcher – at the Loners' Woodbridge clubhouse. Despite the lucid headlines in the newspapers, Satan's Choice was not committed to an all-out struggle against the Loners, and Lorne Campbell made an agreement with the Loners that all of
York Region north of
Highway 7 was a "no war zone". On 25 August 1995, Lenti was badly wounded by a bomb planted in his car. With Lenti in the hospital, the Diablos collapsed which marked the end of the war. The mayor of Toronto,
Barbara Hall, unaware that the war was over, attempted to ban all outlaw bikers from Toronto. Langton wrote the "frequently hysterical Toronto media" vastly exaggerated the amount of violence, causing Hall's over-reaction. Her attempt to shut down the Satan's Choice clubhouse in Toronto proved impossible due to the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, leading her to try to have the city of Toronto buy the clubhouse in order to shut it down. On 18 September 1995, Hall opened talks with the Satan's Choice counsel, Karl Jaffary, saying that the city of Toronto would literally pay any price to own the clubhouse on Kintrye Avenue. The Choice set an absurdly high price for the clubhouse, which caused much controversy in Toronto when Hall indicated her willingness to pay it. On 20 October 1995, the city of Toronto ended the talks once it was apparent that Satan's Choice would set up a new clubhouse in Toronto after the city purchased the current one on Kintyre Avenue, a possibility that Hall had not considered until that point as she seemed to believe that buying the current clubhouse would banish Satan's Choice from Toronto forever. The controversy is believed to have been a factor in Hall's defeat in her 1997 reelection bid as the media took to calling Hall "Biker Barb". Despite the biker war that saw the Hells Angels back the Loners against Satan's Choice, Stadnick did not wish to keep Satan's Choice as his enemies, and afterwards set out to rebuild his damaged relationships with the Choice leaders. By 1995, Satan's Choice were again the largest biker gang in Ontario with 118 members in 7 chapters compared with the Para-Dice Riders that had 61 members in 2 chapters; the Vagabonds that had 70 members in 1 chapter; the Outlaws that had 68 members in 7 chapters; the Loners with 62 members in 2 chapters and the Last Chance that had 20 members in 1 chapter.
Project Dismantle and the Sudbury police station bombing In 1996, Guindon retired as Satan's Choice national president, although he remained a member of the club. Making matters worse, Satan's Choice the same year was targeted by a major police operation dubbed Project Dismantle, which involved almost 300 officers from the OPP, as well as the municipal police forces of
Halton,
Durham,
Hamilton–Wentworth, Waterloo,
Sudbury, and
Metropolitan Toronto. In May 1996, the OPP launched Project Dismantle, charging 161 people associated with Satan's Choice with 1,192 violations of the criminal code, mostly relating to narcotics, while seizing drugs with a street value of $1.05 million together with two marijuana labs capable of producing crops with an annual yield worth $13.8 million. The purpose of Project Dismantle was to convict every member, associate and girlfriend of Satan's Choice, to which end about 250,000 phone conversations were recorded while seizing some $3 million in cash and property. The clubhouses in Hamilton and Toronto were seized as the proceeds of crime. The chapters that suffered the most from Operation Dismantle were the ones in Hamilton, Sudbury, Thunder Bay and
Milton, while the other chapters escaped relatively unscathed. The result of the Project Dismantle raids included the seizure of marijuana plants and
hydroponic equipment valued at $11 million, as well as more than $125,000 in cash and over $265,000 worth of other drugs including cocaine. Many of the members of these chapters found themselves in prison or otherwise leaving the club, with the Sudbury chapter being reduced to just three full members from the peak of eight members and two "hangarounds". As a result of Project Dismantle, Satan's Choice membership fell from 135 in 1995 down to 70 in September 1998. Ion Croitoru, a thuggish professional wrestler and the president of Satan's Choice Hamilton chapter, was involved in a plot to bomb a police station in Sudbury on 15 December 1996. Len Isnor of the OPP's Anti-Biker Unit was not impressed with Croitoru, calling him "just stupid". However, Croitoru's career in professional wrestling made him a local celebrity in Hamilton and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Ontario. By contrast, Isnor described
Michel Dubé, the president of the Choice's Sudbury chapter, as one of the most dangerous outlaw bikers in Ontario. Croitoru was very close to Dubé and often visited Sudbury to see him. It was apparently Croitoru's intention to blow up the Solid Gold strip club because he and Dubé had been refused admittance earlier that year, but Dubé diverted the plan into blowing up the police station instead. In early December 1996, Croitoru visited Sudbury to see Dubé with his followers "Jimmy Rich" (a court-ordered pseudonym), Garry Noble, Gordie Cunningham and a man known as "Lebanese Joe". In the parking lot of the Solid Gold strip club, Croitoru was surprised to see the members of the Sudbury chapter take off their colors and put them into their cars. When he asked why, he was told that the Solid Gold did not permit the wearing of gang colors. Croitoru shouted "We wear our colors wherever the fuck we want!", which inspired Dubé to shout "fuck yeah!" in agreement; the assembled Satan's Choice bikers then attempted to enter the Solid Gold wearing jackets with their Satan's Choice patches, where the bouncers promptly refused them all entrance. When the bikers continued to try to enter the Solid Gold, the police were called. Seeking revenge, Croitoru had a member of the Hamilton chapter, Jure "Jerry" Juretta build a bomb. Juretta was a former soldier in the
Canadian Army and was an expert with explosives. Croitoru and Juretta then drove to Sudbury to hand over the bomb to Dubé. The bomb was handed over by Croitoru and Juretta to Dubé and vice-president Brian Davies of the Sudbury chapter at a
Tim Horton's where
Highway 69 and Notre Dame Avenue intersected in the
Lockerby district of South Sudbury. The bomb was planted by Neil Passenen, a friend of Dubé's. The bombing occurred at 2 am just after a Christmas party on 15 December 1996, and only one police dispatcher was wounded by the blast. In May 1997, Isnor came into contact with a drug dealer known as "Ed" due to a court order who was behind in his payments to the
Sherbrooke chapter of the Hells Angels and wanted to turn informer. "Ed" ended up obtaining an impression of Isnor's
American Express credit card and went on a lengthy spending spree before Isnor had him arrested. "Ed" was staying at a motel in Orilla and managed to convince the manager that Isnor was his brother who had left with his wallet, making him unable to pay for a pizza he had just ordered. The manager gave "Ed" Isnor's
American Express number from the registry, which allowed "Ed" to use the number to spend thousands of dollars at Isnor's expense. Isnor had "Ed" arrested and thrown into the "Barrie Bucket" jail in
Barrie. Fearing he would face a lengthy prison sentence for spending thousands of dollars on Isnor's credit card, "Ed" told him that his cellmate was boasting about being involved in the bombing. The cellmate turned out to be Gordie Cunningham of Satan's Choice Hamilton chapter, who had been arrested for drug possession in Barrie. "Ed" had befriended Cunningham and agreed to wear a
wire for Isnor in exchange for the charges being dropped against him. "Ed" joined the Hamilton chapter and lived with Cunningham as a boarder. "Ed" was able to obtain evidence that Cunningham was involved in drug dealing. After Cunningham was arrested, he promptly turned Crown's evidence in exchange for immunity. Cunningham then revealed the story behind the bombing. Isnor then dispatched "Ed" to Sudbury, where he befriended Russell Martin of the Sudbury chapter and accompanied him on several cocaine buys. Dubé was pressing Martin to kill the vice-president of the Sudbury chapter, Brian Davies, and when he refused, he started to suspect that Dubé was going to kill him as well. This impression was further increased by Dubé's erratic and irascible behavior. After Martin was arrested due to the evidence provided by "Ed", he in turn turned informer for the OPP's Anti-Biker Enforcement Unit. Martin told Isnor that he had been ordered to kill Davies, an order that he found himself incapable of obeying. Davies was confronted by Isnor who told him Dubé was planning to kill him, leading to Davies to turn white with fear and say "You're absolutely right". The evidence provided by Davies led to Dubé and Croitoru being charged as Isnor gave orders to arrest both men. The national leadership had the Hamilton chapter disbanded, while Croitoru was expelled as a "loose cannon". Croitoru was convicted of trafficking in steroids and for having the bomb built while Dubé, who was facing charges of two counts of murder plus charges relating to the bombing, hanged himself in jail on 22 September 1998. Dubé was facing one count of first-degree murder charge relating to the 1988 murder of Claude Briere, who was a prominent drug dealer in Sudbury. Dubé was also the main suspect in the 1996 murder of Alexander Sretenovic aka "Alex Atso". Briere disappeared in September 1988 and his corpse was found three weeks later on 17 October 1988, while Sretenovic disappeared on 14 August 1996 after boasting about how he helped Dubé kill Briere. Isnor was dismissive of Satan's Choice by the 1990s, saying: "Satan's Choice were never the big guys, they were nickel and dime. The Loners were always Stadnick's favorites". Guindon had been a professional boxer in addition to being an outlaw biker and by the late 1990s, he was beginning to suffer from brain damage caused by his boxing career. Increasingly, Andre Wattel, the president of the Choice's Kitchener chapter, began to exercise leadership and Wattel, unlike Guindon, was much more open to joining the Hells Angels. As a result of Project Dismantle, the level of screening for new members fell off, and the Oshawa chapter accepted
Steven "Hannibal" Gault. The club's rules required that a new member be sponsored by a member who had known him for at least five years; Gault's sponsor William Lavoie had only known him for five months and had been bribed in the form of $20,000 by Gault to say otherwise. Gault was a career criminal who specialized in cheating senior citizens out of their life savings, and had joined Satan's Choice with the aim of selling them out to the police. Gault sold information to the police, first about Satan's Choice and then the Hells Angels, until 2006. Gault, who once bit off a man's ear in a bar fight, was described by his ex-wife Linda Sebastiao: "After he got his full patch he thought he was king of the world." Gault was paid $1 million by the Ontario government for his work as an informer and as of 2011 he was delinquent in paying children support. Satan's Choice, along with most of the other major Ontario biker gangs, including the Loners, Lobos, and Para-Dice Riders, "patched over" to the Hells Angels on December 29, 2000. A total of 168 bikers "patched over" on that day. The Satan's Choice chapters in Kitchener, Oshawa, Sudbury, Thunder Bay,
Keswick,
Simcoe County and Toronto all became Hells Angels chapters. The Toronto chapter of Satan's Choice became the new Toronto East chapter of the Hells Angels. The Outlaws would later find their Ontario operations crippled by Project Retire of 25 September 2002, an undertaking by Ontario police targeting the club. However, many former members of Satan's Choice would remain active criminals after the club was dismantled, such as the former president of the Hamilton chapter Ion Croitoru, who would be charged but not convicted of the murder of Lynn and Fred Gilbank in January 2005. Kirby left Satan's Choice in March 1976 and went to work for the
'Ndrangheta. One of the Satan's Choice members who "patched over" to the Hells Angels on 29 December 2000 was Steven Gault, who continued to work as a police informer within the Angels. Gault, who became the treasurer of the Hells Angels' Oshawa chapter, played a key role in the OPP's Project Tandem of 2005–2006 that led to numerous Angels being convicted of various offenses. The Satan's Choice of 2017 had chapters in Durham and Ottawa, with 48 full-patch members and two prospects. Len Isnor of the OPP's Anti-Biker Enforcement Unit stated: "It’s a bit shocking. By somebody bringing them back, there could be some problems. Yes, we’re going to watch." In response to Harley's statement, the
Durham Regional Police Service stated: “We are aware of the re-emergence of the Satan’s Choice Motorcycle Club in our region and the DRPS Biker Enforcement Unit will continue to monitor for criminal activities associated to all motorcycle clubs operating in Durham Region." Similarly the
Ontario Provincial Police stated that officers are “aware of recent social media content relating to outlaw motorcycle gang activity in Durham Region.” ==Filmography==