Slain biker 'prospect' hailed from Cote St. Luc

Slain biker 'prospect' hailed from Cote St. Luc

One of the eight victims of Ontario's worst mass murder grew up in Montreal and will be buried here tomorrow.

By The Gazette (Montreal) April 12, 2006

One of the eight victims of Ontario's worst mass murder grew up in Montreal and will be buried here tomorrow.

Jamie Flanz, 37, a resident of Keswick, Ont., was among the eight people tied to the Bandidos outlaw motorcycle gang killed as a result of what the Ontario Provincial Police described as an internal conflict within the gang.

Leonard Flanz, a Montreal lawyer, said he had difficulty believing his son was a prospect in a biker gang. "It just doesn't fit the image of Jamie.

"He did affect the image of the motorcycle crowd, but not that of a motorcycle gang. He had a Harley-Davidson and liked to wear a leather jacket and shades. He was a big guy. But as is often the case, image is not the reality.

"There were an awful lot of positive things about Jamie."

Flanz was not known to police investigators who probe biker activity in this province. Flanz did not have a record in Quebec.

But police recently searched Flanz's home in Keswick, about 50 kilometres north of Toronto, for evidence in the beating death of a man whose body was found in a woodlot in Pickering, Ont., four months ago. No charges were laid against Flanz, and police are still investigating.

Flanz was described by Ontario police as a "prospect" of the Bandidos. That status meant he was one step away from being a full-fledged or "full patch" gang member. Shortly before he was killed, according to the Globe and Mail, Flanz had told a friend he had plans to leave the gang.

Aerial photos taken Sunday of the area where the eight men were found Saturday showed Flanz's luxury SUV abandoned with its hatch open and a large man in pyjamas lying dead in the back.

The OPP would not confirm whether the body pictured was that of Flanz.

Flanz grew up in Cote St. Luc with his two younger sisters and a younger brother.

He graduated from Wagar High School and attended Dawson College while playing hockey and baseball on teams in Cote St. Luc. He coached hockey and was an ambulance technician with Cote St. Luc's Emergency Medical Services.

His father said Flanz once saved the life of a man who had been shot at a bar in downtown Montreal. He was working as a bouncer at the time but used his life-saving skills to keep the man alive until ambulance technicians arrived.

"In many respects, he could have been a role model to many young people while he was growing up," Leonard Flanz said.

Jamie Flanz moved to Ontario nine years ago. He helped a U.S. computer services firm set up a Canadian company but left the job in 1999 and moved on to direct a Toronto company called Onico Solutions.

Leonard Flanz said he spent weeks with his son this year in Florida. They were in regular contact when they returned and, Flanz said, he spoke to his son on Friday, presumably just hours before the homicides occurred.

Flanz said his son did not express any concerns about his personal life.

The slayings, and the arrest of a full patch member as one of the suspects, have generated media speculation that the Bandidos are on the verge of disappearing in Canada. The international biker gang, which originated in Texas, has several chapters in many countries. But the Bandidos are "steering clear" of the funerals for the slain former members, Texas police said.

"When they have a funeral for a Bandido here in Texas, they come from all over. They have Bandidos represented from all over the world," said a Bandidos specialist based in Houston.

The gang's decision not to rally supports the allegation by police in Ontario and Texas that the eight Bandidos were killed in a matter of "internal cleansing" after a deal cut between their gang and the Hells Angels that surrendered Canada to the Angels.

But Guy Ouellette, a retired Surete du Quebec investigator and an expert on biker gangs, said it's too early to write off the Bandidos in this country.

The gang's chapter in Toronto had 20 members, including those who were killed and Wayne Kellestine, the Bandido charged in the slayings, Ouellette said, citing recent analyses.

Several Bandidos serving lengthy sentences for drug trafficking and other offences related to Quebec's biker war might eventually join the chapter in Ontario when released, he said.

That option was part of a pact the Bandidos reached with the Hells Angels when the former agreed to shut their chapters in Quebec, Ouellette said.

Another slain Bandido with a Quebec connection was Luis Manny Raposo, 41, of Toronto, who was arrested during the Surete du Quebec's Project Amigo in June 2002. Although he spent more than a year in prison - and though several of his co-accused pleaded guilty or were convicted - Raposo was not brought to trial because, the prosecution said, the main police informant in the case refused to co-operate.

Witness named biker as killer in home Invasion 28 Yrs Ago

Witness named biker as killer


04-15-2007


Accused Bandidos killer Wayne Kellestine was once named in court as the man who gunned down a Toronto clothier during a brazen home invasion 28 years ago.

But in spite of the dramatic courtroom accusation, Kellestine was never charged in the Toronto murder.

A senior Toronto police officer said at the time that the man's testimony was the only evidence against Kellestine.

Kellestine, one of five people charged after eight dead bikers were found 20 km from his farm on the weekend, was accused during a 1982 trial of fatally shooting John DeFilippo, 31, and wounding his father-in-law Vito Fortunato, then 53, in a 1978, North York home invasion.


BULLETS MISSED WIFE

Bullets just missed DeFilippo's wife and their infant son.

A one-time Kellestine associate -- a former London man whose role was to lure DeFilippo to the door by posing as a pizza delivery man -- was convicted of second-degree murder in the slaying and spent 10 years in prison.

The man, known as John Goodwin, testified that he came to Toronto with his drug supplier boss Kellestine for fun and had no idea the trip would end in murder.

He told his first-degree murder trial he was struggling with DeFilippo inside the door when Kellestine burst in and pumped bullets into DeFilippo and then into Fortunato.

He also testified that he had kept quiet in the four years prior to the trial because Kellestine had threatened him and his family.

"All my life I've grown up knowing that you don't squeal ... because squealers get killed," the man told a jury, which ultimately agreed with prosecutors that he was part of the killing anyway and should be convicted of second-degree murder.

"I didn't want to get killed and end up in a cornfield somewhere ... I had nothing to do with it. I'm innocent."

Kellestine, 56, himself a Bandidos bike gang member, and four friends -- Eric Niessen, 45, Brett Gardner, 21, Frank Mather, 32, and a woman, Kerry Morris, 56 -- face eight first-degree murder charges in the executions of six full-patch Bandidos, a prospect member and an associate.

Autopsy findings have still to be released in what OPP have said are the shooting deaths of John "Boxer" Muscedere, 48, Frank "Bam Bam" Salerno, 43, Luis Manny "Porkchop" Raposo, 41, George (Gus) "Crash" Kriarakis, 28, Paul Sinopoli, 30, George "Pony" Jesso, 52, Jamie Flanz, 37, and Michael Trotta, 31.

Their bodies were found, along with four vehicles, near the small Ontario hamlet of Shedden, about 20 km from Kellestine's Iona Station farm.
Contacted last night, the former London man who was convicted and imprisoned in DeFilippo's slaying said he still fears for his safety.

The man, who has moved elsewhere in Canada and keeps a low profile, maintained his innocence in the DeFilippo murder.

Library files show the man was 23 when he said he and his construction company boss Kellestine came to Toronto to collect a drug debt.

He testified he and Kellestine, then-owner of Triple-K Construction in London, met up with a man named "Mike" in Toronto and drove to Fortunato's home. DeFilippo and Fortunato were watching a hockey game when a man, posing as a pizza man, knocked on the rear door.


WRESTLED WITH HIM

The man testified at two trials - the first was declared a mistrial - that when he told DeFilippo "Mike" wanted to see him in the car outside, DeFilippo wrestled with him.

"He grabbed hold of me, knocked the pizza out of my hand and we sort of struggled ... I heard a bang, a gun, and he let go off me and fell down."

The man testified that "Mr. Kellestine came in shooting."


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