A high-profile fugitive gangster will be extradited to British Columbia from Puerto Rico.
In January 2011, Conor D’Monte was charged with first-degree murder of Red Scorpion gangster Kevin LeClair, and conspiracy to kill brothers Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie Bacon.
But before police in B.C. could arrest him, D’Monte slipped out of the country. It would be 11 years before he turned up in Puerto Rico living under a fake name.
Police arrested D’Monte in February 2022, prompting nearly two years of legal wrangling as he fought extradition to Canada.
Last week, a Puerto Rican judge put the matter to bed, ordering he be returned to British Columbia.
“Despite D’Monte’s absolute rejection of the facts and charges presented by the Government of Canada, he did not introduce any evidence of his own, nor did he offer any plausible legal argument to support his challenges,” United States Magistrate Judge Marshal D. Morgan wrote in his ruling.
According to U.S. court documents, based on Canadian submissions, a former associate said D’Monte, who at the time headed the UN gang, was determined to win a war against the Red Scorpions, and even took charge of the intelligence gathering effort and the dispersal of information.
“He also purportedly ran the hit teams who were hunting for the Bacon Brothers and their associates,” the documents state.
None of those allegations have been proven in court.
The LeClair murder came at the height of a violent and highly public gang war between the Red Scorpions and UN gang.
A second man, 24-year-old Jonathan Barber, was also killed in the shooting.
Hitman Cory Vallee was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for pulling the trigger in the slaying, after being captured in Mexico in 2014.
D’Monte was last seen by police in Canada at Vancouver International Airport.
According to court documents, he got off a plane and boarded a limousine with his wife and kids on Jan. 20, 2011.
Police had intended to arrest him at his home three days later.
In 2019, police extended a massive reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to his capture.
D’Monte had been living in Puerto Rico for years, volunteering for a honeybee charity, before he was arrested with a firearm in February of last year, said U.S. authorities.
He remains in custody in the island territory.
It remains unclear when D’Monte will be returned to Canadian soil, or when his murder trial could begin.
D’Monte’s Vancouver lawyer, Chris Johnson, told Global News an appeal is a possibility.
— with files from Rumina Daya
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