MONTREAL – The head of a construction company who was once a close associate of the Rizzuto organization is being treated as “an important witness” in a shooting in Laval Friday.
Raynald Desjardins, 57, a man who used to be a close associate of Vito Rizzuto, a leader in the mafia in Montreal, was not arrested or detained in the shooting but was scheduled to meet with investigators at Laval police headquarters Friday afternoon.
“His status could change from important witness to something else. It depends on what is found on the scene and depending on the statements of certain witnesses (to the shooting),” said Constable Franco Di Genova.
“He will be met with our detectives, if he has something to say.”
The shooting occurred Friday morning on Levesque Blvd. near Highway 25. Desjardins has a residence, on the bank of the Rivière de Prairie in Laval’s St. Vincent de Paul district, just a couple of kilometres from where it occurred.
Di Genova said it appeared two cars were damaged in the incident which left one person slightly injured.
“At around 9:30 (Friday) morning we got several phone calls from people living in the area saying that they heard detonations. We sent out three or four patrol cars and the first officers on the scene found a vehicle with bullet holes in it,” Di Genova said adding it appears “multiple shots” were fired and that a second vehicle, found a short distance away from the first, might have also been damaged by gunfire.
“It appears that shots were fired between two vehicles,” Di Genova said adding many Laval police detectives have been assigned to the case.
The first vehicle was found on Levesque Blvd., close to where the new bridge connecting Laval to Montreal through Highway 25 recently opened.
During the early 1990s, Desjardins was considered by police to have been a very close associate of Rizzuto’s, who is currently serving time in a penitentiary in the U.S.
The two men were practically neighbours two decades ago. Desjardins was considered such an important figure in the mob at one point that police sometimes referred to them and their associates as the Rizzuto-Desjardins organization.
In 1994, Desjardins received a 15-year sentence for drug smuggling. He was caught plotting to smuggle large quantities of cocaine into Canada with influential members of the Hells Angels.
While he was serving that sentence corrections officials learned that Desjardins held considerable sway among organized crime figures.
In 2004, just before Desjardins was released from a penitentiary, the National Board Board described him, in a summary of a parole decision, as having “acquired over the years an important status at the heads of criminal organizations and maintained those associations inside the penitentiary.”
In 1995, the federal government ordered an investigation after it was discovered that Desjardins arranged to have a jogging track built at the Leclerc Institution while he was serving time there with several members of the Hells Angels. The investigation revealed he arranged to have the track built for $461.52 from an inmates fund, when in fact the work was obviously worth a great deal more.
According to the Quebec business registry, in 2005, one year after his release from a penitentiary, Desjardins started a company that is currently listed as dealing in large construction and forestry machinery.
His name was mentioned often in 2009, in stories by La Presse and Radio Canada, because of his links to Jocelyn Dupuis, the former head of the Quebec Federation of Labour’s construction wing. In an interview with La Presse in March 2009, Desjardins described Dupuis as a friend and complained that both their names were being dragged through the mud because of his past.
“Everything I’m doing today is perfectly legitimate,” Desjardins told the newspaper in 2009.
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