An alleged B.C. gangster captured in Puerto Rico earlier this year says the Canadian government has not provided any proof he committed crimes in Canada and says the extradition request should be dropped unless more evidence can be disclosed.
Conor D’Monte is the subject of the extradition order due to “alleged participation in the murder of Kevin Leclair (and conspiracy to murder the Bacon Brothers),” according to court documents filed in Puerto Rico.
The alleged former UN Gang leader had been on the run for more than a decade after being wanted in the 2009 shooting death of Leclair.
However, the documents state D’Monte “has yet to be convicted of anything.”
The documents state the “extradition consists of a single document: a redacted affidavit provided by a police official, Terrence Murphy (hereinafter the “Murphy affidavit”), containing his “summarized” understanding of information purportedly provided by three cooperating witnesses.
“In other words, involving multiple levels of hearsay and interpretation.”
The LeClair murder came at the height of a violent and highly public gang war between the Red Scorpions and the UN gang in B.C.’s Lower Mainland.
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. Vallee had an appeal dismissed in his case last month.
Richard Kurland, a lawyer and policy analyst who is not connected with this case, told Global News Tuesday D’Monte does have legitimate concerns.
“A charge of murder in Canada triggering an extradition act request in the United States is a serious matter,” he said. “The accused is not wrong to want to see more evidence. After all, we’re talking about extradition for murder.”
Kurland said D’Monte’s U.S. lawyer will do their best to maximize the disclosure of key evidence in this case.
“There, like here, the accused is entitled to full judicial process including disclosure of the case against them,” he added.
The court documents allege that Canadian police paid one of the witnesses a “jaw-dropping $400,000” to cooperate in the case and therefore he “had 400,000 reasons to follow whatever cues were laid for him by the police.”
Kurland said this case could drag on for years before any decision is made.
“Canada’s going to have to keep feeding evidence into this American process until it crosses the threshold required in America for extradition of the accused to Canada and no one knows how long that’s going to take,” he said. “But clearly, the two things, a murder charge and a $400,000 payment to an alleged witness will raise an eyebrow in that American courtroom.”