Former Hells Angels crime boss Maurice Boucher, known also as “Mom” Boucher, has died at the age of 69 in prison from natural causes.
According to Corrections Canada, Boucher, a notorious longtime Hells Angels gang leader and one of the more known criminals in Quebec history, died Sunday after a long battle with throat cancer.
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He died while incarcerated at the palliative care ward of a correctional health-care institution affiliated with the Archambault federal penitentiary in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Que., where he had been serving consecutive life sentences for the last 20 years.
Boucher was a reputed organized crime boss, murderer, drug trafficker, outlaw biker and former leader of the Hells Angels’ Quebec chapter.
In 2002, he was convicted of weapons and assault charges, conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, and two counts of first-degree murder after ordering the 1997 killing of two Quebec prison officers (Pierre Rondeau and Diane Lavigne) who were chosen at random in an effort to chill the Quebec Justice system.
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He received a life sentence with no possibility of parole for at least 25 years. He was imprisoned at one of Canada’s few supermax prisons.
The Causapscal, Que. native became a member of the Hells Angels in the late 1980s. He was a major force in the period of gang violence known as the Quebec biker war that saw the Hells fight against rival gang Rock Machine to control Quebec’s drug market between 1994 and 2002, which left over 160 people dead.
The 1995 killing of an 11-year-old Montreal boy, Daniel Desrochers, who died in an explosion linked to the biker wars, sparked widespread public indignation and led to numerous arrests of members of biker gangs across the province.
Boucher had been battling cancer for seven years and was transferred to palliative care on June 10. He just recently turned 69 on June 21.
He is survived by his son, Francis Boucher, who like his father was involved in organized crime, and his daughter, Alexandra Mongeau.
In 2015, Francis, then 39, walked out of Montreal’s Bordeaux jail in broad daylight, two months before the end of a 117-day sentence he was serving for uttering death threats against police officers. He surrendered to Quebec police four days after his easy escape.
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He was previously sentenced to 10 years for gangsterism, conspiracy to commit murder and drug-trafficking.
Francis was a member of the Rockers, a Hells puppet gang (a smaller gang often sanctioned or endorsed by a motorcycle club to do their dirty work).
In 2018 Boucher’s daughter was sentenced to house arrest for possession of cash generated by a major drug-trafficking ring linked to the group.
–with files from The Canadian Press
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