A reported member of the Hells Angels motorcycle club who the U.S. wants extradited to face criminal fraud and money laundering charges will learn if a judge commits him and his co-accused to extradition at the end of the month.
Courtney Vasseur and former Eron Mortgage Corp. salesman and former stockbroker Curtis Lehner argued this week that the evidence against them in the New York indictment alleging their participation in a complex pump-and-dump scheme was, as criminal defence lawyer Paul McMurray put it, a “house of cards.”
Lehner’s lawyer Teresa Mitchell-Banks, a former Crown prosecutor and short-lived director of enforcement for the B.C. Securities Commission, argued the U.S. authorities had not proven the two committed fraud because they hadn’t proven the two knew stock promotion material to be false. Mitchell-Banks and McMurray spent three days questioning much of the 35-page indictment, including the credibility of confidential witnesses.
But Ryan Dawodharry, counsel for the Attorney General of Canada, took far less time Thursday to tell Supreme Court of B.C. Justice Catherine Wedge that her role was not to assess evidence in such detail.
“Our courts have clearly determined that the extradition judge in a committal hearings does not engage in credibility assessments or a determination of ultimate reliability of the evidence,” said Dawodharry.
And arguments put forth by the defence for corroborating evidence have been dismissed in past instances, said Dawodharry.
“This court must conduct a holistic review of the evidence,” he said.
Earlier this week, Wedge dismissed McMurray’s bid to toss out evidence as unconstitutional after he argued the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) gathered evidence in Canada and that evidence, a photo of Vasseur, was obtained against his privacy rights.
The photo was obtained by the FBI from a 2014 Vancouver Sun article noting Vasseur is a Hells Angel nomad, according to the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit-BC.
Wedge said Thursday she would have a decision by Nov. 30.
Should Wedge find the U.S. Attorney’s Office has provided enough prima facie evidence (evidence at face value) and determine the crimes alleged in the U.S. are also crimes in Canada, Wedge would commit the two defendants to the Minister of Justice who would then decide if they should be surrendered to American officials.
If both decisions are unfavourable to Vasseur and Lehner, they may appeal Wedge’s decision to the Court of Appeal of B.C. and also ask for a judicial review of the minister’s decision.
Vasseur and Lehner are among several Canadians charged in the U.S. with multiple counts of criminal securities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering for their part in a set of alleged fraud schemes involving over US$1 billion in illegal trading.
Vasseur's network, including Lehner and Domenic Calabrigo, is alleged to have generated US$35 million in illicit proceeds alone, via a pump-and-dump scheme.
Vasseur and Lehner also face a civil claim from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
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