Kim Bolan/Special to the Langley Advance
A former United Nations member says he believes the gang was behind the attempt on Jonathan Bacon’s life in September 2006 — as well as the slaying of a Bacon associate a few months earlier.
The man, who can only be identified as D, testified in B.C. Supreme Court about the bounties the UN put on the heads of Jonathan, Jarrod and Jamie Bacon, along with their Red Scorpions gang associates.
D was on the stand for a third day on Thursday at the trial of Cory Vallee, who is charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacon brothers and murder in the fatal shooting of their associate Kevin LeClair in February 2009.
D told Justice Janice Dillon that he was one of the UN members aiding the hunt by collecting data on the places the Bacons frequented, as well as the vehicles they drove.
As part of that research, he and gangmates Mark Kim and Troy Tran drove by the Bacon family home in east Abbotsford, where Jonathan was later critically wounded in the 2006 shooting.
He said he, Tran and Kim also scouted out an Abbotsford apartment building where Bacon associate Dave Tumber was later shot to death in March 2006.
Both shootings remain unsolved. While D admitted he had no direct knowledge of who committed the crimes, he said both Kim and Tran left town immediately after both shootings.
Jonathan Bacon was later shot to death in Kelowna. His accused killers are set to go to trial next month.
D testified that he circulated target photos of the Bacon brothers that were provided to him by UN gang leader Clay Roueche, who is currently serving a 30-year sentence in the U.S. for drug smuggling.
He described how tensions between the Bacons and their rivals built for months after the Abbotsford siblings began targeting UN drug lines in the Fraser Valley.
Roueche was more determined to resolve the Bacon problem after he was shot at by a Bacon associate inside a restaurant, D testified.
“He had gone to the bathroom at the restaurant. And an individual named Lance Wust was in the bathroom and … he saw Clay, became startled, pulled out a handgun and fired a shot in Clay’s direction,” D said.
D said Roueche then arranged a meeting with some Hells Angels.
“It was my understanding that he was trying to see if they were willing to help in any way in this conflict with the Bacon brothers,” D said.
“The Hells Angels had agreed to put up a portion of a bounty for individual Bacon brothers and at least one of their associates that I can remember. And they had given Clay an advance of $50,000 to help with the effort being made to target the Bacon brothers and their associates.”
Asked by Crown prosecutor Alex Burton about the purpose for the bounty, D said: “We call it putting a price on someone’s head. If they are killed, the person that has executed the act of killing them can expect to get paid X amount of dollars — whatever the bounty was at the time.”
D described another shooting he believes was related to the ongoing conflict.
UN member Conor D’Monte and his brother Ciaran, who D only knew as “Q,” were at a Chilliwack nightclub when they were spotted by a rival group, D testified.
“An individual had followed them into the parking lot and produced a firearm and fired shots in their direction and hit his brother Q in the abdominal area,” D said.
Ciaran D’Monte survived the shooting.
Conor D’Monte is also charged in the Bacon conspiracy and the murder of LeClair, but he remains a fugitive.
The trial continues.
– Kim Bolan is a writer for the Vancouver Sun
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