Time to Turn on the Charm
Maybe Biker Leader Can Try Goo-goo Eyes on Juror

PEGGY CURRAN
The Gazette

Tips for Maurice (Mom) Boucher as he sits in his jail cell, getting psyched for his murder trial in the fall:

1. Don't talk to the guy in the next cell who seems so fascinated by your life in the mob. He's up to no good.
2. Watch your back.
3. Practice your "come hither" look, although maybe not while the other prisoners are around. 4. Sign up for dance lessons.
5. No matter how bored you get, once the trial starts, do not keep a diary.

If recommendations 3, 4, and 5 seem frivolous, your lawyers will explain--if they can figure out a conveniently indirect way to do so that won't leave them open to charges they interfered with the course of justice.

It's true the prosecution's case against you, leader of the Nomads and alleged kingpin of the notorious Hell's Angels operation in Quebec, is built mostly around the testimony of squealers, who don't always make the most reliable witnesses. For some reason, jurors don't much trust criminals who turn on their former allies to avoid a gang hit or get a swankier cell and the occasional steak dinner.

A New Technique

Nevertheless, it helps in such cases, when you're looking at 25 years behind bars with a bunch of guys, to have a backup plan. Naturally, the Crown will be on the lookout for old biker ploys like intimidating witnesses and bribing jurors. However, there's a new technique currently being tested, which could be the perfect answer to your problems: Girl Power. Cherchez la femme.

Sometimes, desperate times call for desperate measures. And in these days when a good man is often hard to find, women have been known to settle for a bad one.

Consider the plight of Gillian Guess, a 43-year-old former juror on trial in Vancouver for obstructing justice. It's alleged she had an affair with an accused man during his murder trial in 1995. The Crown contends Guess "did wilfully attempt to obstruct, pervert or defeat justice" when she hooked up with 30-year-old Peter Gill, one of six men charged with the gangland drug killing of two men in Vancouver in 1994. After a six-month trial, one of the longest and most costly in British Columbia's history, all six were acquitted. A week later, Guess and Gill were spotted dancing the night away at a Vancouver hot spot.

But witnesses claim it started long before that, with sidelong glances and wistful looks across the crowded courtroom. Once, Gill's wife complained to a court official that Guess was making goo-goo eyes at her husband. Police eventually seized Gill's diary, in which he talks of trading flirty looks with jury "chick No. 1" who "keeps staring, big time."

Web-Page Justice

Until the judge ordered her to stop, Guess was using her own Web page, decked out with a picture of herself looking like a poor man's Raquel Welch, to chat about the case and proclaim herself the victim of high-heel discrimination. However, some people still find it hard to believe that a middle-aged mother of two, considered smart enough to counsel crime victims for the RCMP, would have to be told that when jurors were cautioned not to talk to defendants during their murder trial it meant they weren't supposed to sleep with them, either.

Mom, it won't be easy to predict what kind of woman will go for your non-traditional biker look - the tidy hair, the neat little glasses and university-professor manner hardly fit the image of the burly motard Quebecers have come to expect. The fact that you didn't smile much during the preliminary hearing doesn't help, either--sure, you're feeling gloomy (the prospect of a life sentence can have that effect), but a gal wants a guy who at least makes an effort to be cheerful.

If you do manage to get something going, the police guard that has been dogging your every move since the arrest in December could put a crimp in your trysts, at least until after the acquittal. But no doubt you know someone who can look after those petty details, as well as making sure there's no serious competition from a cute judge. In the meantime, it's time to turn on the charm.

©1998 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc.

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