Bob Deasy - Being Uncle Charlie: A Life Undercover with Killers, Kingpins, Bikers and Druglords

PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA

Copyright 2013 Double D Productions and Mark Ebner

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2013 by Random House Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited.

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Deasy, Bob
Being uncle Charlie : a life undercover with killers, kingpins, bikers and druglords / Bob Deasy, with Mark Ebner.

ISBN 978-0-345-81282-7
eBook ISBN: 978-0-345-81284-1

1. Deasy, Bob. 2. PoliceOntarioBiography. 3. Undercover operationsCanada. 4. Organized crimeCanada. 5. Organized crime investigationCanada. 6. Ontario Provincial PoliceBiography. I. Ebner, Mark C II. Title.

HV7911.D43A3 2013 363.2092 C2013-901527-2

Cover design by Jennifer Lum

All images courtesy Bob Deasy

v3.1

For my father

We were sailing along an unpaved road in a rented Chevy pickup, a cloud of dust visible on the horizon and an easy target for anyone who could see us coming.

We were headed for an isolated farmhouse on the outskirts of Perth, about halfway between Ottawa and Kingston. It was the private clubhouse of the Ottawa chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, a legendary bikers redoubt that civilians rarely got inside, a place where an undercover cop with his cover blown almost certainly wouldnt make it out alive.

It was 1989 and I was in the middle of working Project Encore out of the Kingston unit of the Ontario Provincial Polices Drug Enforcement Section. Encore was a mid- to high-level drug dealer target project that seeped into a lot of dark corners, including the Outlaws. Billy Scarf, president of the Ottawa chapter, was high on our list of people who were long overdue for an encounter with law enforcement. So there I was, trying to insinuate myself into Billys sordid world.

Beginning in the late 70s the Hells Angels began rolling over Satans Choice, Satans Angels, the Popeyes, the Para-Dice Riders, the Rock Machine and lots of smaller puppet clubs in their bid to dominate Canadas one-percenter outlaw motorcycle scene, destroying everything in their path and assimilating the survivors into their barbarian horde. This HA practice worked well in Quebec and Vancouver, but in Ontario they ran up against an immovable object in the form of the Outlaws, who had the backing of the Italian mafia throughout the province. By the late 80s things were at an impasse, and the Outlaws believed themselves untouchable.

Billy Scarf had no idea who I washe had guys he paid just to ignore people like meso first we had to get on his radar. I had an agent who said he could guarantee me entry. An agent is generally a low-level player in the criminal hierarchy whose presence serves to vouch for the undercover officer, at least for purposes of introduction. Like a journalists sources or a salesmans leads, these characters invariably come with their own sketchy agenda and veiled opportunism, which may or may not be apparent until you read the court records. In this case the agent knew Scarf from years gone by and had agreed to broker an introduction.

I sent the agent in alone first with my cellphone, under the guise of a social visit to Scarf. While the agent was in there I called him from a pay phone in Perth and laid into him, berating him about a deal gone wrong and screaming that I needed my coke. I knew that at that volume, Scarf could hear every word I said. This ploy accomplished two things: it clearly put me in charge, letting Scarf know I was someone worthy of respect, and it made him curious what kind of maniac would try to force a deal when there were bikers involved. Scarf took the bait. The agent drove back to the town and got me, and the two of us returned to the clubhouse. If I got in it would mark the first time a police officer had walked through that door. And if I didntwell, best not to think about that.

I parked by the entrance to the sturdy lodge-like structure and took mental note of exactly how much exposure I was carrying. I never carried a gun, and besides, theyd have just taken it from me at the door anyway. Usually I travelled with a cover teama highly trained, heavily armed backup squad that spots for me in any tight corner and that I would trust my life to on a regular basis. But here we were prisoners of the surrounding geography: there was nothing but open fields and oppressive sky for miles in every direction, with a single straight dirt road leading on and off the property. If something unexpected went down, it would take them half an hour to reach usnot good odds when youre going up against predators with poor impulse control. And so my cover man, Basil Gavin, was waiting back in Perth by the phone like an expectant father, and I was on my own.

A monster of a guy frisked us just inside the door. The single long room featured a bar along one wall and a meeting table in the centre, like something that Vikings would eat off. Chained underneath it was a completely hairless Doberman, like Cerberus guarding the Gates of Hell, missing nothing. The walls had been fortified with oak beams and patched with brick in places and were decorated with biker porn, Harley swag, a paper target from a shooting range. A small room in back was cordoned off with a curtain of glass beads, and a staircase led to a second floor, forming a cramped cubbyhole beneath it with a coffee machine and two or three working police scanners. Above the scanners I saw something that made my blood run cold: Scarf had a list of all six of the members of the Kingston drug unit, and five of them showed their name, make of car and licence plate number. All of them were buddies of mine. It was only because I was new to the region that number six was blankjust waiting for my name to be filled in.

It was early yet, but Outlaws were trickling in, and Scarf seemed to be in an expansive mood. Either that or he was fucking with us. And when guys like that set out to have some fun it almost never ends well. Sitting to my left was a big guy named Skeeter, a hulking bruiser with a waist-length beard. Scarf said to mea little too casually for my taste, Before we get started, would you mind giving Skeeter here your keys? The cops dont know your car, and we dont like to draw attention to ourselves. I could have said no, but this would not have gone over well. I flashed him a reassuring smile and dumped my key ring in Skeeters giant hand. In a heartbeat Skeeter unbolted the back door and was gone.

When he returned, he was carrying a large packet that had obviously been buried outside. He set it on the table in front of Scarf, who opened it and poured the contents through a strainer into a green saucer, then started carving it up into lines. Up to this point in my career I had never had to do drugs in the line of duty. Scarf did a line and pushed the saucer off to his right. When it got around to me there was one line left. Trying to be as nonchalant as I could, I passed it on to Scarf. He stared at it a second longer than he had to.