The trial of former Manitoba Hells Angels president Ernie Dew resumed today with a series of combative exchanges between Dew’s court-appointed lawyer and police informant Franco Atanasovic.
Lawyer Sarah Inness described Atanasovic as a career criminal involved in armed robbery and drug dealing and as an individual who would do anything for money, including selling out his long-time friend Dew to the police.
Atanasovic admitted his criminal past but denied that he was motivated solely by greed.
“Your whole life has been based on making deals for yourself,” Inness told Atanasovic.
“Wrong, wrong, wrong,” Atanasovic fired back at Inness.
Atanasovic took the stand against Dew last week, telling the court how he betrayed Dew by setting up cocaine deals that police were able to record.
Atanasovic was paid more than $500,000 to act as a secret informant for police over a two-year period. The sting resulted in the arrests of 13 people, including Dew and two other Hells Angels and Dew’s wife Vera, in February 2006.
Dew is the second biker to go on trial. Ian Grant was sentenced to 15 years in prison after a jury convicted him last spring on eight of nine charges. Vera Dew was sentenced to 5 1/2 years prison in May 2006 for arranging to sell a kilogram of cocaine to Atanasovic. She has since been released.
Dew is representing himself in this trial, which began in November, but Justice Brenda Keyser appointed Inness to represent him during Atanasovic’s testimony.
Security remained tight at the trial, with the public banned with the exception of media representatives and approved friends of Dew. Four members of the Winnipeg Police Service Emergency Response Unit lined the hallway in front of the court room and three Sheriff’s officers conducted searches of people entering the courtroom.
Inside the courtroom, several more Sheriff’s officers sat throughout the public gallery.
Dew sat behind the defense counsel desk, his legs shackled, wearing a long-sleeve grey sweatshirt and grey cotton slacks, and runners.
In the gallery were Dew’s wife Vera, one of his daughters, Desiree, and two of his friends. The couple joked about him gaining weight while in custody, the greasy food he was eating behind bars and his lack of exercise.
Atanasovic, 48, was nattily dressed with a dark blue sports jacket, white shirt and light blue silk tie. He’s a smallish, heavy-set man, with thinning hair, a thin mustache and a gravelly voice. He entered the court-room through a private room normally reserved for a jury.
Inness paced back and forth as she fired her questions to Atanasovic, gesturing with her arms, and often looking at Dew or his family while posing questions.
Atanasovic often responded to Inness’ questions with statements like, “that’s right,” “that’s your opinion,” “your wrong,” leering, smiling and sometimes laughing as she portrayed him as a career criminal who turned informant to protect himself against a drug deal gone bad. “You thought you’d get police protection and money,” Inness challenged Atanasovic.
“Wrong,” Atanasovic fired back. “That’s exactly wrong.”
Throughout Monday’s cross-examination, Inness said that between October 2004 and into May 2005 phone records showed that Atanasovic called Dew almost daily, sometimes several times a day, in a bid to convince him to sell him drugs which he could use to pay off another drug deal. All those phone calls were made on a different cell phone than the monitored cell phone police had provided to Atanasovic.
Inness said police had warned Atanasovic not to initiate any drug deals with Dew or the other targets but to let them approach him.
Atanasovic admitted to making the calls from a non-monitored cell phone but said the conversations had nothing to do with arranging a drug deal and that’s why he never told the police about the clandestine calls.
“According to you -- that’s not the case,” Atanasovic said. “I wasn’t asking to buy drugs.”
The start of the trial was delayed Monday morning when Inness asked to be allowed to challenge the legality of the wiretap evidence that RCMP had collected in its investigation. Keyser wouldn’t allow Inness to make her argument, stating that the wiretap had already been entered as evidence and heard earlier in the trial.
aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca
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