Friday, May 12, 2017

Hitman Ryan Wolfson sees murder charge stayed after prosecution delays

Ryan Wolfson, 45, smiled when Justice Guy Cournoyer ruled the Crown created too many delays in bringing him to a trial that was supposed to begin in September. Wolfson acted as a hitman for organized crime in four separate shootings he carried out in 2012. On Friday a stay of proceedings was placed on a different murder charge. The case involved the killing of Pierre-Paul Fortier, a 27-year-old man who was shot on Oct. 18, 2012 in St-Sauveur.

The decision makes Wolfson the second person charged with murder in Quebec who has seen their case placed under a stay of proceedings because of the Supreme Court of Canada decision made last summer, which is known as the Jordan ruling.

Vincent Pietrantonio, son Tommy
On Oct. 7, a jury found Wolfson guilty of the first-degree murder of Frederick Murdock, a man who was acting as a bodyguard for Vincent Pietrantonio. A gunman burst into Pietrantonio’s home and shot both men. The same jury also found Wolfson guilty of the attempted murder of Pietrantonio as well as an attempt made on the life of Pietrantonio’s son, Tommy, who was shot on Sept. 29, 2012, inside a pub in Ste-Marguerite-du-Lac-Masson.
The Crown’s theory during the trial was Wolfson, a longtime associate of the Hells Angels, carried out both shootings while acting as a hitman for Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau, 40, one of two men who would later pull off a brazen escape from the St-Jérôme Detention Centre on March 17, 2013.

Wolfson was arrested with Hudon-Barbeau on Nov. 3, 2012, while both men were at a strip club in downtown Montreal. Wolfson was found to be in possession of the firearm used to kill Murdock.