GOOD BOYS
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Hitmen and New details emerge by TERRY O’NEILL |
NICK PROCAYLO |
| Jose Raul Perez-Valdez does not have a bright future. The 35-year-old Cuban-American is currently sharing living space with 1,800 other prisoners at the massive United States Penitentiary in Lompoc, California. As prisoner number 24900-086, Perez-Valdez is serving the remainder of a 10-year sentence imposed by a Washington State judge after he was convicted for a Seattle-area kidnapping and possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute. Although scheduled to be released in three years, Perez-Valdez will not leave Lompoc a free man. Rather, authorities are planning to transport him to Vancouver where he will finally stand trial for one of British Columbia’s most notorious murders, the 1990 execution-style shooting of flamboyant West Vancouver stockbroker John Ramon (Ray) Ginnetti.
It was June 1995 when authorities charged Perez-Valdez (who lists his home as Hollywood, California) with first degree murder in connection with the Ginnetti killing, but since then they have been tight-lipped. In fact, there has been so little publicity about the case that even Perez-Valdez’s Vancouver legal-aid lawyer, Phil Rankin, was unaware until informed by BC Report last month that it will be 2002 at the earliest before his client is likely to appear in a Canadian courtroom. More importantly, authorities have kept a lid on the details of their case against Perez-Valdez. However, BC Report has now learned from two independent and highly placed law enforcement sources that officials have concluded Perez-Valdez was a professional hitman who, along with another Cuban, was hired to kill Ginnetti by a notorious Vancouver-area underworld enforcer, Roger Daggitt. The sources also confirm that police believe Daggitt, in turn, was contracted by another party to have Ginnetti killed. Who that person was and why he hired Daggitt to have Ginnetti killed remains a mystery. Police and prosecutors may know but they are not saying. And Daggitt, once described in court as a top enforcer for the Hells Angels, certainly cannot reveal anything because he himself was killed in a mob-style hit in the beer parlour of the Turf Hotel in Surrey in October 1992. Daggitt, 39, was shot three times in the back of his head as his son watched. Yet another underworld contract killer, Serge Robin, pleaded guilty in January 1996 to first degree murder in connection with the Daggitt shooting. He was already serving life sentences for two other murders when he confessed to killing Daggitt. While many questions remain about the case, the cast of nefarious characters surrounding the Ginnetti killing clearly suggests the involvement of organized crime, including the Mafia, the Hells Angels and the so-called Russian mob. However, the public will likely have to wait until Perez-Valdez stands trial before the whole sordid story comes out—and even then, there is no guarantee all the questions will be answered. Ginnetti’s murder has been shrouded in mystery and controversy from the moment his wife of 10 years, Barbara, found the body of her 48-year-old husband in a closet at their $750,000 West Vancouver home on the afternoon of May 9, 1990. He had been killed by a single shot to the head from a .380-calibre semi-automatic handgun. The murder touched off a frenzy of media coverage that was sparked not only by the unusual circumstances of the shooting but by the fact that more than a dozen members of the Hells Angels attended Ginnetti’s funeral in East Vancouver. The May 15, 1990, murder of Russian mobster Sergey Filonov, an accused cocaine trafficker who allegedly bragged about being involved in the Ginnetti killing, further fuelled the media’s interest. Ginnetti liked to leave the impression he was involved with shady characters. He began his career as a car salesman in East Vancouver, but during the 1970s he often hinted at his connections with organized crime and boasted he earned his living by collecting on loans and by betting. Later, he worked as a stockbroker for several Vancouver brokerage houses. According to an Equity magazine article published in 1990, Ginnetti was involved in promoting a questionable Vancouver Stock Exchange offering called Genesis Resources Corp. The magazine reported that investigators, suspicious about “upward mobility in the share prices” of the firm, raided the offices of a telemarketing company of which Ginnetti was a partner, CW Agencies Inc., in 1986. “Investigators discovered what they were after: a boiler room operation, complete with phone banks, ’sucker lists’ of potential clients and sales records. During their search, investigators found a bag containing $50,000, but before they confiscated it, [Ginnetti associate Randy] Thiemer snagged it and threw it out the window. On the street below, Ginnetti grabbed the loot and ran, and later the B.C. Securities Commission slapped a cease trading order on Genesis.” The magazine also reported that Lloyd Robinson, the sergeant-at-arms for the East Vancouver chapter of the Hells Angels, was employed by Genesis. The motorcycle-riding Ginnetti made no secret of his friendship with members of the outlaw gang, although he was not a member himself. Equity also quoted sources that confirmed Ginnetti’s loansharking activities. “Ray loves to have someone positioned where they owed him a favour,” the source said. “He thrived on that situation.” Ginnetti made a good living as a broker and lived the high life in Vancouver night-clubs and restaurants. He made headlines once by getting into a shoving match with actor Sean Penn. But Ginnetti apparently did not hit it big until the mid-1980s when CW Agencies began reselling Canadian lottery tickets to U.S. customers. The business was legal, but according to Equity, the Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit circulated a draft report in 1988 outlining links between lottery ticket resellers and organized crime. “The draft report named Ginnetti and several others known for their interesting array of business activities,” the now-defunct magazine declared. Ginnetti’s family said he had sold his share of CW Agencies half a year before his death and was planning an early retirement. Despite providing such intriguing details, the magazine offered no theory on who might have killed Ginnetti. It did point out, however, that “aggrieved” cocaine dealers who had been robbed by members of the then-up and coming Russian mob had ties to the same Hells Angels faction that Ginnetti had befriended. No further details of the murder emerged when Perez-Valdez was charged in 1995, but tantalizing new information surfaced the following year when hitman Robin pleaded guilty to killing enforcer Daggitt. Vancouver Sun crime reporter Neal Hall wrote, “One theory is that Daggitt was killed [by Robin] to even the score” for the Ginnetti murder. Daggitt “had once worked as a bodyguard for Ginnetti,” Mr. Hall reported. “An informant told police Daggitt was the driver for the man who killed Ginnetti.” BC Report has now been told by two highly placed law-enforcement sources (who both requested anonymity) that, in fact, Daggitt orchestrated the killing and that, if he had not subsequently been killed himself, he would have been charged with first degree murder at the time Perez-Valdez was charged. The man who killed Daggitt, Serge Robin, was also convicted of killing cocaine dealer Ronald Scholfield one week before killing Daggitt and then of killing drug dealer Robert Pelletier the day after the Daggitt shooting; it is unclear, however, whether either of the two killings is related to the Daggitt murder. Mr. Hall speculated Robin may have pleaded guilty to the contract killing of Daggitt “because there was a contract on his life and he wanted an immediate transfer to a prison outside B.C.” The reporter suggested the contract may have originated with Montreal Mafia boss Frank Cotroni, who has been convicted of heroin trafficking and murder. RCMP Corporal Frank Henley, a serious crime investigator in Surrey at the time of the Daggitt murder, said last week he knows “exactly why Roger was killed [by Robin] but can’t say” for law-enforcement reasons. He refused to comment on any connection between Daggitt and Ginnetti. Similarly, crown counsel Hank Reiner was silent on the question of who was ultimately responsible for Ginnetti’s murder. “No, I don’t know, and if I did, I couldn’t tell you,” he said when asked about the motive. “There are a number of theories, but none of them are of any evidential worth, so I’d rather not say.” However, Mr. Reiner did explain why it is taking so long to bring Perez-Valdez to trial in B.C. The lawyer says the Cuban-born criminal has waived his right to an extradition hearing and can therefore be transported to Vancouver as soon as he is released from prison. However, “It is up to California authorities to decide whether to release him now, before finishing his sentence, or to wait until after he finishes the sentence,” Mr. Reiner says. “Our experience is that most of the time, they won’t release these guys until they finish [serving their time].” Mr. Reiner says the latest information he has is that Perez-Valdez will be released August 11, 2003, but an official at the Lompoc jail told BC Report two weeks ago that Perez-Valdez’s official release date is November 8, 2002. BC Report was unable to contact Perez-Valdez’s California lawyer, Guy Alvarez. In Vancouver, lawyer Rankin says he has been in contact with Perez-Valdez intermittently since he was charged, but was unaware his extradition was not imminent. “I didn’t realize he was bogged down,” he says. “I’d like to have him come up before I retire from law.” Also anxious to have the matter settled are Ginnetti’s mother and two surviving brothers, who suffered yet another loss this past summer. Family patriarch Giovanni died in Burnaby Hospital July 24 at 86. He was interred six days later at Ocean View Cemetery in Burnaby, the same place his son Ray’s body was laid to rest nine years earlier BCR BC Report is available at your favorite newsstand,
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