Three’s company, four’s a crowd

A couple of people have suggested the Couillard story has legs because it’s got boobs. I disagree. I think the Couillard story has legs because the people involved won’t stop lying about it.

Take this latest bit, for example: La Presse has uncovered evidence Couillard was involved with someone in Montreal’s Cotroni clan before she was with Gilles Giguère. Giguère had previously been believed to be her first of three romantic links to Montreal’s criminal underworld. Turns out, she dated Tony Volpato, Frank Cotroni’s right-hand man, a few years prior.

Now, consider how Julie Couillard defended her alliances with the Hells Angels in her yet-another-exclusive-interview-with-the-Quebecor-chain:

I was 22 years old when I met Gilles. We were together for four years. I was so naïve! I knew he knew people who knew bikers, but I didn’t take the bikers seriously. To me, they were tough guys who rode motorcycles. The real criminals were the mafia, the Italians.

I guess she knew what she was talking about. Volpato was convicted in 1997 of trying to import 180 kilos of cocaine (!!!) into Canada and was sentenced to six years behind bars (of which he served just one, to the eternal annoyance of John Reynolds). Smuggling massive quantities of blow: that’s what serious, self-respecting criminals do. Loan sharking, fraud, contract hits, drug-dealing, prostitution: the biker wars were small potatoes compared to what those sneaky Italians were up to.