Mafia charges paint surprising picture of who killed whom in power struggles

Montreal Gazette

21 hours ago

The charges filed in Thursday's roundup of significant organized crime figures on Thursday suggest past ties mean nothing during underworld power struggles.
The charge that stands out the most is one that accuses alleged Montreal Mafia leaders Leonardo Rizzuto, 56, and Stefano Sollecito, 57, of the first-degree murder of Lorenzo LoPresti, a man who was killed at his condo in the St-Laurent borough on Oct. 24, 2011.
Five other men are also charged with the first-degree murder of LoPresti, but Rizzuto's name is the one that stands out because he and LoPresti grew up on Antoine Bethelet Ave. — a roadway in northern Montreal that used to be known as Mafia Row — when they were much younger.
The tall, curly-haired LoPresti was the son of Giuseppe (Joe) LoPresti, who once made headlines for his arrest in a high-profile heroin smuggling trial in the U.S. Giuseppe LoPresti and Vito Rizzuto, Leonardo's father, were both from he same part of Sicily — Cattolica Eraclea — and while Vito Rizzuto rose to be the leader of the Montreal Mafia during the 1980s and '90s, Giuseppe LoPresti was killed in 1992 at age 44 in a homicide that remains unsolved.
According to court documents filed in an RCMP investigation dubbed Project Clemenza, it appeared to investigators that Lorenzo LoPresti decided to join a group of people tied to the Montreal Mafia who tried to take control of it from the Rizzutos.
The takeover failed when the opposing group developed differences of their own. Leonardo Rizzuto and Sollecito were also charged yesterday with plotting to kill men on opposite ends of the split, including Raynald Desjardins, a man who was once very close to Vito Rizzuto, and Salvatore Montagna, a Mafia leader from New York who tried to organize the efforts against the Rizzuto clan. Montagna ended up being killed on Nov. 24, 2011, in Charlemagne, just east of Montreal.
The list of men that Leonardo Rizzuto and Sollecito are alleged to have plotted to kill also includes; Giuseppe Renda, a man who vanished in 2012; Moreno Gallo, an Influential Montreal Mafia figure who was killed in Mexico in 2013; Antonio Vanelli, the intended target in a botched hit that took the life of Angelo D'Onofrio, an innocent man who was shot at the Café-Bar Hillside on Fleury St. in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough on June 2, 2016.
Another two men that Rizzuto and Sollecito are charged with plotting to kill are Joseph Dimaulo, a 70-year-old Montreal Mafia leader who was killed in 2012, and Antonio Pietrantonio, a man who survived two attempts on his life in 2011 and 2024.
Jean-Richard (Race) Larivière, 57, a member of the Hells Angels who was among the 11 people arrested on Thursday, is now charged with murdering men who were once part of the same biker gang as him.
Larivière had been a member of the Rockers, a Hells Angels support gang during Quebec's biker gang war, which stretched from 1994 to 2002, before he graduated to the Hells Angels by becoming a prospect member of a now defunct Nomads chapter based in Quebec.
On Thursday, Larivière was charged with the murders of Vincent Lamer and Sébastien Beauchamp, two men who were also members of the Rockers during the biker gang war. Lamer, who was introduced into the Rockers in 2000, was killed in Montreal during 2017 and Beauchamp, who became a full-patch member of the Rockers in 2000, was killed in 2018. Larivière was also charged on Thursday with the attempted murder of Jean-Guy Bourgouin, a founding member of the Rockers when it was created in 1992.
This story was originally published June 12, 2025 at 6:01 PM.