Men charged with shooting in Montreal East tied to alleged Mafioso

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Four men face charges related to shots being fired in September at a building in Montreal East that is owned by a relative of a man with ties to the Montreal Mafia.

The same building, on Notre Dame St. E. near the corner of Broadway Ave., has been the target of arson fires and other shootings since 2016.

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The men, who were arrested by Montreal police on Wednesday, are all from Valleyfield. They are charged with discharging a firearm at a place knowing that someone was either inside or without checking to see if someone was inside at the time. The shooting took place on Sept. 4.

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The men are scheduled to appear before Quebec Court Judge Salvatore Mascia at the Montreal courthouse on Friday to set a date for a bail hearing.

One of the accused, Sebastien Allard, 28, told the judge that he is having difficulty finding a lawyer who will represent him.

“This is my first time,” Allard told Mascia during a video conference, saying he could not understand why he does not meet the criteria to be represented by a legal aid lawyer. “I’m no longer working, so I’m in a difficult situation. This is my first time facing the justice system.

“I have no one on the outside who can help me.”

Another of the accused, Alexandre Lemonde, 21, was informed Friday that he faces an additional charge in another case. His defence lawyer asked that he appear again on Monday to possibly set a date for a bail hearing.

The other two accused are Gabriel Michaud-Rémillard, 25, and Louis Alexandre Guérault, 24.

The building is the location of a used car dealership and is owned by a relative of Marco Pizzi, 53, one of several people arrested in 2016 in Project Clemenza, an RCMP-led investigation into the Montreal Mafia. The drug smuggling and conspiracy charges brought against Pizzi were stayed in 2017 after the prosecution announced it would no longer prosecute the two cases brought against him.

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According to court documents filed in another investigation, Project Magot-Mastiff, Pizzi was seen meeting often with Leonardo Rizzuto and Stefano Sollecito, two men who were described as the leaders of the Montreal Mafia when arrests were made in the investigation in 2015.

Pizzi survived an attempt made on his life in Montreal on Aug. 8, 2016.

The same building is listed as the business address of a company owned by Nicola Spagnolo, 48, another man with alleged ties to the Montreal Mafia. During sentencing arguments held earlier this year, in a case where Spagnolo was convicted of stabbing a man in Old Montreal, he described himself as a seller of luxury cars. The location of his business was mentioned.

Besides the shooting on Sept. 4, the Montreal police found a bullet holes in a window of the same building on Aug. 3. They also found spent shell casings on Notre-Dame St. E.

On May 30, firefighters were called in to extinguish fires in two cars parked outside the building.

On Dec. 14, 2016, Montreal police investigated an arson fire at the same location.

pcherry@postmedia.com