Translated from French
The 58-year-old man who died Thursday morning in a collision between a motorcycle and a van in Saint-Stanislas-de-Champlain, in the MRC des Chenaux, east of Trois-Rivières, is Paul Magnan, a member of the Hells Angels , La Presse learned .
The rider was driving westbound on Route 352 (Trois-Rivières) at around 9:50 a.m. when an oncoming van slowed down to turn into a private driveway.
“The van made a left turn and ended up in the path of the motorcycle. The motorcyclist crashed into the vehicle and was thrown from his machine. Resuscitation maneuvers were performed on site and the victim was transported to the Trois-Rivières Hospital Center where he was found to be dead, ”said Sergeant Jean-Raphaël Drolet of the Sûreté du Québec.
The driver of the van, an elderly man in his late fifties, was not seriously injured but was taken to hospital anyway, as a preventive measure.
It appears that at the time of the collision, Paul Magnan, a resident of Saint-Ubalde in Portneuf County, was not sporting a Hells Angels jacket, or at least not displaying visible colors. It was not raining yet, the road was clear and visibility was good.
The Sûreté du Québec opened an investigation and colliding re-enactors were dispatched to the scene.
“For the moment, we are not at the point where we can speak of an infringement of the Highway Safety Code or a criminal offense,” added Sergeant Drolet.
Sponsor of a school club
Paul Magnan was a member of the Hells Angels of the Trois-Rivières section. According to police sources, he was the godfather of the Deïmos Crew, a subordinate club of the Hells Angels which has a section in Mauricie.
Like most of his “brothers” from the Hells Angels, Magnan had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to murder in the wake of Operation SharQc in April 2009.
He was sentenced to ten years in prison in November 2015 but was released the same day, his sentence having ended due to the time spent in preventive detention.
It had taken three years for the police to get hold of Magnan after Operation SharQc.
In 2017, Magnan was charged with gangsterism, drug trafficking conspiracy and drug trafficking, but the charges were removed a few months later.
In 2016, another Hells Angels member Kenny Bédard, 51, was killed on a motorcycle in a collision in New Brunswick.
