Posted on 11/13/2003 8:46:06 AM PST by Loyalist
Radio host fuels protests over alleged cover-up of teen sex ring
MONTREAL - A visitor to Quebec City could get the impression there is a new sports team in town. Flags of a black scorpion on a blood-red background fly from cars. Crowds in the street cheer Go Scorpion! A baker even has scorpion-shaped loaves on display in her window.
The scorpion in question, however, is not a team mascot but the code-name for one of the most sensational police investigations the provincial capital has seen. Stoked by a daily barrage of invective from Quebec City's king of trash radio, anger is mounting over the police force's decision to conclude its investigation of a teen prostitution ring after charging 44 alleged pimps and clients.
Last week saw a crowd of 400 march on City Hall to hurl abuse at the Mayor, Jean-Paul L'Allier, whom host André Arthur accuses of interfering with the investigation. A week earlier, a mob was at the courthouse to jostle and boo defendants in the case as they arrived for a hearing. The lynch-mob atmosphere and the intensive media scrutiny were enough to persuade Quebec Superior Court Justice Gilles Hébert that the defendants could not receive a fair trial in Quebec City. Last Friday, he ordered the trial of nine alleged clients of the ring moved to Montreal.
Alain Dubuc, publisher of Quebec's Le Soleil newspaper, holds Mr. Arthur, the morning man on CIMI-FM, responsible for damaging the chances of a fair trial and tarnishing the reputation of Quebec City.
"The fairness of the trial is affected by the move, because the witnesses, who are basically the girls who were abused, will be in a more difficult situation, away from their families and so on," Mr. Dubuc said. "It's also very bad for the image of Quebec City, which is basically a beautiful and gentle city. What you are getting as an image is a kind of Deep South, lynching village."
Mr. Arthur did not return a message seeking comment that was left with his assistant.
The police announcement last December, that a prostitution network preying on girls as young as 14 had been dismantled, shocked the city. But after a brief period of concern for the welfare of the girls, attention shifted to the men accused of paying for their services. The biggest name among the accused was the city's No. 1 radio announcer, Robert Gillet. Never one to miss an opportunity to attack an enemy, Mr. Arthur suggested on the air that police delve into Mr. Gillet's expenses to see how many times he had travelled to Thailand.
Other figures arrested included Jacques Racine, the owner of a chain of pharmacies; Yvan Cloutier, a former winter carnival president and one-time Liberal candidate; François Houle, president of the city's summer festival and a former aide to Lucien Bouchard; and real-estate promoter Yves Doyon. But then the Quebec City police, after initially hinting more big names were coming, announced there was insufficient evidence to charge other clients.
For Mr. Arthur, who had been speculating on the air about whom he suspected might have been hiring the girls, that was proof that politicians had intervened to protect their friends. His listeners took up the cause and started pressuring the police to revive the investigation. It was not long before the spiffy scorpion flags were flapping in the Quebec breeze. On Nov. 3, protesters raised one at city hall, and they are planning another march this Sunday on the Plains of Abraham.
Denise Bédard, owner of Pâtisserie Simon in Quebec, already had a portrait of Mr. Arthur in her shop window depicting him prying under a rock in search of slugs who had escaped justice. On the weekend, she added loaves of bread in the form of scorpions to her display. She is convinced Mr. Arthur is speaking the truth when he complains of a cover-up.
"There are people who are charged now, but others who did the same thing are not charged. They have arranged to disappear. It is not right," she said.
Marc-François Bernier, a communications professor at the University of Ottawa and former Quebec City newspaper journalist, said it is hard to take Mr. Arthur's theories seriously because he has been wrong so often in his long career.
Mr. Bernier's research found 20 complaints against Mr. Arthur to Quebec's press council between 1973 and 2002, of which 13 were determined to be founded. Last fall, a judge ordered Mr. Arthur and his employer to pay $420,000 to former Liberal premier Daniel Johnson and his wife for defamation. Earlier, Mr. Arthur had cast suspicion on fellow radio journalist Benoît Proulx in an unsolved murder. Mr. Proulx was charged in 1991, nine years after the death, when one of Mr. Arthur's listeners came forward and claimed to have seen someone with Mr. Proulx's eyes the night of the murder. Mr. Proulx was convicted but later exonerated and awarded $2-million in damages.
Mr. Bernier said Mr. Arthur is a "genius" communicator who has found a winning formula. But he worries about the climate created by his vitriol.
"He can be dangerous in the sense that he arouses a lot of hatred and tension," he said. "A public communicator has to know that in his audience there are people who are psychologically fragile and who could take action."
ghamilton@mon.nationalpost.com
© Copyright 2003 National Post
How long...how entrenched...how pervasive is this?
How strong is the control, over the community, that these gangs exert?
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