The United Nations gang had a suspect in the Kevin LeClair murder killed in Mexico because they were worried he might turn on them, B.C. Supreme Court heard Wednesday.
Jesse “Egon” Adkins was hiding in Mexico, along with accused killer Cory Vallee, when he started getting restless and wanting to come home, former UN gangster C testified.
“I believe he wanted to come home and see his kid,” said C, whose identity is protected by a sweeping publication ban.
Earlier C told Justice Janice Dillon that he, Adkins and another UN member were driving with Barzan Tilli-Choli when Tilli-Choli blasted a Porsche owned by the Bacon brothers on May 9, 2008.
Jonathan Barber, a stereo installer who had just picked up the Porsche, was killed instantly.
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FILE PHOTO Accused killer and former UN gang member Cory Vallee shown here in a mugshot.
And C testified that Adkins and Vallee confessed to him that they were the hit men that gunned down LeClair, a Bacon associate, in a Langley plaza on Feb. 6, 2009.
Vallee is charged with conspiracy to kill the Bacons, as well as first-degree murder in the LeClair shooting.
C said Adkins and Vallee were smuggled into Mexico through a Los Angeles cartel contact of Khamla Wong, a respected UN gang elder now in jail in Thailand.
But after several months, Adkins was getting edgy and making derogatory comments about the UN, C said.
He testified that he tried to tell Adkins to stay put.
“I told him — it’s not a smart idea. Give it some time. Maybe in the future after the UN 8 case is done, we’ll see what happens with that and then assess from there,” C said.
“I told him the smartest thing to do is to stay there.”
But there was concern that Adkins’ instability could lead to him flipping on the gang, C said.
“Kham discussed it with the Mexicans that Jesse might be a problem and the Mexicans said that they’re going to take care of it,” C said.
He said he understood that to mean “that Jesse would get killed.”
Asked by prosecutor Helen James how he felt about Adkins’ murder, C said:
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FILE PHOTO Jamie Bacon (left) and Kevin LeClair who was shot to death in 2009.
“I had mixed emotions about it. I liked Jesse but at the same time, the way he was acting — he was seriously saying the words he was saying like `f— the crew’ and `I am coming back no matter what,’ it seemed worrisome that he may have turned into a rat,” C said.
He said he later learned from both Vallee, who was still in Mexico, and Wong that Adkins was “killed in Mexico by the Mexican cartel people.”
Adkins’ body has never been found.
After Adkins was killed, C got even closer to Vallee communicating through encrypted Blackberries.
“We would talk all the time, multiple times in a week, sometimes every day. We would talk about family, kids, what we’re up to, business,” C testified.
He said Vallee told him he was getting plastic surgery to alter his face since he was “on the run.”
Prosecutor Helen James asked C to look at Vallee in court and see if there was any noticeable difference in his appearance from years earlier.
“He looks pretty similar to me,” he said.
Vallee also told him about finding a good tattoo artist in Mexico and getting some work done.
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Barzan Tilli-Choli in undated jail photo
“He got a Hitler tattoo down there and some other Nazi-style tattoos put on,” C said.
When Vallee was arrested in Mexico in 2014 and brought back to Canada, C put money in his canteen account at the pre-trial jail every month until last summer, he testified.
The money came from a senior UN member named Versace, who has continued to provide the cash for a number of gangsters awaiting trial or convicted.
C said the UN wanted “to take care of the guys in prison so they stay happy.”
“Unhappy people tend to turn,” he said.
The trial continues.
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