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November 16, 2022 28 mins

Derek goes to trial and it’s a wild ride from Day 1.  Also, what this jury has to say may SHOCK you! Prosecutors HATE this!

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Campsite media for the cops working Project Miguel. The takedowns
were the culmination of a year's long investigation. After making
almost sixty arrests in a single day, they patted themselves
on the back, did a victory lap for the media,
and moved on to the next big bust. But for
Derrick White and Hunter Montour, this was just the beginning.

(00:24):
They didn't understand why they were targets of an international
sting operation, didn't think they'd broken any laws. The whole
thing was absurd right from the get go. I went
the first time I went to court, no idea. I'm
sitting and inquired. There's like forty people or whatever sitting
in this courtroom. So I look at my lawyer and
I said, we gotta sit here all day and wait

(00:45):
for all these cases to go through. He's like, what
do you mean? I said, what the funk? All these people?
I said, what are we gonna do? It's like, these
are all the people. You don't know anybody here. I'm like, no,
I've never met any of these people. I don't wunt
know what they are. I said, what are they here for?
Is they're all involved in your case? I'm like, okay,

(01:09):
no Derek, but I don't know anybody else. I had
no idea who these people are. Derek's situation wasn't too different.
He was being lumped in with outlaw bikers and Colombian
cartel runners. He was publicly accused of running a tobacco
smuggling operation alongside big time organized crime figures like Sylvan Etier,
someone Derek says he never dealt with. I had no clue.

(01:30):
I mean, he used to show up but my restaurant,
would you know, different guys just bringing them there to
eat and stuff like that. But I never spoke to him.
I never he He only spoke French for one and
I never talked to him. But Sylvan would never face
a judge because not long after the Mygale takedown at

(01:54):
Sylvan's front door, knocked on his door and killed him
front porch. No one was ever charged with the murder,
but a former Quebec police investigator told the media that
he believed the Hell's Angels were responsible. My understanding of
it is that this was a retribution because he had

(02:15):
not turned over all the money that was due the
bikers and organized crime. It's so in essence if let's
just make up numbers. Ten lords came in, he was
only giving them money on six and keeping the four
to himself. So how did you react when Sylvan was murdered?

(02:38):
I mean, were you did you feel like anything was
gonna come to you? Or well not really, I mean
from what I hear that he owed people money and
or he was basically I don't know if he was
if he was gonna squeal on the other guys that
were bringing the stuff in for him, or I don't know.

(03:01):
I don't They didn't know much about what was what
they're what, they're how their operation was working, so they
don't care. They just want to just round up as
many people as they can and charge everybody and try
to get as much money as they can out of everybody.
But you know what happened. Look at you got fifty
fifty guys and I'm the only Me and Hunter are

(03:23):
the only ones that are fighting this because it's our right.
I mean, we're gonna fight this right till the end.
From day one, Derek knew he was going to fight
this case. It didn't cross his mind to roll over
and plead guilty like most of the other Mohawks had
been arrested on tobacco charges in the past. From as
far as I can remember, tobacco and the cigarettes were

(03:44):
coming in. There was people getting caught and going accord
and this and that, but nobody really fought it. Nobody
ever fought it. They would just okay, well, say you
had ten cases of cigarettes in your in your trunk whatever,
and they say, okay, well, UH will make you a deal.
You pay a hundred dollars a month or whatever. So

(04:05):
everybody would take the deal, and nobody ever fought it.
And I said, you know what, it's time someone you know,
steps up to the plate and fight discovernment and see
what happens. And I'm willing. I'm ready to go to jail.
I don't care, you know, but I'm not pleading guilty.
Playing and simple. They could make any offer that they
want and I'm not taking it. Playing and Simple from

(04:34):
Campside Media and Dan Patrick Productions. This is Running Smoke,
I Got great place. I'm Roger Gola and this is

(05:00):
episode five the trial. As soon as Derek heard that
he had a warrant out for his arrest, he placed
a phone call to a golf buddy he'd known for years.
Pure lick v l e c u y e Er.
I was the defense lawyer for Derek Whaite. I met
Pierre in his swinky office in downtown Montreal, and he

(05:22):
just had one ground rule for me. If I would
like the question, I won't answer simple enough. Huh. Pierre
does not mess around. He's about as matter of fact
as a clerk at the d MB. Was this a
total surprise to both you and Derek? Was there any
indication that there was surveillance happening prior or I'm never
surprised if a client is arrested, and I was aware

(05:44):
of it because two of his runner were arrested and
amounts of money were sees. I would say three or
four months, six months prior to the arrest, so I
knew something was cooking, But at the time Derek chalked
it up to a fluke. His suspicions were raised a bit,
but the business continued for months until March when the

(06:06):
Mohawk Peacekeepers called Derek to tell him he was wanted.
Calls me, there's a warrant for his arrest. I ran
down to his office, We discussed it, made sure that
he would be released on bail. I found out that
much the bail was to be sure that I had
the money to go deposited for the bail. We waited
for the disclosure and started working the case. Disclosure all

(06:28):
the evidence that the government had collected on Derek over
the last couple of years. It was ten bankers boxes
worth of intercepted phone calls, text, surveillance reports and photos.
Pierre and his team had their work cut out for them.
And so just from seeing the full disclosure, how strong
did you feel the government's case was? Well, obviously it
was strong. When you have police officers delivering tobacco to you,

(06:52):
I mean and one at the end stints the guy
is moving to tobacco to a warehouse in Saint Jeanne.
Derek is giving shipped to the guy to move faster,
and the guy who was moving in as an OURCMP officer.
So Derek was hit with two sets of criminal charges.
The first set concerned the tax evasion he'd allegedly committed
against the provincial government of Quebec. For the provincial when

(07:15):
the finished product, which means a cigarette, has to be
so they have to prove that it's sold in Quebec territory. Well,
in there's case that it wasn't because he was shipping
full containers to Ontario six Nations and that's where they
were producing the cigarettes and setting them there. I'm not
liable for paying the taxes or anything. If you look

(07:37):
into the the Rules and Regulations of Revenue Canada, it
states right in there do you only paid the taxes
once it's manufactured and sold. So I've never manufactured any
cigarettes or sold any cigarettes the actual cigarette. All I
did was I was a broker of of raw tobacco

(07:58):
Nation and nation. We knew we had a good chance
of winning the provincial one, and we knew that their
case was strong concerning the federal one, which brings us
to Derek's second set of charges, the federal ones. Derek
was accused of defrauding the federal Canadian government, which does
levy taxes on raw tobacco. The federal issue is when

(08:20):
you enter the border, you've got to declare and pay taxes,
and they were not. So that's the federal issue they're saying.
It's it's a more than a billion dollars of taxes
that were not paid. The big debate on these charges

(08:41):
came down to a simple question, who was the importer.
Derek said it wasn't him, He was just the buyer.
He ordered tobacco from brokers down in North Carolina and
paid drivers to bring it across the border. It was
on the broker and the drivers to pay those taxes.
Derek claimed he only took possession of the tobacco after
it is in Canada. The government, however, argued that Derek

(09:04):
was the importer, that he had his own drivers and
money runners, and that he was running a criminal organization.
And one of the people the government accused of being
in Derek's criminal organization was Hunter Montour, who had walked
into a courtroom full of strangers. The government claimed that
Hunter had helped Derek find a warehouse in New Jersey
to store his contraband, and that Hunter had helped manage

(09:26):
those shipments. My association with the cases so far like
it was ridiculous, it still is. I referred him to
this this place in New Jersey that I was told about,
and I said, well, here's the guy, this is the
number he's and he asked me, so can you call him?

(09:47):
I shower, no big deal, and the eyes of the government.
I didn't realize that that was something being that was
something that you were doing that was illegal. I had
no idea. It just couldn't wrap my head around what
what they're saying I'm doing. I'm like, I'm just helping
a friend. I got the information here it is that's

(10:09):
gangsters um. That was the charge Hunter was facing, gangsterism
aiding a criminal organization. Derek felt guilty about rupping his
friend into the whole mess. I could have did that
myself and I couldn't. Didn't even need Hunter involved. They
didn't go online and okay, well here's a where else,
store it there, and then they would send their trucks

(10:30):
there to pick up the product and come across. Gangsterism
was a steep charge, and Hunter says he was getting
pressure to plead guilty, take a deal, and avoid a
lengthy trial. I think it was six months with some
kind of fine or something, I can't remember, and the

(10:51):
last one was house arresting, and I told him, no,
I'm not going to admit to something that I did
not do. I have to. If you're saying I said,
is bull, it's not even true. Said you made up
have this shape, You're gonna strom me in jail, s
from me in jail. But I'm not gonna admit to
something that I didn't do. Derreck and Hunter's trial took

(11:16):
place in the Montreal court House, an imposing brutalist building
sandwich between Little Chinatown and the Historic District. The proceedings
were presided over by a judge in a black robe
and white collar. Dereck and Pierre sat on one side
of the room and on the other or the Crown
prosecutors representing the Canadian government. The stage was set for
a court battle. Without further ado, let the fight begin, gentlemen,

(11:41):
to your corners, hold on, We'll be right back. The
Crown prosecutors took the floor first and presented their arguments

(12:03):
before a jury, while Derek and Pierre listened patiently. The
government's case relied heavily on the testimonies of investigators, undercover officers,
and informants that participated in Project My Gale. Day after day,
Crown prosecutors brought witnesses before the jury to prove that
Derek was knowingly defrauding the government. They brought out the
informant who started the whole case, who we heard earlier

(12:25):
next week. Sure I think of any your man, Thank you,
you got arrested in the United States for money laundering?
Is that right? And they brought out the members of
the surveillance team that intercepted Derek's phone calls and texts
and read them aloud. For the journey went for the

(12:46):
s s A, the kind of up Order services agency.
I was the person that listened to the communications that
were intercepted. And they brought out the undercover police officers
that drove the semi trucks shut alling tobacco across the
border to Derek's reservation. Next winness, you see a three
three three three? Can you tell me who you work for?

(13:08):
Right now? Uh U S Department of Homeland Security Poland
Journey investigations. The Crown strategy was to show that Derek
was responsible for paying the taxes, that he had violated
the Excise Act and knowingly committed fraud against the Canadian government. Derek,

(13:29):
as far as the Crown was concerned, was an importer
and in the old sailor of tobacco. So the proof
showed us that he had one big client, which was
Jason Lee of Six Nations, and when tobacco would get
to Gnawaugue, then it would be shipped to sixth Nations
by one of Derek's drivers, and he wouldn't make the

(13:51):
profit on the sale of the tobacco. One way the
government tried to prove Derek's wrongdoing and deliberate fraud was
his alleged use of code words word like pizza dough,
moose meat, racing tires, golf clubs. One of the cool
words is the pizza will be ready for Friday, for example.
It was nothing very complicated. So you put this, and

(14:11):
you put the fact that Friday there was a deliver
at to back when the sixth nation. You put two
and two together and that's nothing very complicated. But Derek
had an explanation for those code words. What does pizza
dough mean by sell pizza? It was it started off
it was pizza that I was bringing from this. They
never mentioned about the cheese or stuff like that, sauce

(14:33):
because everything we bring in is mostly from the States,
so it kind of started from there. I think the
government just use that as proof that you were speaking
in code. Yeah, whatever, the moose meats in the cooler
I was buying Actually I was buying moose meat from Hunter.

(14:54):
So a lot of the conversations that we're doing here,
even here under reserve. They suspected that it was tobacco,
but which we do sell all these kind of you know,
all these kind of things that we're talking about, the pizza,
the meat. I have a butcher shop, you know, I

(15:15):
have a pizza restaurant, everything, So they thought we were
talking about tobacco, but really it was actual food. To
be perfectly honest, when I asked Derek about those code words,
I hadn't actually heard the phone tape or text. All
he had were local media reports, and I really did
think Derek was telling the truth. This was just the

(15:37):
way that folks in Gottawage talked, and if you take
anything out of context, it's gonna look bad. But a
few months later we got the tapes from the trial,
and the code words, well they started sounding a little
less innocent. I'm sending moost meat soon period. Tell the
old man it's O D one period. Pezza truck wrote

(16:00):
down hopefully Tuesday or Wednesday, t will be there for lunch.
There was so much coded language that even the undercover
police got confused. In one operation, an undercover truck driver
accidentally picked up a load of salt instead of tobacco
because he didn't use the right code word at the warehouse.
Once I'd heard the tapes, I had to ask Derek

(16:22):
about it again, and his answer was a bit different
than what he'd said originally. I don't know. I guess
it's kind of uh make makes a little bit more
exciting if you are again, uh, you don't know if
those guys are being uh, you know, watched or what.
So that's you know, that's how they that That's the

(16:43):
way they they do everything is they use cold words,
and so I just followed what they say. Derek was
admitting that, yes, he did use the code words. They
made the whole thing feel like a movie, and more importantly,
it was the way his truck drivers and brokers spoke.

(17:03):
Derek was just following their example. But the fact that
he used code words doesn't make him a criminal. Being
shady isn't a crime. Derek has rights as a native person.
The way he sees it, he doesn't have to pay
taxes to the Canadian government, especially on something as traditional
as tobacco. He says. The fact that he's using code
words and trying to do things under the radar is

(17:25):
because the government refuses to acknowledge his rights. They won't
let us exercise our rights. They think we're criminals. They
want to make us look like criminals and their eyes
were doing something wrong, But in our eyes, it's what
we were. Um. I was brought up in this in

(17:46):
the tobacco trade with my grandmother. So from as far
as I remember, this is all legal stuff, you know.
So if I pulled up at the border coming from
the States and m yeah, I got a trunk full
of tobacco, They're gonna arrest me. They just they put
their own boarder there. They put their own taxes on

(18:08):
the cigarettes and stuff like that. It's for the government's Uh,
they're dire the only one that's benefiting from it. But
this wasn't a trial over indigenous history and constitutional rights.
It was a criminal trial over tax evasion. It was
being heard in a courthouse based on Canadian laws and procedures,
not Mohawk ones. Despite Derek's firm belief that he was

(18:30):
in the right, it would ultimately be up to a
jury to decide, and after months of hearing arguments from
both sides, that jury was finally ready to present a verdict.
That's after the break jury we even told that pronounced

(18:55):
your verdict. Yes, so Mr White, Mr Derek White, and
Mr aunt Montal to send up, ladies and gentlemen, o
the really will speaking on it will be all the

(19:16):
members of the injury and agreement on their verdict. Yes, yes,
so there White because conspiracy to their crotic government can
get it. I've gotten Ober five. So there White probed
against the government to then when you're building it's not

(19:42):
on council conspiracy to defraud the government of Quebec and
of committing fraud against the Government of Quebec. Derek White
was found not guilty. He had beaten the provincial charges.
And remember Derek's lawyer getting all excited and pumping his
fists and it was was really happy. So I'm like, well,
that's to be a good thing. I mean, we were

(20:04):
very confident in winning the provincial side because they got
approved that the manufactured products are sold true Quebec and
their evidence was very weak, so we got that part.
The provincial government of Quebec only levied taxes on finished
products manufactured cigarettes, and Derek only ever sold wholesale raw tobacco.

(20:28):
The government couldn't prove that he actually owed the forty
four million dollars in taxes that they claimed he did,
and the jury took Derek's side, and if we were
very lucky, would have won everything. Unfortunately, Derek still had
federal charges hanging over his head, the small issue of
five hundred million dollars innovated taxes owed to the federal
government of Canada. So oncou number one from some Derek

(20:54):
white top skating con activities of a criminal organization? What
is your guilty I'm talking about to mister n Termoto,
facilitating the activities of criminal organization? What is your real guilty?
I'm coming abo three. So they required conspiracy to defer

(21:16):
the government of Canada. What is your limit guilty? Thank you?
After hearing the slew of evidence on the structure of
Derek's organization and the involvement he had in the tobacco shipments,
the jury had decided that Derek was indeed the importer,
which meant it wasn't the broker's or the driver's responsibility

(21:39):
to pay taxes at the border, it was Derek's. I thought,
for sure, we're going to get off on both, you know,
federal and provincial. Was just shocked at we were found
guilty on the federal site because it's basically the same argument.
It's the same thing. You know, I didn't drive the

(21:59):
fucking truck across the border. All I did was when
the product got here, I would just send the money.
So it's delivered to the reserve. It's pax free. Hunter
had also been found guilty of a gangsters in charge
of aiding Derek's criminal organization. Together, they were looking at
years in prison, but Derek had a planned for this

(22:22):
which had been set in motion months earlier. It was
a plan that would keep him out of a jail
cell and postponed sentencing. More importantly, it was a legal
option that would allow him to argue his native rights
before a judge. Derek was going to file a constitutional
challenge Tuesday before. We don't have any anything to sip

(22:44):
because it's been all scheduled for the constitutional challenge. Thank
you very much, and we will come and so I'll
see you in June. Like from day one, we knew
that our second step was to go to challenge the
constitutional issue, so we had all rehired the constitutional lawyer.

(23:05):
In all this, Derek was going to fight his federal
charges on the grounds of the Canadian Constitution. Itself. He
wasn't trying to prove that he didn't bring tobacco across
the border without paying taxes. He was going to try
to prove that the tax laws didn't apply to him
and that trading tobacco tax free was his right as
a Native person. No tobacco case had ever come as

(23:26):
far in the Canadian legal system. And what are the
implications of this case if they win or lose. If
they win, and basically bacco trade will be legal for walks,
they won't need they won't need permits from the federal
or provincial governments, and they'll be able to deal into tobacco.
If Derrick loses, then it's he's gonna have to face

(23:50):
the sentence and go to jail. Well, why should I
plead to something that uh, I've I think that it's um,
I'm not doing anything wrong. I mean, we're exercising our
rights as Native people. Then we'll see who's ready to
keep fighting and go on how far you want to go.
It's not about standing in the tree line and trying

(24:12):
to scare army guys. This is a this is the
way things are done now. This is the fight tobacco.
Who is our is our trade. I mean, like I said,
it's still going on today and it's not gonna stop.
I mean, it's tobacco. Who it's our rights. We're gonna
continue selling tobacco and they ain't gonna stop us. It

(24:37):
seems like you don't, you know, put a lot of
stock in his argument that he's standing up for Native
rights in this I won't be right to say, don't
add that. Jimmy the anonymous investigator who worked on My Gil.
It makes my skin crawl when I hear people say

(24:58):
there's some kind of Native America in warrior, some kind
of social Native American warrior. They're doing it for the
fucking money, period, end of story. Yeah, he's not Robin Hood.
He's not getting money from the rich guys and giving
it to the poor. That's a social hero, not some

(25:19):
asshole who pays people organized crime figures and and Hell's
Angels and people to smuggle across the border. He was
increasing his wealth and the tribe saw nothing from it.
So when he makes representations that he's some kind of warrior,
you know what, I disagree. Derrick White and other natives

(25:45):
like that would have my respect if they drove down
to North Carolina and bought a tractor trailer load of
tobacco under their own name, with a good bill of lading,
and drove to Canada. And when they got to the
Canadian Border Services and the agent at the border said,
what do you got back there? If Derek White would

(26:08):
have looked at that agent and said, I have cut
rack tobacco. Here's my bill of lading showing I paid
for cut reck tobacco. I'm taking it to my own
licensed facility or my friends on licensed facility where I'm
gonna sell it and it's gonna be made into cigarettes.
And if you've got a problem with that, let's talk
about it in court. Because I think I got it
right through this, just like every other Native American does.

(26:29):
I would respect that. That's not what he fucking did.
It turns out, though someone did do that thirty years ago.
He followed all the rules and launched a case against
the government, even took it all the way to the
Supreme Court. It was supposed to be a landmark case
for Native rights, and then he got screwed next time.

(26:53):
On running smoke, It's like playing a game of cards
with somebody and they just decided we're going to change
the rules so they can win. It was a dumb case.
I never should have been argued before the court. He
thought he was going to be very savior. Just no
other way to fight it. And what else you're gonna do.
You're not gonna have a war over it because we're
not gonna win. We have to fight in a system
that inherently has waited against us, and we have no choice.

(27:14):
Every time, every every court case, the government always won.
Running Smokes the production of camp Site Media, Dan Patrick
Productions and Workhouse Media. The series was written and reported
by me Roger Goa. Our producers are Lea Papes, Laine Gerbig,

(27:35):
and Julie Dennische. Our editors are Michelle Lands and Emily Martinez.
Sound designed and original music by Mark McAdam, additional sound
and mixing by ewen Lyone from you In. Additional reporting
by Susie McCarthy. Our executive producers or Dan Patrick, Josh
de New Camp Said Media, Paul Anderson, Nick Pnella and
Andrew Greenwood for Workhouse Media. Fact checking by Mary Mathis,

(27:56):
artwork by Polly Adams, and additional thanks to Greghorn, Anny Kaufman,
Sierra Franco, Elizabeth van Brocklyn and Shawn Flynn MHM
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