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GTA hit man Charles Gagne has failed to regain his parole amidst allegations of questionable cryptocurrency dealings, associations with sex workers and prohibited use of marijuana.
Gagne nodded his head slightly and said nothing as he heard the decision.
“I’ve made bad choices, but I mean well,” Gagne testified at the parole hearing Wednesday.
Gagne was sentenced to life in prison in 2003 after pleading guilty to second-degree murder for the contract killings of GTA pro boxer Eddie Melo and his friend Joao (Johnny) Pavao in 2001.
He murdered Melo and Pavao while on parole for armed robbery. Court heard at his trial that Gagne drove to the GTA from Ottawa, fatally shot Melo and Pavao, and drove back to the halfway house by bedtime. Gagne never told court who paid him for killing Melo.
Melo was sometimes a driver for the late Frank Cotroni, a Montreal mobster and convicted killer who was also a boxing fan who sometimes visited the GTA, court heard during one of Cotroni’s trials.
There were plenty of problems before his parole was revoked in November, a year after it was granted, Gagne’s parole officer, Jennifer Laplante, said at Wednesday’s hearing.
At the hearing, Gagne denied multiple assertations by his parole officer about his conduct over the past year, before his parole was taken away.
He admitted to breaching a parole condition that he stay within the Ottawa area and that he not secretly communicate with others on his cellphone. He said he tried to stay within such parole restrictions, but sometimes failed.
“I’m a work in progress,” Gagne told his parole hearing. “I have to work on my risk factors.
“Thirty years in prison kind of affected my mental health in a lot of ways.”
He denied an allegation that he consorted with sex workers during his parole and said he wouldn’t even know where to find a sex worker in the Ottawa area, where he was supposed to reside. The allegations about sex workers were not spelled out at the hearing.
He also disputed an allegation that he wasn’t providing necessary financial disclosure to his parole officer, but acknowledged spending tens of thousands of dollars of borrowed money on cryptocurrency. Laplante was concerned that Gagne was getting financial advice from a former convict on cryptocurrency investments without notifying her.
The parole board heard he was a hard worker while free. Gagne testified that he put in 11-hour work days and got numerous promotions while employed in building maintenance.
He said that a woman he was dating refused to allow for a criminal record check by his parole officer.
“She’s not a criminal,” Gagne said. “She’s extremely intelligent. She advises me how to deal with people at work and all kinds of stuff.”
He agreed that he deleted text messages, despite his parole restriction.
“I was just embarrassed,” he said.
Gagne said that he used THC, but said it was for anxiety and nightmares.
“I work out every day,” he said. “I don’t intend to get involve in any type of criminal activity. I’m done.”
Melo’s daughter Jessica urged the parole board not to grant him parole again.
“He will never be reformed,” she told the board.
“It’s not a matter of ‘if’ with him,” she said. “It’s a matter of when.”
Correction - Jan. 17, 2025
This article was edited from a previous version that misspelled the given name of Joao (Johnny) Pavao.
