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| Paolo "Paul" Cotroni |
| Paolo, the second of Frank Cotroni's five sons, was born in 1956. He and his brothers would follow in their father's footsteps and continue their family's legacy. According to police, Paolo ran a lucrative narcotics network that sold drugs out of the organization's night clubs and bars. He was also known to have established strong connections with the Hells Angels and two of their puppet clubs, the Rockers and Death Riders (now known as the Rockers North). Paolo was arrested on August 30, 1990 after police found a stolen 26 foot boat, worth $125,000, in the backyard of his Repentigny home. The boat, called Fountain Fever, had been one of two vessels pilfered from the Can-Am company on August 21. He spent the night in prison and appeared the next day before judge |
| Michel Hétu at the Joliette court house. He was charged with stealing and fencing the boat. He would be found guilty and fined $15,000. Paolo's name headlines again in 1992 when police connected him to a fire that burned down the Oscar nightclub in Saint-Leonard. The establishment had been the target of several incidents since Paolo's girlfriend, Michele Veilleux, had been fired. On August 23, 1998, after returning home from dinner at his younger brother Jimmy's house, Paolo was ambushed by two men as he exited his car. He was shot six times, including twice in the head. A concerned neighbor pursued the attackers but they entered a car, where an accomplice waited, and sped away. He was taken to the Sacre-Coeur Hospital in Cartierville, where he was placed on life support. The entire Cotroni family was present except Paolo's father, Frank, and brother, Francesco Jr., who were both behind bars for cocaine trafficking. On August 25, two days after the attack, the family made the painful decision to remove Paolo from life support. The official time of death was 1:40 pm. He is survived by two daughters. On the morning of Paolo's funeral, August 28, 1998, a masked assassin strolled into a Montreal espresso bar and fired a round from a 12 gauge shotgun into the face of 69 year old Vincenzo Melia. The victim was taken to a hospital and survived. |