Suspect in Montreal mob killing was on bail

Brampton man had been arrested on drugs, gun charges

A Brampton man was on bail and subject to a weapons prohibition when he allegedly murdered a Montreal woman linked to the Mafia, court records reveal.

One day after he allegedly killed 39-year-old Claudia Iacono on May 16, Joel Richard Clarke, 28, was arrested on a series of drug and weapons charges in Brampton. Those charges included four separate counts of allegedly violating existing bail conditions, including a weapons ban, the court records say.

Clarke was also charged with possession of a restricted weapon.

At the time of the initial Brampton arrest, Clarke had not yet been charged in Iacono’s death. He was released again following bail hearing on May 17; the Ontario Provincial Police ultimately arrested him on a charge of first-degree murder on Tuesday.

Details of his evidence discussed at his May 17 bail hearing are subject to a standard publication ban protecting his right to a fair trial.

It was not immediately clear what earlier charges produced his previous bail conditions, in effect at the time of Iacono’s shooting death.

Clarke’s arrest comes as tensions boil in the Montreal underworld, including a botched murder attempt against Leonardo Rizzuto, son of the late Vito Rizzuto, who was widely considered Canada’s top Mafia figure until his death by natural causes a decade ago.

Murders of women in Mafia struggles are considered extremely rare.

Iacono died in her car after being shot close to the hair salon she ran in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges district.

Iacono’s father-in-law was Moreno Gallo, who was assassinated in an Acapulco restaurant in Mexico in 2013 after reportedly running afoul of the Rizzutocrime group.

Gallo received a life sentence for the 1973 killing of a Montreal drug dealer and was paroled and deported to Italy in 2012.

Also this week, Montreal Mafia leader Francesco (Chit) Del Balso was shot dead near a gym in the Dorval, a city on Montreal island.

Once a top member of the Rizzuto group, Del Balso was reportedly a suspect in the failed attempt earlier this year to kill Leonardo Rizzuto.

Last week, Laval police announced that Carlos Pena Torrez, 36, of Toronto, faces separate attempted murder charges in the shooting of a 77-year-old man in Laval, Quebec.

That attempted murder charge in Quebec against Torrez comes after the Jan. 29 shooting of the man in broad daylight in a busy Laval parking lot. After that shooting, Montreal police said an investigation confirms that the wrong victim was shot.

La Presse newspaper reported that the intended target in the Laval murder bid was Del Balso, whose criminal record includes convictions for cocaine smuggling, gangsterism, possession of the proceeds of crime, tax evasion and threatening a reporter.

At the time of his arrest, Quebec police said Clarke was a person known to Canadian police in relation to “a multitude of events of violence.”

Clarke’s court documents reveal an earlier arrest in which he was charged with kidnapping, assault with a weapon and flight from police in Toronto on March 16, 2018.

It is not clear from the documents what came of those charges.

Aside from the first-degree murder charge, outstanding charges against Clarke include possession of a prohibited weapon and possession of a restricted substance.

Clarke remains in custody in Quebec and his case was carried over to July 13.