Gerald Ward

Gerald "Skinny" Ward is a Canadian outlaw biker and gangster who served as president of the Niagara County chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and as one of the co-leaders of the Hells Angels in Canada. The Papalia family Starting in 1965, Ward had 23 convictions for fraud, weapons, drugs, property and violence offenses. He was considered by the police to be the prime drug dealer in the Niagara Peninsula for the Magaddino family of Buffalo, New York via its Canadian subsidy, the Papalia family of Hamilton. Ward was tried for murder three times and attempted murder once, and was acquitted all four times. The journalist Jerry Langton called Ward "an all-time tough guy". In the summer of 1997, following the murders of Johnny Papalia, the long-time boss of the Papalia family, and Papalia's right-hand man, Carmen Barillaro, Ward was contacted by the Hells Angels national president Walter "Nurget" Stadnick for what the police call a "crime summit". One police officer, Shawn Clarkson, of the Niagara Falls Police stated: "There was nobody to stand up to the Hells Angels the way Barillaro or Papalia would have. Papalia, even though he was 73 when he died, he wouldn't have put up with that". Ward was not an outlaw biker and did not even know how to ride a motorcycle, but he agreed to work for the Hells Angels. Len Isnor, the chief of the Ontario Provincial Police's Anti-Biker Enforcement Unit, stated: "Ward was never a biker. But Stadnick said, 'You're a Hells Angel now', and so he become one pretty quickly". In the summer of 1998, Standick and the entire Hells Angels chapter from Sherbrooke arrived in Niagara Falls for what the police call a crime "summit" with Ward. Ward had been buying his cocaine from the Magaddino family of Buffalo, and was considered to be the most powerful drug dealer in the Niagara peninsula. The Hells Angels' Sherbrooke chapter is known as one of the most violent in Canada, and Stadnick taking the entire Sherbrooke chapter with him to Niagara Falls is believed to have been an act of subtle intimidation on his part. It was agreed at the "crime summit" that henceforward Ward would only buy his drugs from the Hells Angels, thereby establishing Angels' influence in the Niagara peninsula. Clarkson stated: "I don't think (Ward) really wanted to do it, but I don't think they gave him a choice. It was either... he joined up, or the Hells Angels would bring in ten guys from Quebec to do it.