Sébastien Giroux’s plea has been under a publication ban imposed on the March 15 hearing, but the ban was partially lifted on Friday.
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A Montreal man is scheduled to be sentenced in May for being an accessory after the fact to a murder carried out in the Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough five years ago.
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On March 15, Sébastien Giroux, 35, pleaded guilty at the Montreal courthouse to being an accessory after the fact to the murder committed during the spring of 2017.
Giroux’s guilty plea has been under a publication ban imposed on the March 15 hearing, but the ban was partially lifted on Friday. After hearing arguments from lawyers representing the Montreal Gazette and La Presse, Quebec Superior Court Justice Marc David agreed that some of what was said in court on March 15 can be published. But, as part of the same decision, other details cannot be published, including the name of the murder victim and the suspect in the homicide.
When Giroux pleaded guilty, he admitted he was an accessory after the fact to murder during a period between May 24, 2017 and November 24, 2017.
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David accepted the guilty plea and agreed to delay sentencing Giroux until May 13. Prosecutor Nathalie Kléber and defense lawyer Carl Devost Fortin recommended Giroux be sentenced to a three-year prison term. Giroux was arrested in December and Kléber told David the joint recommendation included a request that Giroux be released from a detention center in the interim.
“Because of a particular situation and for family reasons we will ask you to delay your decision on the sentence until May 13,” Kléber said. “It will allow him to settle certain affairs.”
David agreed with the request, as well as a request from the prosecutor that he impose several conditions on Giroux’s release. They include a curfew and an order that he keep away from people who have criminal records.
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The prosecutor asked for three exceptions to the latter condition. Giroux is allowed to associate with three men who have criminal records, including Emmanuel Zephir, 49, one of the most notorious street gang leaders in Montreal, and his brother, 45-year-old Jean-Ismael Zephir.
Emmanuel Zephir has been identified in court cases in the past as the leader of a street gang called the Crack Down Posse and, later on, a gang called the Syndicate that was formed by Gregory Woolley, one of the most influential organized crime figures in Quebec , while he worked for the Hells Angels during Quebec’s biker gang war.
Zephir has not been charged with a crime since he and his brother were arrested in 2009 in Project Axe, an investigation into drug trafficking linked to street gangs and the Hells Angels, but he has an extensive criminal record. It includes a conviction for killing a rival gang member during a party in northern Montreal in 1999.
