Giovanni "John" Muscedere (25 May 1957 – 7 April 2006), also known as "Boxer", was a Canadian outlaw biker and gangster who served as the national president of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club in Canada from 2002 until his murder in 2006.
[3] As a child, he was often bullied for being a "wop" and a "dogan" (derogatory Canadian slang for a Roman Catholic), and fought back, acquiring a great reputation as a fighter, which led him to take up boxing as his hobby.
[4] Muscedere's friends and family believed the childhood bullying had scarred him, making him adopt a tough persona to hide any weaknesses, which explained his love of boxing and later motorcycles.
[5] Muscedere worked at a factory making automobile brakes in Chatham from 1979 until his murder, a job he hated as he found it very dull, but it gave him a good salary.
[7] Muscedere had a strong sense of masculinity informed by traditional Italian values, for instance always paying the child support payments to both his ex-wives on time and in full on the grounds it was dishonourable for a father to let down his children.
[18] In October 2001, Joe "Crazy Horse" Morin, president of the Edmonton chapter of the Rebels outlaw biker club, first contacted the Bandidos with the aim of "patching over".
[20] On 2 February 2002, Muscedere attended the London Auto Show and hugged Mario "Mike the Wop" Parente, the Outlaw national president.
[27] In July 2002, Kellestine was sentenced to two years in prison after being convicted of 22 counts of violating the laws governing guns, after the police discovered various illegal firearms at his farm in 1999.
[11] Reflecting their embattled status within the world of outlaw biking, Atkinson suggested the name "no surrender crew" for the Toronto chapter, which was adopted.
[29] In 2003, Muscedre sent Atkinson on an extended visit back to his native Ireland in an unsuccessful attempt to have the Irish Alliance biker gang join the Bandidos.
[33] Atkinson later stated that he left the Bandidos because of Muscedere's leadership, saying Muscedere was addicted to cocaine, his judgement was poor, he lacked political savvy and was not connected to reality, preferring to focus on promoting so-called biker "brotherhood" by devoting much time to the design of Christmas cards to his fellow Bandidos instead of making difficult decisions.
[11] Moreover, Edwards wrote that Muscedere was regarded as far preferable than Kellestine with his "... mercurial mood swings and stream-of-consciousness rantings, in which he somehow equated the Confederacy, the American Revolution and Nazism with goodness and Canada.
Boxer Muscedere could barely read and write and didn't play historian, but he was straightforward, honest, fearless and loyal to a fault, which just fine with them".
[39] At a meeting of Fullager's house, Kriarakis was taken to task for his violation of the outlaw biker code, which publicly humiliated the Toronto Bandido chapter.
[40] Morin, who was considering "patching over" to join the Bandidos, expressed much doubt after the Kriarakis incident, saying the only members of the Toronto chapter who impressed him were Atkinson and Lenti.
[41] On 30 January 2004, Morin was murdered together with his friend, Robert Simpson, in the parking lot of an Edmonton strip club, Saint Pete's, possibly by the Hells Angels.
[44] On 24 July 2004, Muscedere sent out an email to all Canadian Bandidos announcing that his girlfriend Nina Lee was about to give birth, and his expansion into Western Canada had finally worked.
[45] In August 2004, after being released from prison following his conviction on gun and drug charges, Kellestine become the sargento de armas of the Canadian Bandidos, and was displeased at the way his former protegee Muscedere now overshadowed him.
[48] During the Taste of the Danforth festival in Toronto in August 2004, Atkinson met Kriarakis to tell him he was planning on leaving the Bandidos, saying that Muscedere had lost contact with reality, being short-sighted and ill-tempered; Kellestine was dangerous, and another club member, Michael "Taz" Sandham, seemed like a shady character.
[56] Muscedere had Michael "Little Mikey" Trotta rent out as the Bandidos clubhouse a property on Jefferson Avenue in Liberty Village in Toronto in January 2005.
[59] The Bandidos were not a profitable group as Muscedere had his Telus and Fido cellphone accounts cut off in the first half of 2005 owing to his inability to pay his phone bills.
[63] In defense of Muscedere, Salerno wrote in an email to Carleton "Pervert" Bare, the secretary of the Bandidos in the U.S., that the national president had tried five times to visit Houston.
[70] Pike was greatly displeased by the refusal of the "no surrender crew" to return their patches together with Muscedere's call for a vote to allow the Toronto chapter to stay, bluntly announcing the "Bandido Nation" was not a democracy.
[74] A reprieve of sorts was won for the "no surrender crew" when George Kriarakis, who had no criminal record, was able to visit Houston and made a good impression.
[64] The indebted Kellestine frequently complained that the other members were more interested having the chapter serve as a social club rather than as a money-making concern, which echoed the feelings of the American leadership of the Bandidos.
The barn was full of rusting machinery, old furniture, and children's toys while its walls were decorated with pornographic photographs of buxom young women sitting atop Harley-Davidson motorcycles or half-dressed as construction workers together with "Kellestine's usual Nazi propaganda".
[85] Sandham was standing in the rafters with a rifle, while Dwight "Big Dee" Mushey, Frank Mather, Marcelo "Fat Ass" Aravena and a biker known as "M.H."
"[93] Flanz sat crossed-legged on the floor with his hands on the back of his head while Kellestine kept pistol-whipping him and ramming his gun into his face, saying he was about to die followed up by saying "just kidding".
[95] Over the next two hours, Kellestine frequently changed his mind about whether he was going to "pull the patches" or execute the "no surrender crew", and at one point allowed Muscedere to call his girlfriend, Nina Lee, on his cell phone provided he "didn't say anything fucking stupid".
[106] Edwards agreed with her, writing the Bandidos with their "grandiose rituals and overblown mythology" seemed "more the stuff of fantasy and macho escapism than real life" that appealed to weak, insecure men.