- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 410
Someone posted this on another forum, thought I would post it here.
http://www.thestar.com/article/279853
http://www.thestar.com/article/279853
TheStar.com - GTA - Biker's son snubbed by military
Would-be soldier, 23, with clean resumé seemingly torpedoed by father's crime sheet
November 26, 2007
Peter Edwards
staff reporter
When Jessi Lenti was 8 years old, his father took him to Canada's Wonderland where he dressed up like a little soldier and posed with a toy gun.
"Dad, this is what I want to do," his father, Frank Lenti, recalls him saying at the amusement park north of Toronto.
Now Jessi Lenti, 23, has been rejected from joining the Canadian military because of his father's long-time association with outlaw biker clubs.
"I'm the criminal, so why punish him?" asked his 60-year-old father, formerly of the Bandidos, Loners, Outlaws, Rebels, Diablos and Satan's Choice motorcycle clubs.
Frank Lenti made his comments from the maximum-security wing of a Toronto-area jail, where he's awaiting trial for second-degree murder after the shooting of three Hells Angels in a Vaughan strip club last December. He has pleaded not guilty.
Jessi Lenti's application for the military was supported by strong references from teachers. He also has a black belt in karate, experience in the Queen's York Rangers' co-op program for high school students – and no criminal record.
"This is me," Jessi Lenti said in an interview. "I'm myself. I'm not my father. Judge me for who I am."
York Regional police Chief Armand La Barge said his force has never considered the young Lenti to have a criminal profile.
"To the best of our knowledge, he (Jessi Lenti) has never been a member of an outlaw motorcycle gang and to the best of our knowledge, he has never been a member of an organized crime group or entity either," La Barge said.
Jessi Lenti, who now works in a bar, is appealing his rejection to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. No hearing date has been set.
He said he was shocked this summer when an officer in the Canadian Forces told him that he couldn't enlist because the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (had concluded he was affiliated with organized crime.
"I was speechless," Jessi Lenti said. "I didn't know what to say.
"I never got anything on paper," he continued, adding he would like a chance to challenge whatever has lined up the military against him.
"What they're trying to tell me is, `We don't want you to do good. Go do bad,'" Jessi Lenti said. "I'm trying to go in a straight line."
He has already unsuccessfully taken his case to his Member of Parliament and the National Defence and Canadian Forces Ombudsman.
Maj. Laurie Kannegiesser of the Canadian Forces in Ottawa says that the military takes its security guidelines from the Government of Canada Security Policy, and in particular, the Personnel Security Standard.
She noted that a person can be denied a security clearance through "reliability as it relates to loyalty, because of personal beliefs, features of character, association with persons or groups considered a security threat, or family or other close ties to persons living in oppressive or hostile countries, the individual may act or may be induced to act in a way that constitutes a `threat to the security of Canada'; or they may disclose, may be induced to disclose, or may cause to be disclosed in an unauthorized way, classified information."
Canadian military historian Jack Granatstein said he has never heard of a case in which the son of a motorcycle gang member has been denied membership in the military because of his family ties.
Granatstein said it's not difficult to guess why the military might be concerned about potential security breaches, but "I've never heard of this kind of thing before."
Jessi Lenti said that he had planned since grade school to enter the military. "I've always wanted to do it, to serve my country. It was going to be a lifetime plan."
Ray Lefaive, Jessi Lenti's former vice-principal at St. Joan of Arc secondary school in Maple, had only good things to say about his former student.
"He was not a bad kid at all," recalled Lefaive, who was in charge of discipline at the Catholic school. "He was one of the better kids. ... There was never any violence, never any drugs."
Lenti only crossed the line on minor things like dress code violations and truancy, Lefaive recalled.
The vice-principal described his father Frank Lenti as a concerned, stricter-than-average parent who gave Lefaive permission to slap his son on the head, if necessary. It was never necessary, Lefaive said.
Asked how his father would likely react if he joined an outlaw motorcycle gang, Jessi Lenti smiled. "He'd hunt me down. He'd probably rip the (club's) patch off and smack me across the head with it."
Lefaive and others knew about Frank Lenti's biker associations.
They were front page news in August 1995, when the senior Lenti was almost killed when someone detonated a remote-controlled bomb hidden under his Ford Explorer, which was parked in the family driveway.
His attackers were never arrested.
Lefaive said his impression was Frank Lenti didn't want his son to embrace the lifestyle of an outlaw biker. "I really always felt that he was sheltered from it," he said.
Frank Lenti agreed with that assessment.
"I had a lot of fun but in the end you end up in a place like this," he said, gesturing at the cinder-block walls of the maximum-security wing of a Toronto-area jail.
"I always told him that I didn't want him involved in my business." Frank Lenti's criminal record includes prison time for extortion and armed robbery.
He's awaiting trial for second-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder for the fatal shooting and double wounding last December of members of the West Toronto chapter of the Hells Angels.
Two members of the Hells Angels are awaiting trial for conspiracy to murder Lenti.
Frank Lenti said he considers it odd that the military can bar someone because of his family ties, while two children of Quebec Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto are practising lawyers in Quebec. Rizzuto is now in prison in the U.S. for his role in three gangland murders.
Jessi Lenti said that his father sometimes mused he should have chosen a more mainstream path in life, such as a politician or a judge.
Ironically, Frank Lenti said he opposes the war in Afghanistan, and shudders at the thought of his son risking his life there, should he win his appeal and get into the military.
"Why should we fight their war?" the senior Lenti asked
