Reaction to a documentary | “I never stole Alex Hilton”, defends Gilles Proulx

Flayed in a documentary series on boxer Alex Hilton, radio and TV host Gilles Proulx wants to restore his reputation. Yes, it was “naive” to invest the boxer’s money in a tax haven, around 2004, but he did it by acting like a “big brother”, he defends himself.

“I never stole Alex Hilton,” insists the former host of the Midday newspaper of CKAC and CJMS, known for his numerous rants and his strong pronunciation.

The 84-year-old man, who writes a weekly column in The Montreal Journal for years, has been angry with radio host Marie-Claude Savard and her documentary Be a Hilton.

The three-episode series broadcast on Crave, in which Mr. Proulx voluntarily participated, explores the tumultuous life of the Hilton clan, this brotherhood of five Montreal boxers known as much for their fury in the ring as for their numerous run-ins with the law.

The screenplay focuses particularly on Alex’s recovery after years of alcoholism, violence and depression.

Host Marie-Claude Savard tries in particular to shed light on a matter hitherto unknown to the public: the disappearance of a nest egg of nearly $90,000 amassed by Alex Hilton at the end of his boxing career.

“His last scholarships, which represent approximately $90,000, were stolen from him by a well-known radio host who agreed to make the documentary. It was Gilles Proulx,” declared M^me Savard, when she was interviewed on the show We’re going to tell each otheron -, to promote his series.

Mise in residencee

“It’s a cream pie in the face,” reacts Gilles Proulx, in an interview with The Press. “I have reached the end of my career, and here, at the 19^e minute of the 3^e period, I have my ass on a coal shovel and I am told: “Get out!”, when my career should be crowned for my sustained tenacity. »

Mr. Proulx sent to Mr.^me Savard and Productions Déferlantes issued a formal notice on October 30, accusing them of having formulated “very clearly criminal accusations” against him and demanding a retraction.

In an email sent to The PressProductions Déferlantes replies that “no accusation or conclusion is formulated” against Mr. Proulx in the documentary and that “in no case is Mr. Proulx presented as the thief of a sum of money in the three hours of content from the series.”

But Alex Hilton, in an interview with The Pressadds a layer: “He stole my money,” he said. If Gilles Proulx wants to prove that he did not steal from me, we can both take a lie detector,” challenges the former boxer, now 59 years old.

Role of protective

Gilles Proulx’s involvement in the life and career of Alex Hilton began in the late 1990s, informally. “The Hiltons were gypsies,” explains Gilles Proulx. Father Hilton had kicked Alex out, and I offered to take care of his boxing contracts, pro bono. » The agreement took place on a handshake.

“I witnessed the incredible efforts of Gilles Proulx to protect Alex Hilton from those around him,” recalls Réjean Tremblay, former columnist for The Press who has mentioned their relationship a few times in his articles. “I saw him take care of it, negotiate scholarships for it with determination. He picked Alex up after brushes,” he says.

From one fight to another, Alex Hilton managed to collect a little more than $80,000 in purses, says Gilles Proulx. But as he “had no idea of ​​the value of money” and “wasted everything”, the host took steps to invest the nest egg.

A businessman close to him, Léon Gélinas, who manufactured sports coats, convinced them to invest the money with a certain Victor Lacroix, who promised a 12% return.

A “thick envelope” money

In separate interviews with The PressAlex Hilton, Gilles Proulx and Léon Gélinas all three remember going to the office of Victor Lacroix, boulevard Daniel-Johnson, in Laval, but none remembers the precise date.

Alex had brought “a thick envelope” of money, said Mr. Proulx, in exchange for which an investment certificate “in a tax-free bank” was given to him.

“They just told me it was an offshore investment. I didn’t know that, so I trusted Mr. Proulx,” remembers Alex Hilton.

“After two months, we received a paper which showed that the value of the investment had increased by $2,000,” assures Gilles Proulx.

Except that the famous Victor Lacroix ended up disappearing into the mist. In 2005, the company he headed, Bear Bay Holding, became embroiled in the Mount Real debacle, a Ponzi fraud in which 1,600 investors lost $130 million.

Victor Lacroix was later ordered by the Financial Markets Authority to pay $156,000 in fines for illegally selling investment certificates in Mount Real.

In her documentary, Marie-Claude Savard “deplores” that Gilles Proulx did not “try to get the money” by registering Alex Hilton in a collective action which ultimately allowed the victims of Mount Real to recover 43 million in 2016.

The Mount Real scandal, however, is not the only fraud in which Bear Bay was involved during the same period. In March 2004, the Gazette reported that dozens of small savers, especially from Montreal’s Italian community, collectively lost 25 million in a Bahamas company linked to Bear Bay. Journalist Don Macdonald, who covered the story at the time, remembers that Victor Lacroix and his business partner fled Montreal when the scandal broke.

These questionable overseas transactions by Bear Bay, which were investigated and sanctioned by the Canada Revenue Agency, were never the subject of a class action. None of the victims have been compensated.

The Press was unable to find Victor Lacroix.

“It just went wrong”

Gilles Proulx admits to having been “naive” in entrusting the money to Victor Lacroix, but places the blame on Léon Gélinas.

“Gilles Proulx is not guilty of anything and he is not a thief. It simply went wrong,” says Léon Gélinas, who rejects all responsibility.

“Gilles Proulx, he did a lot of good in Alex’s life, very often reaching into his pocket to help him, when Alex was on a slide. He took care of it as if it were his son,” testifies Denis Sicotte, a friend of Alex Hilton who also participated in the documentary.

Alex Hilton, for his part, only kept one document of this investment, bearing the letterhead of Bear Bay Holding.

“It’s a bogus document,” accuses the former boxer, who believes that Gilles Proulx and Léon Gélinas were in cahoots with Victor Lacroix to strip him of his scholarships.

When he realized the money was missing, he says he became depressed and began drinking to excess, to the point of living in a park in the middle of winter.

“I don’t have much education, I trusted the wrong people,” laments Alex Hilton.

With Daniel Renaud, The Press