Linda Sebastaio, ex-wife of former Oshawa Hells Angel Steven Gault, wants child support money for their 14-year-old daughter. He's now in a witness protection program after working as a police agent.
PETER EDWARDS/TORONTO STARLike many single mothers, Linda Sebastiao dreads the back-to-school bills, when she’s expected to shell out big bucks for clothing and school supplies.
Also like many single parents, Sebastiao is hoping to share the bills with her former spouse.
The problem is Sebastiao’s ex is Steven (Hannibal) Gault, a former Oshawa Hells Angel who’s now deep in a witness protection program. And how do you collect child support from someone who has a secret identity and address?
Gault testified in court in 2008 that he had received more than $1 million for his undercover work with police that helped land his former biker colleagues behind bars. That work ended with convictions for drugs, weapons and criminal organization, against 21 Ontario Hells Angels and associates.
Sebastiao, 34, says a lawyer has calculated that Gault owes $487,000 in child support going back eight years. She plans to file papers in court very soon.
This week, through a police intermediary, Gault offered her a one-time only payment of $200, she says.
Gault could not be reached for comment.
During his biker days, Gault wasn’t known to back down from fights and was nicknamed “Hannibal” for his taste for blood.
“He was proud of that,” Sebastiao says.
Sebastiao said Gault was proud that he bit off a chunk of a man’s ear in a Campbellford pool hall brawl. He was convicted of assault for that.
“When we would make him steak for supper, his was just with spices, raw, not even on the grill for a little,” she says.
Sebastiao is certain Gault has plenty of money to help out with expenses for their 14-year-old daughter, if he wished.
“He would rather spend $5,000 on a (motor)bike part than $50 for a good pair of shoes for his daughter.” Sebastiao says.
Theoretically, Sebastiao has a strong claim for child support benefits, experts say.
Toronto lawyer Barry Swadron says Sebastiao should be able to get paperwork requiring Gault to pay child support, even if she doesn’t know his new location and identity.
“The very people who are protecting him should be cooperative in serving the necessary papers,” says Swadron, who once served divorce papers to someone in witness protection through the RCMP.
The Family Responsibility Office is charged with enforcing child and spousal support orders, and an official there says Gault can’t hide from child support obligations while hiding from his former biker buddies.
However, Sebastiao will have to push the issue, if she hopes to collect money.
The Family Responsibility Office isn’t informed when clients are put into witness protection programs, says Charlotte Wilkinson of the Ministry of Community and Social Services, which administers the Family Responsibility Office.
“If FRO becomes aware that a support payor is in witness protection, we have the ability to advise the relevant police service of the payer’s support obligation,” Wilkinson says. “It remains the support payer’s responsibility to make court-ordered support payments.”
In June 2010, Sebastiao was awarded $35,000 from the provincial Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, after it concluded she had been frequently physically and sexually assaulted by Gault over an eight-year period.
Sebastiao says the current tensions are a far cry from her giddy feelings when their relationship began, when she was just 18. Gault was generous and charming then, she says. Within a month, they were living together. Less than a year after that, they had a baby girl.
“He was very charming and swept me off my feet.”
Back then, Gault was a good provider, if not an honest one.
He was part of a group called “The Travellers,” which targeted seniors living on farms in Eastern Ontario for renovation scams.
One elderly farmer was bilked for $260,000 for renovation work that was never done, she says.
While the money was dirty, it was plentiful, she says.
“He gave us everything we wanted. Everything that we needed. We bought a nice, cute little place.”
The longer they were married, the more he pushed to control her, she says. She says she wasn’t allowed to have a driver’s licence and that he beat her for the smallest things, such as if he thought toilet paper was rolling the wrong way.
She said his personality took a dramatic turn for the worse when he became an outlaw biker with the Satan’s Choice Motorcycle Club. That organization was swallowed up by the Hells Angels in 2000, at which time he became a member of that club.
“After he got his full patch he thought he was king of the world.”
There was more partying, more cocaine and more abuse, she says.
Gault was convicted in 2002 of attempting to harass a Durham Region police officer and his family.
A year later, Gault had a restraining order against him, forbidding him from having contact with Sebastiao’s family after he allegedly threatened to blow up their family home with them inside.
At the 2008 trial of two Oshawa Hells — just one of the trials Gault testified at — the court heard that he once told her he could tie her to a tree, cover her with honey, and let bugs and animals eat her.
“If they can’t find a body they can’t lay a charge,” she recalled him saying. He also said it would be easy to dispose of her body with lime, she says.
His constant threats made her afraid to leave him, although she thought of it often.
“I was scared, scared of what he might do to me and my family; like what he had threatened.”
After he joined the Hells Angels, Sebastiao says Gault became increasingly nervous about their cute little house — in which Sebastiao no longer lives.
It had huge front windows, which Sebastiao loved. Gault bricked them in, telling her that cut their chances of being hurt in a drive-by shooting attack.
Their marriage finally ended around the time Gault told her he was turning police agent, to make big money from his former brothers.
At first she protested to him that she didn’t want to live in a witness protection program.
“I said, ‘I love my family. I don’t want to leave my family and never see them again.’ ”
The final breaking point, she says, was when he said he wanted to move his ex-stripper girlfriend in with them.
Today, she says she has no fears from the Hells Angels, since Gault is their enemy as well. After her split with him, club members helped out with living expenses for a few months until she could get resettled, she says.
“I’ve got no worries because I never ratted on the bikers. In the end, they’re the ones who helped me.”
What she does worry about is telling her 14-year-old daughter she might not be able to get her the school clothes she wants and needs.
“She’s getting older. She needs things.”
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