Mario Parente (born 1949) is a Canadian outlaw biker and gangster, mostly noted for serving as the Canadian national president of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club between 2000 and 2009.
Satan's Choice Parente was born in Hamilton, Ontario into a working-class family of Italian immigrants. Parente was born and grew up in the "lower" part of Hamilton under "the Mountain" as locals call the Niagara Escarpment. "Lower" Hamilton is generally considered to be a poorer area than "upper" Hamilton. As a teenager, he joined the Hamilton chapter of Satan's Choice Motorcycle Club in 1967. In a 2009 interview, Parente gave his reasons for joining Satan's Choice in 1967 as: "Be free. Ride the bike. That's it. And being with a bunch of individuals that wanted to help each other out". Despite being Italian-Canadian, Parente chose as his biker name "The Wop" in an attempt to turn a pejorative term into an affirmative one. The majority of the people in Ontario in 1967 were Protestants of British descent, and Parente stood out in the Hamilton chapter on the account of his Italian heritage, which he sought to turn to his advantage. Parente dislikes the name Mario, which he considers to be effeminate, and prefers to be called Mike. Parente's first conviction came shortly after he joined Satan's Choice. Parente was convicted of assaulting a police officer, whom he saw beating a man who was already in handcuffs, leading Parente to attack the policeman. Parente has frequently worked as a construction worker, as a welder and as a bouncer. Parente's biographer, the journalist Jerry Langton wrote about the differences between Parente and his rival Walter Stadnick: "While nobody has ever tracked down a legitimate job held down by Stadnick (and I have spent many hours trying), Parente had worked in construction and welding and regularly served as a bouncer at some of Hamilton's most notorious bars and strip-joints. It was a profession that put him head-to-head with Hamilton's street toughs and members of such esteemed local organizations as the Ball-Peen Hammer Boys. And he always came out on top".
Detective Sergeant John Harris, a Hamilton policeman who first encountered Parente in 1972, stated: "Unlike a lot of guys, as soon as we started noticing him in Satan's Choice, he'd talk to us. Always had something to say, usually tried to be funny... He got into fights, and could sometimes be confrontational... He had this huge mop of black hair and a big, long beard. He kind of looked like Rasputin". Harris commented on the intense Italianness of Parente, saying "Parente looked Italian, acted Italian". Harris stated that Parente was usually jovial and friendly in his dealings with the police. He added: "One of the things I noticed about him early on was that he was always trying to improve himself, to educate himself. He always wanted to be more eloquent; and if he learned a new word, you could tell because he would use it over and over again in conversation until he found a new one". Parente developed a negative view of most policemen, calling them "bags of shit", but expressed much respect for Harris, despite him being on the other side of the law. Harris was a huge 6'7 man who once played football for the University of Minnesota and was described by Langton as "the biggest, most intimidating cop I've ever seen". Despite his respect for Harris, Parente stated that he could be "more physical than he had to be at times". Harris stated: "If you want to get on his good side, call him Mike; he hates being called Mario".
By 1969, Parente was widely viewed as the toughest member of the Hamilton chapter. The policeman Carl MacLeod stated: "Parente would eventually achieve the exalted reputation among bikers of having a special patch which meant he had either been charged for murder or had a murder conviction to his perverted credit". In 1969, MacLeod raided the clubhouse of the Hamilton chapter, becoming involved in a tense confrontation with Parente and eight other bikers that only ended when police back-up arrived. By the 1970s, Parente had risen to become the chapter president.
For a time, he was friendly with his future enemy Walter Stadnick, but the two fell out when Parente vetoed Stadnick's attempt to join Satan's Choice on the grounds he was too short. In 1976, the Satan's Choice national president Bernie Guindon was imprisoned for drug charges, leading Garnet "Mother" McEwen to become the new national president. On 1 July 1977, McEwen together with a number of Satan's Choice chapters "patched over" to join the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. Parente and the Hamilton chapter chose to join the Outlaws.
Outlaws Harris stated Parente became more self-confident after he "patched over" to join the Outlaws. Harris stated: "He was always willing to talk to you, no matter what the situation was like when he was with Satan's Choice. But once he became an Outlaw, he really worked on his personality and he started speaking for the club. He was their spokesman. He was on his bike all the time. And he wore a lot of jewelry. Not just the Harley stuff all the other guys wore, but always things with the Outlaws logo on them; he was very proud to be part of the club". Parente had a reputation in underworld circles as a tough leader. The journalists Julien Sher and William Marsden called Parente the "seemingly invincible leader" of the Outlaws, who never lost a fight. Detective Harris stated: "Mario wasn't the smartest guy in the business, but he had all the nerve. A lot of guys act tough, but he was the one who would do everything he promised to do".
One piece of jewelry Parente wore had the initials GLGC (Good-Looking Guys Club), which is an informal name the Outlaws use to describe themselves. Three Hamilton men, namely Lloyd Blaquierre, Michael Bierce, and Freddie Weise had been looking to join the Satan's Choice Hamilton chapter and after the "patch over" found themselves unable to join the new Outlaw Hamilton chapter because they were black. Harris recalled: "The Outlaws said it was whites-only and they had to abide by that. So those guys were out; you could be Jewish or Mexican, but you just couldn't be black". Weise, Bierce, and Blaquierre formed the No-Name Motorcycle Club, better known as the "Not So Good-Looking Guys Club". Harris stated that Parente and the rest of the Outlaws continued to associate with the Not So Good-Looking Guys Club but "they sure didn't like that name". The club ended when Weise, Bierce, and Blaquierre beat a man to death and dumped his body into Hamilton harbor, leading to their convictions and the club being disbanded.
On 5 December 1977, the Popeyes Motorcycle Club of Montreal "patched over" to become the first Hells Angel chapter in Canada. On 17 February 1978, a biker war began between the Outlaws and the Hells Angels was when the Hells Angel Yves "Apache" Trudeau shot two Outlaws in Montreal, killing one. In October 1978, Stadnick travelled to Montreal to contact Yves Buteau, the Hells Angels national president to discuss having the Wild Ones "patch over" to become the first Hells Angels chapter in Ontario. Stadnick's plans were aborted by Le Tourbillon massacre on 12 October 1978 when two American Outlaws went into Le Tourbillon bar to shoot the Angels and Wild Ones who were meeting there, killing one of the Angels and two of the Wild Ones. The Hamilton Outlaw chapter killed 5 members of the Wild Ones, causing the latter gang disbanded themselves. Stadnick ended up joining the Hells Angels and became in charge of expanding the club into Ontario.
In July 1983, the Hells Angels national president Yves Buteau established the first Angel chapters outside of Quebec when he persuaded the three-chapter strong Satan's Angels biker gang, based in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and on Vancouver Island, to "patch over" to join the Hells Angels. On 17 July 1983, two Hells Angels from Montreal, Michel "Jinx" Genest and Jean-Marc Nadeau, went via bus to Vancouver to attend the planned ceremony. On route through northern Ontario, Parente and a group of Outlaws happened to ride by the bus and noticed one of the bus passengers was wearing Hells Angels' colors. Parente was riding on Highway 17 outside of North Bay when he noticed a jacket bearing the Hells Angels' patch pressed against the window of the bus. Sending one of the bikers to follow the bus, Parente and the rest stopped in Sault Ste. Marie to pick up their guns and then boarded an automobile. Enraged by the presence of the two Hells Angels in Ontario, Parente and the other Outlaws proceeded to shoot up the bus when it stopped at the Mr. Mugs coffee and doughnut shop in Wawa in an attempt to kill the two Hells Angels. A Ford Taurus automobile pulled into the Mr. Mugs parking lot and the men in the car pulled out their handguns to open fire on the bus. Three people were slightly hurt by the broken glass. As the car drove away, two of the witnesses noticed it had a "Support Your Local Outlaws" bumper sticker. Through no one was killed, the Wawa incident showed strongly Parente felt about Hells Angels moving into Ontario. Later that day, the police arrested Parente and his fellow Outlaws Roy Caja, and Ben Greco at the Outlaws' Sault St. Marie clubhouse and charged them with attempted murder. Parente insists that he was not present at the Wawa incident, but a number of sources have stated he was one of the gunmen in the car. Sher and Marsden wrote about the Wawa incident that: "It was Parente in 1983 who shot up a bus in Wawa in an attempt to murder some Hells Angels passengers-prompting Stadnick to seek police protection while he was hospitalized after his accident".
While waiting trial for the Wawa incident, Parente was arrested again for killing the "local tough guy" Jimmy Lewis. Parente worked as a bouncer at a well known Hamilton strip club named Bannister's. Bannister's was owned by Rinaldo Ticchiarelli and Louis Acciaroli, two cocaine dealers who used the establishment as a place to launder money. The police were looking to shut down Bannister's by vigorously enforcing a by-law that stated that any bar that admitted intoxicated patrons would lose its liquor license, thus leading to Parente being strict about who he admitted into Bannister's. Parente had a long-standing feud with the three Lewis brothers, frequently quarreling with them. The Lewis brothers were Tim, Brian and Jimmy. The Lewis brothers were petty criminals who worked as general laborers by day and by night made their living by extorting money via threats and violence. One night in 1984, Brian Lewis had shown up drunk at Bannister's, leading to a fight when Parente refused him to allow him in. After Bannister's closed, Parente went to the Outlaws' clubhouse at 402 Birch Avenue. According to Parente's account, the three Lewis brothers together with five other friends were looking for him and arrived at the Outlaws' clubhouse with Tim Lewis waving about a handgun while somebody kept shouting "shoot him!". Parente stated he brought along his shotgun in case of trouble. Parente insists that he shot Jimmy Lewis in self-defense. According to Parente's account, he opened fire when Tim Lewis raised his handgun and his target was actually Tim Lewis, not Jimmy Lewis. Jimmy Lewis was killed instantly by the shotgun blast, which caused the rest of the gang to run away in terror. Parente was arrested later that night at a house of a friend in St. Catharines. At his trial for the Wawa incident in Sault Ste. Marie, Parente pleaded guilty to the illegal possession of a weapon and was sentenced to six years in prison. Parente was shocked by the sentence, but learned the judge had imposed the maximum sentence because of the Lewis shooting incident.