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A young man who acted as a getaway driver when someone stormed into the Laval home of a Montreal Mafia leader and threatened the mobster’s family at gunpoint will not have to serve jail time for his role in what transpired.

Quebec Court Judge Serge Cimon said on Thursday that sending 26-year-old David Cormier to a detention centre would negate the efforts he has made to get his life together since his arrest last year. Shortly before noon on May 6, 2017, a gunman entered the home of Francesco (Chit) Del Balso, 48, and pointed a gun at his wife and two sons while demanding to know where the mobster was. Del Balso was out running errands at the time and was on parole while serving a lengthy sentence for a series of crimes committed while he and five other men ran the Rizzuto organization between 2002 and 2006. Two of the other leaders — Lorenzo Giordano and Rocco Sollecito — were killed in Laval in 2016.

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When the gunman realized Del Balso was not home, he dashed out of the house and jumped into a car waiting for him outside. Cormier was behind the wheel and a witness saw his Jetta make a U-turn before the gunman jumped into it. As the Jetta sped through a residential neighbourhood, it went through a stop sign. Someone called 911 and, within minutes, the Laval police located the Jetta. Cormier refused to stop when he spotted one of their cruisers in his rearview mirror. Over the course of two minutes, he led the police on a dangerous pursuit along Highway 440 with speeds sometimes reaching 160 kilometres per hour. The car finally came to a stop as Cormier tried to get onto Highway 13.