A Montreal man charged in connection with a murder plot allegedly ordered by accused drug kingpin Ryan Wedding — and said to involve a Quebec hitman and a reggaeton singer — has pleaded not guilty in a U.S. court.

Public records from U.S. District Court in Los Angeles show Tommy Demorizi was arraigned yesterday on eight charges, including conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to tamper with a witness.

Demorizi, who is named in a federal indictment as a “member and associate” of Wedding’s criminal network, was arrested last month at New Jersey’s Newark International Airport. He had spent nearly three months on the run from the FBI, apparently in the Dominican Republic.

Demorizi, 35, is accused of helping Wedding track down Jonathan Acebedo-Garcia, a Montreal-born FBI informant who was gunned down in Colombia last year.

The killing, carried out in a Medellín restaurant by a hit squad linked to the the Oficina de Envigado — a notorious Colombian crime syndicate once connected to the late drug lord Pablo Escobar — came after Wedding purportedly placed a bounty of up to $5 million US on Acebedo-Garcia.

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Court documents lay out the alleged plot targeting Acebedo-Garcia and highlight the deep ties Wedding’s network purportedly held with organized crime in the Montreal area. Wedding, an Ontario native who lived in a downtown Montreal condo until authorities say he fled to Mexico in 2015, was arrested in January.

According to U.S. prosecutors, Wedding reached out to Atna Ohna — an alleged organized crime figure based in Laval, Que. — for help obtaining Acebedo-Garcia’s phone number in October 2024, within days of learning he was co-operating with the FBI.

Ohna, who went by aliases including Tupac and Kim Jong-Un, is described in the indictment as “a hired sicario” — or hitman — for Wedding’s alleged billion-dollar cocaine-smuggling ring. 

It was Demorizi, acting as an intermediary, who allegedly obtained the informant’s phone number through another Montreal-based co-accused, Dominican-born reggaeton singer Edwin Basora-Hernandez.

What’s more, U.S. prosecutors allege Wedding then paid to deploy spyware on that phone number in an initial, unsuccessful attempt to find Acebedo-Garcia. Court documents say the “phone appeared to be off.”

Acebedo-Garcia was ultimately located and Ohna was purportedly given $150,000 US and 30 kilograms of cocaine — plus an “ornate” necklace with red jewels — as payment for his role in tracking him down.

Ohna and Basora-Hernandez were both arrested on the same day last November, amid a joint takedown involving the FBI and RCMP, targeting Wedding’s alleged criminal enterprise.

U.S. authorities at the time identified Demorizi as a fugitive who they said was likely hiding in the Dominican Republic. He’s now being held at a downtown L.A. prison. His attorney Mark Chambers did not respond to CBC News’s request for comment Monday evening.

Ohna, Basora-Hernandez and several other Canadians linked to the alleged murder conspiracy —  including an alleged “intermediary” in Calgary, a crime blogger and a Toronto-area lawyer – all face extradition to the U.S.

Ohna remains in custody at a jail in Roberval, 350 kilometres northeast of Montreal.

When Basora-Hernandez was granted bail in January, Quebec Superior Court Justice François Dadour noted the accused was broke and was allegedly paid only $1,000 for any information he provided.

“If [Basora-Hernandez] has a connection to Mr. Wedding’s criminal organization,” Dadour wrote, “the connection doesn’t seem to have served him very well so far.”

CBC News senior reporter Thomas Daigle has extensively covered the case of Ryan Wedding. He can be reached by email at thomas.daigle@cbc.ca.