Two Men Plead Guilty to Manslaughter in Old Montreal Fire

Two young men pleaded guilty on Thursday to a reduced charge of manslaughter for their part in an Old Montreal building fire that killed a woman and her daughter in October 2024. CBC News reported the pleas on November 5.

Justin Fortier-Trahan and Juventino Hernandez Pelaez entered the pleas in Montreal. They had faced a more serious case before the guilty pleas to manslaughter. The plea may let them avoid life sentences. Reports used for this article gave no sentencing details, and this article states no sentence.

Montreal reporting of the case said the two men had taken money to set fire to a restaurant on the ground floor of the building. The fire spread through a building that housed people above the restaurant. A mother and her daughter died.

The guilty pleas close the central criminal question in the case. Two men admitted legal responsibility for deaths that followed a fire set for money, according to the reporting of the case. The pleas came more than two years after the fire in October 2024.

Why it matters

The case matters because a fire set at a ground floor restaurant killed people who lived and stayed above it. The building housed a hostel called Le 402 on the second and third floors. People sleeping above a commercial space depend on that space being safe through the night.

Manslaughter pleas carry a different legal meaning than the original case the men faced. CBC reported the charge as a reduced charge. A reduced plea ends a trial on the more serious allegation and moves the case toward sentencing. This article does not report a sentence, a sentencing date or any statement from the court, because the reports used here did not include them.

The pleas also matter for Old Montreal. The district holds old buildings that mix restaurants, homes and hostels in the same walls. A fire in one part of such a building can reach every other part in minutes. The October 2024 fire destroyed the whole building.

The context

The fire broke out at about 2 a.m. in October 2024. The building stood at the corner of Notre-Dame and Bonsecours streets in Old Montreal. It had three storeys and was roughly 100 years old.

Le 402 occupied the second and third floors. A restaurant occupied the main floor. Police treated the fire as suspicious from the start. The building was destroyed, and a mother and her daughter died.

The owner of the building was Émile-Haim Benamor, according to CBC reporting at the time. Benamor also owned the Place d'Youville building where seven people died in a fire in March 2023. That ownership fact is background to this case. Reports used here do not accuse the owner of wrongdoing in the October 2024 fire, and this article makes no such accusation.

The background places two fatal Old Montreal fires in two years in buildings linked by one owner. The March 2023 fire killed seven people. The October 2024 fire killed two. The cases are separate, and the guilty pleas on Thursday concern only the October 2024 fire.

What happens next

The case now moves past the question of guilt for these two men. They pleaded guilty to manslaughter, so the court will not hold a trial for them on the original allegation in this case. Sentencing is the next stage in a guilty plea case as a general matter, but the reports used here gave no date and no terms.

Readers should watch for a court report that gives sentencing details from an official source. Until such a report appears, no sentence should be treated as known. The confirmed facts today are the names of the two men, the manslaughter pleas, the reduced charge, and the deaths of a mother and her daughter in October 2024.

The wider safety questions remain open in public discussion of Old Montreal buildings. Old mixed-use buildings, late night fires and ground floor businesses under sleeping rooms form the pattern in this case. The pleas answer the criminal charge against two men. They do not answer every question residents raised after the fire.

Key numbers

• 2: men who pleaded guilty to manslaughter on November 5, 2026
• 2: people killed in the October 2024 fire, a mother and her daughter
• 3: storeys in the building at Notre-Dame and Bonsecours streets
• About 100 years: age of the building, according to reporting of the fire
• About 2 a.m.: time the fire broke out in October 2024
• 7: people who died in the March 2023 fire at the Place d'Youville building owned by the same owner