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Globe and Mail - Canada
23 July 2007

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Ruling deals blow to prosecuti

The scandal-plagued corruption prosecution of six Toronto police drug officers has been dealt a major blow by a judge's finding that police searches in a linked drugs-and-weapons case were illegal.

The judgment Friday by Mr. Justice Casey Hill of the Superior Court of Ontario rules out evidence that one of the six drug cops stored narcotics and a prohibited Glock handgun at his Orangeville home. It also effectively eliminates evidence in the main drug squad trial of an alleged drug squad "slush fund" ledger.

Prosecutors had hoped the slush fund ledger would help prove the allegedly rogue drug squad engaged in a conspiracy to take cash from suspects.

At the same time, Judge Hill's ruling also questions the integrity of a prominent internal affairs officer who took part in the drug squad investigation and led the internal probe into alleged corruption in Toronto's bar district.

Judge Hill suggested in his ruling that Inspector Bryce Evans may have committed a criminal offence in Orangeville when he allegedly bullied and browbeat a female OPP officer to let him secretly "piggy back" on her search warrant in a domestic abuse case and illegally enter the officer's home to look for evidence in the unrelated drug squad probe.

The integrity of the bar-district prosecution is already in question in the wake of a defence lawyer's stunning allegations at an arm's-length police tribunal this spring that internal affairs made "secret deals" with top mobsters, hiding their real identities by characterizing them as confidential informants, when they were police agents.

Toronto police allege former police chief Bill McCormack Sr.'s eldest son, Billy McCormack Jr., and former Toronto Police Association president Rick McIntosh were involved in a kickback scheme. The case is currently at the preliminary hearing stage. There is a publication ban on evidence.

Sources say Billy McCormack Jr.'s lawyer, Jay Nastor, has asked Ontario Attorney-General Michael Bryant to launch a criminal probe into the alleged misuse of mobsters as confidential informants. Mr. Bryant has not responded, sources say.

The searches eliminated by Judge Hill's decision followed a March 19, 2002, allegation by the officer's wife that he had abused her, was suicidal and homicidal and had threatened to "kill any cops who came to his house."

Judge Hill ordered a publication ban on any information that would identify the complainant. Judge Hill put an additional restriction on publication of the accused officer's name, ordering that he be referred to only as "N.N.M."

"Viewed individually," Judge Hill wrote in a 142-page judgment, "some of the [Section 8 Charter] violations in this case are extremely serious. Viewed cumulatively, the pattern of constitutional non-compliance by police is disturbing."

Judge Hill found that the deployment of heavily armed OPP tactical-unit snipers onto the officer's Orangeville property was unwarranted, as was a later strip search and a sweep search for weapons in his home. The officer, Judge Hill noted, was calm and co-operative and posed no threat to public safety. Judge Hill said the OPP were there solely to arrest the officer and should have arrived with a warrant.

The OPP tactical team deployment alone, Judge Hill said, was "sufficiently intrusive, unnecessary and unreasonable" to favour exclusion of the evidence. Any evidence found in subsequent searches flowed from the OPP error, Judge Hill wrote.

In the ruling, Judge Hill noted that Insp. Evans and another task force officer arrived in Orangeville "unannounced and uninvited" on March 20, 2002, as OPP Detective Constable Jill Manser drafted a public safety search warrant.

"Evans did most of the talking. He wanted her [Det. Constable Manser) to agree that he ... accompany Manser and the OPP search team into the [officer's] home ... without it being revealed that they were part of the process. Det. Const. Constable Manser, believing that suggestion to be inappropriate, refused to agree. Evans would not take 'no' for an answer. He continued to press, coming back with other 'let's do this' - options, 'again and again' in a bullying manner," Judge Hill wrote.

"A further option was the suggestion that if Manser located any [Toronto police] property ... during her search ... she should remove it from the house, take it to the perimeter of the property and show it to the [task force] officers, and then replace the material in the residence."

The ultimate Toronto police search of out buildings on the property found 3.5 grams of heroin, 45.5 grams of cocaine and four ecstasy tablets.

The drug squad case faces a vigorous Charter challenge next month for unnecessary delays and is scheduled for trial in January. Allegations of drug squad thefts and lies first surfaced in 1999.

A probe of the squad by an RCMP-led task force culminated in January, 2004, with criminal charges laid against six drug squad officers and four others named as unindicted co-conspirators.

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Globe and Mail - Canada23 July 2007

Ruling deals blow to prosecuti

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Globe and Mail - Canada
23 July 2007