CITY LIKELY TO FACE HEFTY TAB IN POLICE CASE

Charges Dropped

The city of Toronto is likely to face a multi-million-dollar bill to
compensate the lawyers who represented six former drug squad officers
whose corruption charges were stayed last week because of
unreasonable delay by the Crown.

The legal tab is in addition to the estimated tens of millions of
dollars spent by all levels of government over the past decade as a
result of what has been described as the largest police corruption
investigation in Canadian history.

The investigation led to obstruction of justice, perjury, extortion,
theft and assault charges being filed in January, 2004, against John
Schertzer, Steve Correia, Raymond Pollard, Ned Maodus, Joseph Miched
and Rick Benoit.

Those charges were stayed by Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer
last week because of the "glacial progress" of the prosecution that
violated the officers' right to a trial within a reasonable amount of time.

"I have strived to find any sense of urgency on the part of the
prosecution in this case, or any apparent recognition that this case
was teetering on the precipice of unreasonable delay," wrote Judge
Nordheimer. "I can find none on the record before me."

The staying of the criminal charges is just one aspect of the
corruption scandal over the past decade, most of which has not been
disclosed to the public in any great detail.

The allegations against Toronto drug squad officers resulted in
federal prosecutors staying or dismissing charges between 1996 and
2002 against defendants in more than 200 prosecutions in the Toronto
area--from minor cases to one involving a $50-million heroin seizure.
The Department of Justice has always declined to provide specific
reasons for staying the charges, which between 1996 and 1999,
included more than 80% of the cases involving the unit led by Mr. Schertzer.

At least three lawsuits filed by suspected drug dealers who alleged
they were assaulted and robbed by members of the now disbanded
Central Field Command drug squad have been settled out of court by
the city without the terms being disclosed.

A $95-million abuse of process lawsuit filed in 2003 against Toronto
police, the city and the province by eight former drug squad officers
has been on hold until the end of the criminal proceeding. The ruling
by Judge Nordheimer could bolster the officers' chances of financial
success in the civil suit.

The staying of the criminal charges means that the city will almost
certainly have to pay the legal bills of the six officers. The
decision is up to the Toronto Police Services Board, which normally
covers legal costs for officers who are acquitted or when charges are
dismissed.

Mr. Schertzer and his co-defendants were represented by a legal team
of some of the most experienced defence lawyers in the province. John
Rosen, Earl Levy, Harry Black, Alan Gold, Patrick Ducharme and Peter
Brauti all have reputations as savvy trial lawyers. Each of the
officers was also represented by a junior lawyer in addition to lead counsel.

The three-lawyer prosecution team was led by Milan Rupic, a senior
Crown attorney in the Ministry of the Attorney-General, who is known
as a skilled appeal lawyer, yet he has not conducted many trials in
the past decade.

The legal bill is another blow to Toronto taxpayers, suggested Edward
Sapiano, one of nine lawyers who first raised the corruption
allegations in a letter to internal affairs in 1999.

"The province drops the ball and now the city has to pick up the
tab," said Mr. Sapiano.

While he has been one of the most outspoken critics of the former
drug squad, Mr. Sapiano said the Crown should not appeal the ruling
by Judge Nordheimer.

"He did the right thing," said Mr. Sapiano. "The Ministry of the
Attorney-General could not have better orchestrated delay in this
case than if it intentionally orchestrated delay."

A spokeswoman for the Attorney-General said yesterday that no one
could comment on the details of the case and that ministry staff were
investigating the possibility of an appeal.

Mr. Sapiano repeated his call for an inquiry to try to find out what
went wrong in the prosecution and to make public many unanswered
questions related to the corruption allegations.

RCMP Assistant Commissioner John Neily, who led the Toronto police
task force, recommended that 12 drug squad officers be charged,
according to affidavits unsealed by the Ontario Court of Appeal in
2004. The Crown has not disclosed why it charged only six.

When the task force began its work, it was not receiving co-operation
from the federal Department of Justice, which prosecutes drug
offences, said Asst. Comm. Neily in one of the affidavits.

In a 2003 letter, which was highlighted by Judge Nordheimer in his
ruling, the senior RCMP officer also complained of a lack of response
from the provincial Crown, which was responsible for prosecuting the
drug squad officers.

"This is the largest police corruption scandal known in Canadian
history yet if anyone asks me what the Crown's reaction is, I could
not provide the answer," wrote Asst. Comm. Neily.

The work of the task force did not escape criticism and the actions
of some of the investigators weakened the prosecution case against
the officers.

Key evidence from police memo books and other documents seized at the
home of Maodus in March 2002 were excluded from the corruption trial,
in part because two task force investigators improperly asked to
secretly "tag along" with an Ontario Provincial Police search of the residence.

The OPP search related to an assault complaint against Maodus. In a
separate trial last year, Superior Court Justice Casey Hill excluded
the seizure of an unregistered Glock handgun, 45 grams of cocaine and
nearly four grams of heroin from evidence because of Charter
violations in the police search. As part of a plea bargain, Maodus
pleaded guilty in August 2007 to assault causing bodily harm,
uttering a threat and pointing a firearm. Judge Hill imposed a
two-year conditional sentence.