CHARGES STAYED IN $3.9M DRUG HAUL

Ruling Another Blow to Government Record in Drug Prosecutions

TORONTO -- An Ontario Superior Court judge has thrown out all charges
against a Toronto man arrested in the March 1999 seizure of $3.9
million of marijuana, LSD and hashish, because the case took too long
to get to trial.

Justice Russell Juriansz ordered a judicial stay Monday and ruled the
delays violated Roman Paryniuk's right to be tried "within a
reasonable time," as required by section 11(b) of the Canadian Charter
of Rights and Freedoms.

Paryniuk's co-counsel, Del Doucette, rejected suggestions the charges
were stayed as a result of a legal technicality. "The huge delay was
because of the Crown's reluctance to make full and frank disclosure,"
he said.

Paryniuk has been free on bail since shortly after his arrest, but
Doucette said the judge's decision to stay the charges was
appropriate.

"If the average person is charged with a criminal offence, that turned
their lives upside down and it takes 31/2 years to come to trial
because of the Crown, that's unfair," he said.

The ruling is another blow to the Department of Justice, which has
already been forced to withdraw or put on hold at least 150 drug
prosecutions in the past three years, because of a corruption scandal
in the Toronto police force.

For more than a year, an RCMP-led task force has continued to
investigate numerous allegations against the now disbanded Central
Field Command drug squad.

Several officers are accused of stealing money and valuables and
assaulting and even kidnapping people during drug raids in the late
1990s.

At least six civil suits, asking for more than $17 million in damages,
have been filed against the former drug squad officers. One of the
civil claims was settled this spring, but the Toronto police services
board has refused to release any details about the agreement.

Paryniuk has also claimed drug squad officers stole about $330,000
while executing a search warrant on a safety deposit box at a CIBC
branch in downtown Toronto, on March 19, 1999.

Lawyers for Paryniuk said the case was delayed mainly because the
Justice Department refused to provide disclosure about a criminal
investigation into Det. Const. Mark Denton until ordered to do so by a
judge.

Const. Denton, the "exhibits officer" in the Paryniuk investigation,
was charged in November 1999 when 141 grams of hashish were found in a
gym bag in his van after he was stopped by police just outside Toronto.