CROWN FOUND GUILTY

Judge Blasts Lawyers Over Innocente Case

Police and Crown deception and bungling got a major drug dealer off the
hook yesterday when a judge stayed a four-year-old charge against him and a
co-accused.

Daniel Joseph Innocente had been charged, along with Giles Poirier, with
conspiracy to traffic in cannabis resin and cocaine between March 25, 1996
and May 17, 1996.

The men were tried last year on the charges, but it ended in a mistrial
when the jury couldn't reach a verdict.

Yesterday, Justice Allan Boudreau of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court slammed
the RCMP and two federal prosecutors for their handling of the case.

Boudreau concluded Crown attorneys Paula Taylor and Claude Belanger
withheld evidence, misled the court and cozied up to RCMP, though most of
the judge's criticism was levelled at Taylor.

"In my opinion, it strikes at the heart of the integrity of our justice
system, when one of the arms of our system violates its public trust
intentionally and for an oblique purpose," Boudreau wrote.

"What makes the conduct in the first issue so unacceptable is that it
persisted relentlessly over such a long period of time."

Boudreau said there's no way Innocente and Poirier could get a fair trial.
In a 123-page decision, he said the prosecution's actions constituted an
abuse of process.

He declared the Crown guilty of serious misconduct on three key issues:

Withholding a falsified report to protect the RCMP.

Lying to a judge about a media-strategy meeting.

Allowing important defence evidence to be stolen or destroyed.

Warren Zimmer, Innocente's lawyer, said yesterday's ruling came as no surprise.

"Affecting the fairness of the trial was always secondary to their own
reputation and that's what really has come out of this.

"It shows you that there is still, at times, an unholy alliance between the
Department of Justice and the RCMP, that the Department of Justice has an
inability to recognize what its role is."

Innocente is serving seven years for separate drug-trafficking charges.

One Mountie once called him "a major player" in the hashish trade in Nova
Scotia.

The Hubley man will be at Halifax provincial court Monday on
proceeds-of-crime charges. At Supreme Court yesterday, his family members
whooped with joy upon hearing the decision.

"Justice has now been done," said girlfriend Lisa Harrison.

Taylor did not return phone calls yesterday and Belanger could not be reached.

The RCMP said it would not comment before reading Boudreau's decision.

This isn't the first time RCMP bungling has caused a judge to stay charges
recently.

Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Felix Cacchione scuttled a first-degree
murder charge against Montrealer Danny Kane last year because two Mounties
apparently lied on the stand.

Poirier has been free on bail while Innocente has been held in custody.

The judge's reasons

Justice Allan Boudreau stayed the charges against Daniel Joseph Innocente
and Giles Poirier because of three reasons:

The first relates to a wiretap and surveillance investigation called
Operation Hassock, which began with an attempted bust at Halifax
International Airport on May 3, 1996.

Officers found bundles of money in the bag of a suspected drug courier,
which they uncovered after a warrantless search. The bag was then allegedly
replaced on a luggage cart - never to be seen again by police.

Montreal RCMP had instructions to arrest the man, but that never happened.
No police notes of this incident could be produced, and one officer who was
said to have taken notes apparently lost his notebook.

"No one could remember who had placed the luggage bag of money back on the
luggage equipment. The drug section under Staff Sgt. (Frank) Delorey also
decided not to conduct a separate inquiry into the airport incident and the
disappearance of the money bag," Boudreau wrote.

Const. Marc Gorbet prepared a report on the incident, which Delorey ordered
be altered. (Delorey later retired rather than face a code of conduct inquiry.)

`Incomplete and misleading'

Boudreau was satisfied Taylor knew the RCMP drug section had altered and
sent an "incomplete and misleading" report to superiors.

She admitted during the preliminary inquiry that she would have
reconsidered prosecuting, in order to spare the RCMP "any bad press," had
she known the depth of the missing-bag issue.

The second charge was over the Crown's motivation over a Feb. 18, 1999
Chronicle-Herald newspaper article, which appeared during the first trial.

In it, RCMP Sgt. Bill Price had said the Mounties at the airport did
nothing wrong and that the RCMP stood behind them.

Boudreau concluded the Crown had lied to the trial judge by saying it
hadn't been consulted on how to handle the issue with the press, when there
had clearly been meetings to discuss media strategy.

Third, the Crown mishandled key evidence relating to wiretaps made during
Operation Cascade, an early 1990s investigation that implicated one of the
defendants.

Even though the defence wanted them for a retrial, the Crown let the RCMP
destroy the originals and tried to keep the destruction quiet as long as
possible.

The Crown also took no steps to preserve the copies, which were allegedly
stolen from one Mountie's vehicle shortly after the first trial.