DRUG CHARGE CANNED

KITCHENER, Ont. -- A city man walked away from a drug charge yesterday
after a judge ruled Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects a
person's privacy inside a public washroom stall.

Justice Colin Westman said a police officer violated Michael Pietrangelo's
"reasonable expectation of privacy" when the cop pushed open a washroom
door at a downtown bar on July 25, 1998.

Const. Jamie Gillespie allegedly found Pietrangelo snorting powder cocaine
inside the stall.

Gillespie testified the man had a gram of the drug in his shirt pocket.

Pietrangelo, 35, was charged with possession, but the judge acquitted him.

Chris Sherrin, Pietrangelo's lawyer, had argued earlier in the trial that
police didn't have proper grounds to enter the stall and search Pietrangelo.

Pietrangelo could have been doing a number of other things in the stall,
his lawyer suggested.

In handing down his ruling, the judge said Gillespie wouldn't have made the
apparent drug discovery unless he performed the illegal search.