POLICE AGENT

This is the fourth in a series of exclusive articles by Examiner
reporter Galen Eagle who interviews a local drug dealer who became an
agent for the local police and brought down a circle of people in the
Peterborough drug trade.

Taking a deep, long haul on his cigarette, during an Examiner
interview that lasted several hours, Merv Monteith pauses before
launching into the story that brought him out of hiding and back into
Peterborough.

Why did he do it? Why did he break the biggest rule in his business?
Why did he rat?

In 2007 Monteith characterized his life as the lowest of the lows.
Many of his associates were serving prison time. He saw drug addiction
whenever he walked downtown. People he knew who used to have families
and jobs were now addicts only concerned with their next high.

He didn't like what he saw in his own city and he felt an overwhelming
sense of guilt, he said.

"It was my way of, as warped as it sounds, my way of saying sorry, you
know what I mean?" he said.

He also had a young daughter and he worried about the future he was
paving for her.

"I didn't want her growing up with her father as a drug dealer. I
wanted her to be proud of her father," he said.

But he had tried to walk away from the life before and failed. The
lure of the money always brought him back. He needed to do something
different this time.

"I knew the only way I could break those chains and get away from it
once and for all was to do what I did because there is no coming back
from that," he said. "I take full responsibility for everything that I
have done. I am not proud of it. That's what brought us to the point
where I became an agent."

The last time Monteith went back to drug dealing in 2007, for the
first time he sold crack cocaine on Peterborough streets, he said.

This time it wasn't for the profit, however. He had a target in mind
and a plan developing. He intended to get close to Robert Pammett, now
60, and hand him on a silver platter to police.

"I was getting in close with Bob. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew I
was going to become an agent."

The problem was, he had no idea how to approach police. He ended up
picking an officer he had known through past police run-ins, someone
who had always treated him with decency, he said; veteran city police
officer Bob Campbell.

"I told Bob (Campbell), basically I can give you anybody you want in
Peterborough and I can give you Bob Pammett," Monteith said.

That contact spawned Project Underground, a joint-operation run by the
OPP Biker Enforcement Unit and the OPP drug enforcement section with
the assistance of city police.

Monteith got the support he needed from his family, which helped him
make the decision.

"My wife understood why I had to do it," he said. "Of course, when the
project started, they (his family) moved away."

The original plan was to investigate Pammett and any Bandidos
connections.

When the gang broke up shortly after this, Monteith signed a contract
with police to target "Pammett and his associates" and their
involvement in the local drug trade, Monteith said.

About six months after contacting the police, Monteith and his police
handlers were ready to put the plan in action.

Police secured a safe house that would be used before and after every
meeting.

Before every meeting Monteith was fitted with a body pack that
included a hidden recording device. He would be briefed on camera,
money would be counted and police followed him to and from each
destination.

On Oct. 17, 2007 Monteith met Pammett for the first time as an
undercover agent at a doughnut shop on Lansdowne St. West. It was
mid-afternoon and the two were discussing the purchase of two ounces
of cocaine while undercover police had the place under surveillance,
Monteith said.

What happened in the following weeks has been well
documented.

On three occasions Monteith entered Pammett's McNamara Rd. home, first
purchasing one ounce for $1,300, then four ounces of cocaine for
$5,200 and then 10 ounces for $13,000.

Monteith also met Brian Burrett multiple times to arrange the purchase
of cocaine with men from both Peterborough and Toronto.

On Jan. 8, 2008 Monteith purchased 18 ounces of cocaine for $22,500 at
a truck stop in Bowmanville.

On. Jan. 23, 2008 he purchased a kilogram of cocaine for about $40,000
at a truck stop in Port Hope.

On March 4, 2008 he bought another kilogram for $40,000 in the parking
lot of a Toronto pizza restaurant.

After every meeting, Monteith would return to the police safe house
with the drugs. He would be searched, debriefed and would write up
notes from his meetings.

The undercover life took some time to get used to Monteith said. He
battled paranoia and considered walking away from the investigation
several times.

"It was so dangerous. If somebody found out you were wired, you can
find yourself in big trouble," he said. "I was nervous for the first
time in my life. I was doing something that was so out of character. I
had it in the back of my head that everyone knew."

Each time Monteith waned, his police handlers would calm him down and
get him back on track, he said.

"They were all really good with me. They were all really patient," he
said. "I wasn't always the easiest to work with. I had never done
something like this before plus I was missing my family."

He sat with his handlers in an Oshawa hotel room during the moments in
the investigation that police raided Pammett's home on March 26, 2008
and arrested nearly a dozen people in both Peterborough and Toronto.

During the investigation, police had seized about $300,000 worth of
cocaine and Percocet pills and an estimated $800,000 in homes and property.

Most of the people arrested pleaded guilty within a
year.

Pammett was the exception. He went through several lawyers and a
preliminary hearing before pleading guilty and getting sentenced March
26, exactly two years after his arrest, to three counts of trafficking
cocaine and possession of cocaine for the purpose of
trafficking.

He walked out of court a free man that day, having served two years in
pre-sentence custody.

His daughter Cherrie Pammett, then 34, took responsibility for nearly
a kilo of cocaine found in her father's home. She got 4 1/2 years.
Pammett's 21-year-old son -Robert Jr. -took responsibility for
OxyContin pills and a loaded handgun found on the property. He got two
years in prison.

Monteith never testified during a formal trial, but he did appear in
court Jan. 30, 2009 to testify during Pammett's preliminary hearing.

He entered the courtroom through back doors, flanked by two body
guards.

"It really felt good. I could not believe how relaxed I felt during
the preliminary hearing. I was looking Bob right in the eye."

He was looking forward, however, to having his day in court during a
trial he said he hoped would put Pammett away for much longer than two
years.

"I was disappointed. I really wanted to go to trial. I wanted to have
my day in court," he said.

In the end, however, Pammett escaped a lengthy prison term.