CROWN SPELLS OUT ITS CASE AGAINST FORMER TORONTO DRUG SQUAD OFFICERS

A one-time pot dealer says he was severely and repeatedly beaten by
drug squad officers determined to find out where he kept his drugs and money.

"I was attacked by officers while I was in custody," Christopher
Quigley testified Monday at the corruption trial of five former drug
squad officers.

Quigley described photos, shown in court, of himself with extensive
bruises on his face and body that he took in his Eglinton Ave. W.
apartment shortly after he was arrested in April 1998.

"These injuries are as a result of these beatings," he told Ontario
Superior Court.

At 53 Division police station, where the drug squad was housed, he was
denied access to a lawyer and told if he didn't reveal where he kept
his drugs and money police would tear his apartment apart.

Det.-Sgt. John Schertzer, the drug squad leader, was very angry, and
hit Quigley in the face with an open hand as he demanded answers, the
witness said. "He was adamant. He was extremely agitated."

Crown prosecutor John Pearson, in his lengthy opening address to the
jury, said that a decade ago members of Team 3 of Central Field Drug
Command beat drug dealers, stole thousands of their dollars and misled
the courts.

"They engaged in unjustified acts of physical violence against people
in their custody," Pearson said.

What's more, he said, "The defendants tried to cover their tracks to
protect each other from the reach of the law."

They falsified notes and police reports to disguise illegal searches,
withheld vital information from lawyers defending drug dealers and
from Crown attorneys prosecuting them, and they lied in court, Pearson said.

Schertzer, 54; Steve Correia, 44; Ned Maodus, 48; Joseph Miched, 53;
and Raymond Pollard, 47; collectively face 29 charges, laid in January
2004, including obstructing justice, perjury, assault and extortion
related to their work between 1997 and 2002.

A "bright thread" running through the prosecution's case is the
officers' attempts to obstruct justice by concealing their misconduct,
Pearson said.

Many witnesses slated to testify are disreputable and unsavoury drug
dealers, but the Crown will call documentary evidence - including
police records - to confirm their stories, Pearson said.

On April 30, 1998, Schertzer, Maodus and another officer assaulted
Quigley to the point of unconsciousness in a "violent shakedown,"
Pearson alleged.

While Quigley was detained, drug squad officers obtained warrants to
both his and his 60-year-old mother's north Toronto home, he said.

When they searched his mother's home, they learned she was holding his
money in a bank safety deposit box, Pearson said.

Schertzer and Correia subsequently seized about $54,000 from the
safety deposit box, but reported seizing only $22,850, the prosecutor
said. They then falsified their notes and other police records to
cover up the assault, extortion and theft, the prosecutor said.

Pearson outlined four other cases:

On Jan. 30, 1997, Schertzer, Pollard and others illegally searched
the home of alleged drug dealer Vacon and stole $1,400 cash they
seized during that search, the prosecutor said.

They then falsified their notes and other police records, claiming
they had obtained a search warrant before conducting the search when
in fact it was obtained afterward.

In the investigation of an alleged drug dealer, Ho Bing Pang, on
Feb. 18, 1998, the officers conducted a warrantless search of his
residence and falsified their notes and records to claim the search
took place after the search warrant had been obtained, he said.

They then lied about the timing of the search at the preliminary
inquiry of Pang and his co-accused, Yin Leong Chui, the jury was told.

In the investigation of alleged heroin dealer Kai Sum Yeung, on
April 7, 1998, Schertzer, Correia and Miched falsified their notes and
other records about the role of a police informant in a drug
transaction and lied at Yeung's preliminary inquiry, the Crown claims.

The five defendants conspired to obstruct justice in relation to
these four investigations as well as an investigation relating to two
alleged drug dealers, Andreas Ioakim and Aida Fagundo, in November
1997, the prosecution alleges.

They got Ioakim to set up a cocaine deal with Fagundo, Pearson said.
They then falsified their notes and other records to conceal Ioakim's
role, he said.

Fagundo will testify she was carrying $10,000 in cash and diamond
earrings worth $20,000, which the officers seized and never returned,
Pearson said.