'I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE,' MAN TELLS COPS' TRIAL

TORONTO - A part-time pot dealer testified
Tuesday he feared for his life as members of an
elite group of Toronto drug squad officers
=93pulverized=94 him in an unprovoked beating.

I was absolutely terrified. I thought I was going
to die,=94 recalled Christopher Quigley, 46, at the
trial of five former members of Central Field Command.

I still have scar on my forehead from this beating.=94

John Schertzer, 54, Steve Correia, 44, Ned
Maodus, 48, Joseph Miched, 53, and Raymond
Pollard, 47, collectively face 29 charges =AD laid
in January 2004 =AD including obstructing justice,
perjury, assault and extortion related to their
work between 1997 and 2002. Each has pleaded not
guilty to all the charges which are linked to drug investigations.

Quigley, the first alleged victim to testify,
alleged Maodus and a partner beat him until he
was =93covered from head to toe in blood and
semi-conscious=94 in an interrogation room at 53 Division.

They kept saying: `Where is the money and where
are the drugs?' I was told: `You better give up
this information.' I didn=92t do anything at all to
these officers before the beating,=94 said Quigley,
who sold marijuana but also had other legitimate sources of income.

He was surprised when Schertzer =AD whom the others
called =93the boss=94 =AD struck him during the ordeal
in which he was choked and stabbed with a sharp,
undisclosed object, possibly a pen, court heard.

Correia warned him that the ill treatment would
=93go on all night=94 unless he surrendered the information, said the
witness.

Quigley testified that Correia threw paper towels
on the floor, ordering him to =93Go f---ing clean yourself up!=94

Correia =93had to hold me up,=94 leading him to the
bathroom and before returning him to the
interrogation room, Quigley told the jury.

Once uniformed officers saw his distressed state,
he testified, emergency vehicles and paramedics
arrived to whisk him to Sunnybrook Hospital for emergency care.

Quigley said that even though he divulged the
whereabouts of his drugs and cash, he found his
Eglinton Ave. W. apartment in a complete shambles
and that his $8,000 sapphire and $400 designer cowboy boots were missing.

It looked like a bomb hit it. It was absolutely
ransacked, things were overturned,=94 the jewelry broker told the jury.

The trial continues.