ALLEGED POLICE BEATING VICTIM WAS A FLASHY DRUG DEALER, DEFENCE SUGGESTS

A one-time pot dealer who claims Toronto drug squad officers viciously
beat and robbed him 14 years ago is a liar who got his mother to stash
his ill gotten gains, a defence lawyer suggests.

John Rosen attacked the credibility of Christopher Quigley Wednesday,
painting him as a former flashy drug dealer who sported $2,500
alligator boots and drove a $34,000 Land Rover.

Quigley, 46, testified earlier this week that in the spring of 1998
drug squad officers kicked, punched and choked him to the point of
unconsciousness as they demanded the whereabouts of his drugs and
money.

He said they ransacked his Eglinton Ave. W. apartment, stealing his
boots and an $8,000 sapphire, and later seized $54,000 in cash he kept
in his mother's bank safety deposit box, returning only $22,850.

The bulk of the cash they stole was from a $38,500 insurance payment
he received for the loss of a ring, he said.

"That story about the $38,000 cheque being cashed is as false as the
rest of your story," suggested Rosen, lawyer for former drug squad
detective John Schertzer.

Rosen suggested there was much less in the safety deposit box than the
$54,000 claimed.

Quigley enlisted his mother, then 61, to write a phony note to
authenticate that amount, Rosen suggested. "You got your mother to
hide your drug money for you, isn't that right?" Rosen asked.

Quigley denied it.

Quigley is the first Crown witness to testify at the trial of
Schertzer, 54, Ned Maodus, 48, Steve Correia, 44, Joseph Miched, 53,
and Raymond Pollard, 47.

The former Toronto drug squad officers collectively face 29 charges,
laid in January 2004, including obstruction of justice, perjury,
assault and extortion related to their work between 1997 and 2002.

Rosen suggested Quigley was a large scale pot dealer when police
arrested him in April 1998.

But Quigley insisted he sold to a small group of friends for a modest
profit and that it was only a minor part of his income. He mainly
traded in jewelry and stocks, he said.

Rosen suggested Quigley had a troubled youth, and as a teenager kept
prohibited martial arts and other weapons like nunchuks, brass
knuckles, and a police style baton in his apartment.

"They were not mine," Quigley insisted.

He agreed that in 1984 he was convicted of theft under $5,000 and
possessing stolen property.

In 1996, on two occasions he gave a police officer at Wasaga Beach a
fake name when caught speeding on his jet ski, Quigley agreed. For
this, he was later convicted of obstructing a peace officer.

The defence cross-examination continues Thursday.