EX-HEAD OF TROUBLED DRUG SQUAD RETIRING

The former head of a Toronto police drug squad that is facing
criminal charges of corruption has retired from the force while the
legal proceedings against him and five other officers moves on slowly
before the courts.

While Staff Sgt. John Schertzer, 50, declined to comment as he waited
for pre-trial arguments to continue at a University Ave. courthouse
yesterday, his lawyer had plenty to say.

"He didn't resign. He retired after a career of 32 years," said John
Rosen, who then criticized a media report about the "resignation" as
typical of how the media has "mischaracterized ... unfairly
portrayed" Schertzer in a "negative light over the years.

"It was a decision he and his family made, to do something else. He's
anxious to get this case behind him and get on with his life," Rosen said.

It was expected that pre-trial arguments in the case could carry on
until the end of the year before Justice Ian Nordheimer, of the
Superior Court of Justice, delaying the expected start of the trial
until later next year. The proceedings are covered by a publication ban.

Schertzer had headed up a unit called the Central Field Command that
was credited in the 1990s for laying thousands of charges for drugs,
weapons and proceeds of crime offences. But the force began an
internal probe of the squad in the late '90s after some alleged, and
some convicted drug dealers complained about how they had been
treated by the unit, whose mandate had been to investigate major drug
players in the city.

Schertzer, along with Consts. Steven Correia, Joseph Miched, Ned
Maodus, Ray Pollard and Richard Benoit, were charged in November 2000
with theft, fraud, forgery and breach of trust, suspended from work
for a month, and then reinstated to different jobs on the force.

Two years later, the charges were stayed by prosecutors and
officially dropped a year after that.

But early in 2004, the six officers were recharged with assault,
extortion and attempting to obstruct justice following a probe into
alleged corruption on the force. They were again suspended, with pay.

In June 2006, after a six-month preliminary hearing, a judge ordered
the six to stand trial on the charges, but said in his ruling he
doubted the "credibility of a significant number of Crown witnesses."