COCAINE COP DODGES JAIL

Heroic record and guilty plea saves drug officer

BRAMPTON -- A Toronto Police drug cop who gave an informant cocaine in
exchange for "inside information" on horse races was given a suspended
sentence yesterday, along with two years of probation and 200 hours of
community service. Robert Kelly, 38, a 14-year veteran with "an impeccable
record for heroism," maintained the "highest standard of integrity and
character" until he fell into the "dark side of life" of drugs and fixed
horse races," Ontario Court Justice Ian Cowan said.

"Were it not for his prior good record, guilty plea and efforts at
rehabilitation," Kelly would get a jail term, Cowan said.

Kelly told court prior to sentencing that he was "embarrassed" and
"remorseful."

"If anything good has come of this, I have a healthy mind and a healthy
body," Kelly said, in reference to 300 counselling and therapy sessions he
took to beat a cocaine addiction he said he developed while working on drug
cases.

Asked outside court if he hopes to keep his job at an upcoming Police
Services Act hearing, Kelly said, it's "obviously my hope."

SEPARATE CASE

Kelly was arrested by the RCMP-led internal affairs special task force
probing drug squad corruption.

His case is separate from the probe that led to criminal charges against six
former central field command drug cops and the naming of four others as
co-conspirators.

The fate of four other Toronto cops named peripherally by the informant in
the Kelly case as drug users remains unclear.

Sources say that at least one of the four is linked to another officer who
confessed to a long-time cocaine addiction within days of Kelly's arrest.

All five are still working. No criminal charges have been laid.

RCMP officers arrested Kelly on Nov. 16, 2001, after the informant helped
stage a sting.

$25,000 DEBT

The informant told police that Kelly had threatened his life over a $25,000
horse racing debt.

Kelly was initially charged with two counts of possessing cocaine for the
purposes of trafficking, but pleaded guilty last summer to two counts of
possessing cocaine.

In an agreed statement of fact, Kelly admitted receiving $2,500 from the
agent at a Nov. 6, 2001 meeting.

Kelly admitted giving the informant three grams of cocaine and accepting
$3,000 when the pair met Nov. 9, 2001. Kelly was on duty at the time.

Kelly also admitted he was preparing a small amount of cocaine for himself
and the informant in his car outside Kool Kats bar in Mississauga when
police arrested him.

In a 23-page written judgment, Cowan rejected defence lawyer Peter Brauti's
bid for a conditional discharge, saying it would be "disregarding the public
interest and the disrepute" that Kelly brought upon himself and Toronto
Police.

Brauti consistently argued the case was about "three grams of cocaine."

Prosecutor John North, who said the case was much more serious than that,
had asked for three months of house arrest, followed by three months curfew,
two years of probation and 100 hours of community service.