MOTHER OF TORONTO POLICE OFFICER ARRESTED IN DRUG SWEEP DEFENDS SON

'This Is The Most Ridiculous, Most Stupid Thing,' Says Cornelia
Floria, Protesting Chief's Comments

The mother of a Toronto police officer arrested in last week's massive
drug sweep defended her son yesterday, accusing police of trying to
"destroy" her family.

Const. Ioan-Florin Floria, 34, was one of 25 people arrested, accused
of helping an Eastern European organized crime group to traffic narcotics.

"This is the most ridiculous, most stupid thing," his mother Cornelia
Floria said, calling the Star yesterday to protest the comments made
about her son by the police chief last week. Floria, an eight-year
police veteran who worked in traffic services, faces six charges,
including two counts of breach of trust and being an accessory after
the fact of kidnapping.

Chief Bill Blair said while Floria's arrest was worrisome, it didn't
appear to represent any "widespread" infiltration of organized crime
into the police service. Attempts to "compromise and corrupt people in
power and influence in our judiciary and in the police" is one of the
more serious threats posed by traditional crime groups, he added.

Police allege that Floria used his position as a police officer to
conduct unauthorized criminal background checks to assist the
traffickers, who police say were based in Toronto and had links to
Romania, Algeria and Hungary.

Floria's arrest shows that "no one is above the law in our
organization and if people do engage in inappropriate or corrupt
conduct, they will be held accountable," Blair said.

"If and when it occurs, I'm very confident that we have the people in
place to ensure that the integrity of our organization, our service,
our commitment to the public can be maintained."

Cornelia Floria protested the chief's comments.

"How can somebody be a chief of police and do such a thing?" she asked
"To put my son's name over those pictures of those drug dealers that
were caught" suggests he's guilty, she said, before he's even had a
fair chance to defend himself.

She arrived with her family to Canada from Romania in 1989, when her
son was 17 years old.

"We are a small community of Romanian people," she said, and her son
knows some of the accused.

"Yes, he knows some of them because some of them are from the city we
came from." But knowing them, she said, doesn't mean he was working
with them.

Floria called her son hardworking and kind-hearted. "I was always
proud that I am a mother of a police (officer)," she said. "We are
decent people working hard in this country and look how they destroy
us."

Floria appeared in a Scarborough court last week and was released on
bail. He has been suspended from the service with pay.