OPP DROPS CHARGES AGAINST GAN OFFICER

Local News - In a decision that at least one senior law official says makes
provincial police look bad, charges of corrupt practice and insubordination
against a Gananoque OPP officer were withdrawn yesterday.

Sgt. Ed Hickey appeared briefly before an OPP tribunal at a downtown
Kingston hotel after it was alleged that he used his position as a police
officer to buy a house - at a discounted price - that had been seized from
a local drug dealer.

He was charged last spring under the Police Services Act, provincial
legislation that contains a code of conduct for all police officers in Ontario.

Yesterday, those charges were withdrawn after the OPP brokered a deal with
Hickey's estranged wife, Gaye Princ. She was the citizen who initially
lodged a public complaint against the officer after she became aware of his
house purchase in 2001.

OPP Supt. Bill Crate said Princ agreed to withdraw the complaint on the
grounds that she was satisfied the force had drafted - although not yet put
in place - a new policy to prohibit other officers from buying property
seized from criminals under proceeds-of-crime law.

Crate, superintendent of corporate communications at OPP headquarters in
Orillia, acknowledged there was a gap in force policy that had made it
possible for Hickey to purchase the home.

"We recognize that there was no clear policy and now we have a policy that
will prohibit OPP officers from bidding on these properties in future," he
said.

Hickey paid $52,500 for the partially built house and two lots, just days
after the property was valued at $170,000 in a police release issued to the
media when it was seized.

The 20-year veteran officer did security patrols of the home at 6
Sturtivan's Lane, located on the scenic Thousand Islands Parkway, after it
was seized by the OPP proceeds-of-crime unit.

He still lives in the house.

Crate also said that the public may not have a positive impression of the
decision to withdraw the charges against Hickey. But the fact that there
were no regulations in place to prohibit him from buying the house in 2001
affected the way the case was prosecuted.

"Perceptually, it doesn't make us look good as an organization," Crate said
in an interview.

"But on this issue, it is my understanding that the investigators and those
people involved in the professional standards bureau were of the opinion
that they would not get a successful prosecution."

It will be different for other officers in the future, he said.

Though the new draft policy has been in the works for more than 10 months,
Crate said it may be approved as early as today and become official force
policy.

He admitted that "it did take longer than it should," but he couldn't
comment on the fact that the policy would likely be approved the day after
the charges against Hickey were dropped.

Crate said the draft policy doesn't apply to the Gananoque officer and the
purchase of his home.

Yesterday, Hickey stood before Terrence Kelly, retired deputy chief of York
Regional Police, who was the hearing's adjudicator. Kelly withdrew the
charges against Hickey after OPP prosecutor Insp. Kathy Rippey handed him a
copy of the deal with the officer's estranged wife.

"You are now free to go," Kelly told Hickey.

Hickey, wearing a dark blue suit, stood red-faced before the adjudicator
and simply said, "Thank you, sir."

He then briskly walked out of the hearing room, through a back door and
left the building.

He made no comment.

His lawyer, Lorna Boyd, legal counsel for the OPP Association, told The
Whig-Standard that Hickey did nothing wrong because there were no policies
in 2001 that would have prevented him from buying the house.

She maintains he never should have been brought before a disciplinary
hearing and never should have been charged.

"There was no policy, no provincial statute, no federal statute that spoke
to this . Policy has now changed," she said in an interview.

"If somebody today goes and does that, then once the policy is in, they're
going to say that officers can't."

Boyd said the allegations against Hickey damaged his career and reputation.

"It's been very difficult and stressful for him," she said. "Yet during
this time, he has worked diligently and he has worked proudly serving the
province.

"He did nothing wrong."

But Clayton Ruby, one of Canada's top criminal lawyers, said the fact that
Hickey bought the home before the new policy was put in place shouldn't
determine whether he should be disciplined.

"The discipline stream should proceed ahead according to the public
interest and that should be separate from the force's internal policies,"
he said.

"If [the OPP] thinks it's in their interest to have a new policy, good. But
that shouldn't affect the public interest in prosecuting or not
prosecuting. In the end, the police officer is the beneficiary.

"If what he did was wrong, it's no less wrong now."

Ruby said public interest wasn't served by the outcome of the hearing and
he's concerned that the charges were dropped because the complainant
withdrew her complaint.

"Complainants do not control the complaint," he said. "Otherwise, it's too
easy for people who complain who are vulnerable to be blackmailed or bribed
into withdrawing complaints . This is a maladministration to allow a
complainant to do this."

Ruby said the outcome of Hickey's case and the way the OPP dealt with the
matter sends a clear message about the way complaints against police are
handled - and it's not an encouraging one.

"The attorney general has promised to draft an independent complaints
process for police in Ontario - maybe it will be better, maybe it won't,"
he said.

"Things have been going from bad to worse with police and I can't tell you
that I expect things to get better."

After The Whig published a story last March outlining the case against
Hickey, several MPs called for the government to review legislation on
proceeds of crime.

The story detailed a secretive, unmonitored system that surrounds the
handling of millions of dollars of goods that police across Canada seize
from criminals under proceeds-of-crime law every year.

Both federal and provincial politicians have since called for new
legislation that would prevent police officers from buying goods that are
seized from crooks.