POLICE BLOCKED CORRUPTION PROBE

Documents Allege Shakedowns, Drug Deals And Death Threats Directed At
Witnesses

A massive RCMP-led operation to root out corruption in the Toronto
Police Service was jolted by death threats to witnesses and a solid
wall of hostility within police ranks, according to court documents
unsealed yesterday.

Released after a two-year access battle by The Globe and Mail and the
CBC, the documents read like a detective thriller. They reveal a
chilling spectrum of improper practices and alleged criminality
extending well beyond six officers who were charged with 22 offences
earlier this month.

The top-secret investigation that began into the Toronto police drug
squad in 2001 found evidence of rogue officers who falsified search
warrants, traded in drugs, supplied perjured testimony and shook down
citizens. Other evidence revealed:

A man who was thought to have supplied damning information against a
group of suspect officers was later pulled over on a Toronto highway
and threatened at gunpoint.

"The assailants told [him] that if they found out it was him who had
co-operated with the investigation, he was dead," states an affidavit
sworn by RCMP Chief Superintendent John Neily. He said no link was
found to the officers, but the incident highlighted potential dangers
to witnesses.

Charges against three officers were dropped when a key witness
"expressed extreme fear for his safety, recanted, intentionally
injured himself, threatened further self-mutilation if forced to
testify, and was ultimately assessed by the Crown as
unreliable."

An officer who was related to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police task
force member was threatened with bodily harm by a police colleague
hostile to the probe.

Another officer known to have co-operated with the task force "heard
indirectly -- and in a way that cannot be linked to any of the accused
police officers -- that he would get his kneecaps broken for having
talked to the Internal Affairs investigators," according to Chief
Supt. Neily.

Many of the suspect officers simply refused to be interviewed, the
affidavits state, while their memo books went unaccountably missing.

Indeed, a search of one officer's home revealed a hidden stash of
them.

A Toronto defence lawyer whose agitation helped launch the internal
investigation said yesterday that the unsealed documents reveal a
startling number of previously unknown allegations that did not result
in charges.

"In my opinion, it portrays a degree of criminality that exceeds the
cops who are charged," Edward Sapiano said. "When it comes to
prosecuting police officers, you don't just have to have proof beyond
a reasonable doubt -- it has to be beyond, beyond, beyond a reasonable
doubt."

A last-ditch bid by police lawyers to have the documents suppressed
yesterday was thwarted when three Ontario Court of Appeal judges ruled
that the prejudicial effect on future trials was insufficient to
"trump" freedom of the press.

The Globe and the CBC had been seeking to open information since 2001,
when convicted heroin trafficker Simon Yeung was freed in the middle
of his prison term. The Court of Appeal sealed the case to ensure that
the RCMP operation remained secret. (As it turns out, Mr. Yeung's 1999
conviction was reversed because officers had obstructed justice and
committed perjury.)

Every six months, the RCMP and the Crown renewed the sealing order
using affidavits from Chief Supt. Neily. Amongst the riveting inside
details is an elaborate sting operation which targeted a prime suspect
- -- Constable Joseph Miched.

An undercover RCMP operative initially gained his confidence by posing
as an ex-police officer turned money-launderer for organized crime.
Constable Miched swallowed the bait, according to Chief Supt. Neily,
and was eventually "present at, and actively participated in, several
transactions where several hundred thousands of dollars of money were
delivered to the undercover operator purportedly to be invested and
laundered."

The affidavit states that Constable Miched -- armed on at least one
occasion with his police-issue weapon -- helped provide security, and
counted and transported money and diamonds that were supposedly
derived from large-scale drug deals.

It says he also tried to persuade his superior, Staff Sergeant John
Shertzer, to join the scheme. However, Staff Sgt. Shertzer smelled a
set-up. Constable Miched abruptly went off on a lengthy sick leave,
and was shunned thereafter by other suspect officers.

By late 2001, 26 officers and five support staff were investigating
allegations that included fraudulent search warrants, non-existent
confidential informants, drug trafficking, use of hard drugs and the
theft of a total of as much as $500,000 in money and jewellery from
citizens.

Chief Supt. Neily estimated that 2,100 prosecutions and 600 search
warrants would have to be re-investigated. The Crown eventually stayed
or withdrew approximately 200 cases because of concerns about the
honesty of the investigators.

The task force often sought information from underworld informants
with whom the target officers had shared startlingly close
relationships. "It was actually a social relationship in some cases,"
Chief Supt. Neily noted.

He was unhappy with the surly reaction the RCMP encountered from
Toronto officers, including the alteration or destruction of police
notes. "We are receiving very little co-operation from witness police
officers of the Toronto Police Service and in fact, it can be fairly
stated that witness police officers are antagonistic towards this
investigation," he said in one affidavit.

By November of 2002, the task force had thousands of documents
pointing to criminal activity by 17 members of one drug unit alone.
The task force also had evidence of a suspect who had been beaten and
extorted; of officers who had "taxed" drug dealers in return for
permission to operate unimpeded in certain portions of the city; and
of an officer who sold drugs and weapons to drug dealers in return for
large quantities of cash.

"In isolating the strongest cases, we have eliminated many more than
those being presented for criminal prosecution," Chief Supt. Neily
noted.

He expressed increasing concern for the welfare of informants, and
made preparations for witness relocation and protection programs to
begin at a moment's notice. "The threat level attached to this is
extremely high and of significant tactical concern to us in future."