T.O. POT PLOT UP IN SMOKE

Spy caught getting high

TORONTO -- The Toronto Transit Commission's efforts to uncover pot smoking
and drinking by its employees by planting a teenaged undercover
"investigator" blew up in the company's face when its agent got high smoking
up with workers, a judgment released yesterday said. The gaffes were
revealed in a civil trial for a fired yard worker, Michael Teskey, who had
been charged criminally following the undercover investigation.

The criminal case was withdrawn and Teskey then sued the TTC, its private
investigation agency and the agent, "PS", for $1 million, alleging malicious
prosecution and defamation.

Teskey was fired in July, 1999, after PS alleged he sold grass on the job --
on a day he wasn't at work.

All of the trial witnesses, except the pot-smoking agent and another
"equivocal witness," testified Teskey neither smoked nor sold grass.

The civil jury ruled there was no cause to lay a criminal charge but found
no malice and awarded Teskey zero damages. The agent, 19, was posing as a
worker to gather evidence against workers smoking up and drinking on the job
at the Greenwood TTC repair facility in 1999.

But PS, who was a first-time investigator with no experience, "was regularly
smoking or appearing to smoke marijuana during the investigation," Wilson
wrote.