ELITE DRUG TEAM IN PIECES

Once touted as Toronto's elite drug team, Staff-Sgt. John Schertzer's
former crew now claims an RCMP-led corruption probe has ruined their
careers and personal lives. One officer claims he has contemplated
suicide.

Another says he lives in fear that his home is bugged.

In a 200-page Amended Statement of Claim to that $116-million
"malicious prosecution" lawsuit, the eight ex-drug squad cops claim a
myriad of health problems.

While all the officers claim depression, lack of sleep and loss of
self-esteem, some allege deeper problems.

Jawoslaw Cieslik, 35, claims since his removal from the drug squad he
has been given menial jobs. It's claimed that in January 2001, "his
depression reached a point that he had uncontrollable thoughts of
walking out in the traffic on Hwy. 427."

The health of Cieslik's police officer wife, Susan Cieslik, 38, has
been failing while giving her husband "chronic care" for his problems,
they claim.

Schertzer, 45, was "devastated and inconsolable and wept
uncontrollably" for weeks.

It's alleged he's been reassigned to menial duties and deliberately
humiliated when he was refused his 20-year service medal and his
25-year watch.

Steven Correia, 36, is worried his home phone is wire-tapped. He is
"talking to his spouse in code in their own house," they claim. He
claims his cop wife, Susan Correia, 34, is aware "police have bugged
other officers' homes in the course of the investigations."