LAWYER CHARGED WITH PASSING DRUGS TO CLIENT

A respected lawyer says he is in shock after being arrested on what he
calls false accusations of passing drugs to a client in Don Jail.

"I'm feeling like I got hit with a truck," Edmund Schofield, unshaven
after a night in jail but neatly dressed in blazer and tie, said in a
hallway of Old City Hall courthouse yesterday after being released on
bail.

Schofield, 72, a Boston-born former FBI agent who has practised law in
Canada for more than 30 years, is charged with trafficking marijuana
and crack cocaine.

He said the arrest occurred Tuesday evening in an interview room where
he was meeting a client. Schofield says the guards' strip search
amounted to "a cursory 15-second pat-down." He said after he sat down
across from his client, he noticed him fiddling with his clothes and
asked what he was doing.

"He said he was moving (something) from a safe place to his crotch,"
Schofield said.

"Within two minutes they were storming him," he said. Guards put the
inmate on the floor and found three packages, "no bigger than my thumb."

Jail officials held Schofield until police took him to 55 Division. A
police spokesperson said he could not respond to Schofield's version
of events.

Schofield's bail surety, David O'Connor, called it a "great shame that
a man of his calibre and integrity has been charged, especially after
a stellar 38-year career defending innocent people."

O'Connor said defence lawyers are becoming concerned about the way
prisoners are searched. "One can never be sure what can be concealed
where, and you end up with charges like this."