PRISON PROBE A 'SORDID MESS', HEARING TOLD

Local News - The only evidence to support charges of cocaine trafficking
against a Kingston Penitentiary guard fired last year is hearsay coming
from criminals, his lawyer told a hearing reviewing the guard's dismissal
yesterday.

Angus MacLeod ridiculed a two-year undercover police investigation into
staff corruption at Canada's largest maximum security penitentiary. He said
the combined forces of the police and Corrections Canada had not uncovered
a shred of physical evidence against his client.

The case against Jamie Renaud rests on evidence from a dead guard, a
convicted killer and mob snitch and a guard who admitted using drugs
himself, MacLeod said in a vehement closing argument to the public service
board reviewing Renaud's firing.

"There were zero criminal charges, zero criminal convictions, zero drugs
that were detained or intercepted," MacLeod said of the investigation,
which he termed "a sorry mess."

"It is extremely unusual to charge someone with trafficking in cocaine when
there is no drug evidence. In fact, this may be the first."

Eight guards were fired after the two-year undercover investigation dubbed
Project O-Correct. Forty others received warnings about their conduct. All
eight fired guards are appealing their dismissals.

The prison service argued it terminated Renaud for trafficking in cocaine,
not because he was convicted of it.

The burden of proof in a labour relations hearing is much lower than it
would be in a criminal court, and the rules of evidence are substantially
lessened, because only a person's job is on the line, not his freedom.

Corrections need only make a case against an employee on a "balance of
probability" to justify its decision to terminate, not beyond a reasonable
doubt as prosecutors are required to do at a criminal trial.

"His short employment at [Corrections Canada] is at stake, but his liberty
is not," government lawyer Richard Fader told hearing chairman Joe Potter
at the Kingston inquiry yesterday.

"He will not leave this room wearing handcuffs."

MacLeod, in turn, argued his client already was.

"What are being applied to Mr. Renaud are invisible handcuffs, a smear," he
said. "There has been no criminal trial, no chance to clear his name."

The government presented allegations that Renaud sold one gram of cocaine
to Dave Perkins in the parking lot of a store near the prison in 2000.
Perkins later killed himself.

The main witness was guard Rick Noble, who testified that he also bought a
gram of cocaine from Renaud in the summer of 2000 in a Kingston apartment.
Noble is on stress leave after other guards turned against him following
his allegations to the police.

Backing their stories was a high-profile inmate, contract killer and mob
snitch who agreed to work with police to inform on guards.

MacLeod argued his client was being set up by the trio and neither Perkins
nor Noble particularly liked him.

"Every single witness against Jamie Renaud has been someone involved in
criminal activity," he said.

=46ader argued that Noble had no reason to lie as he knew he was breaching
the guards' "rat code" and would be punished for it when he returned to the
institution.

"He had no reason to lie," Fader said. "Quite the opposite. "He knew the
consequences as he was giving that statement to the RCMP. That is why he
broke down in his car and cried =8A He knew the consequences and he
suffered the consequences."

Those consequences included other guards shunning him, graffiti about him
scrawled in the institution and finally, a contract put out on him by
ex-guards, who police said paid inmates to attack him.

=46ader and MacLeod agreed that the final decision would depend on the
credibility that the chairman of the hearing attached to the witnesses. "Do
you believe the testimony of [Renaud] or Rick Noble?" Fader asked Potter.

"One of them is lying, and we're not going to walk out of here being
100-per-cent sure which one of them it is."

He argued that Renaud had compromised his ability to be a peace officer and
could not work inside the walls again. "In a case as serious as this, the
bond of trust cannot be rebuilt on a foundation of lies."

Most of MacLeod's closing argument was given over to attacks on the
statements and credibility of government witnesses, including Warden Monty
Bourke, whom he accused of "cheap shots" by announcing at the hearing that
more disciplinary hearings had been launched as a result of testimony.

He argued that Renaud's was the only honest testimony heard at the hearing
and asked Potter to consider the lack of credible corroborating evidence
when he made his decision.

"Where's the evidence?" he asked.

"As the lady on the TV used to say, where's the beef? There is none,
there's no evidence. No cellphone, no pager, no scales, no drug paraphernalia."

Potter has said he will issue his ruling in several months. The third guard
to appeal his dismissal will have his hearing next month.