Four of five former drug squad officers on trial in the city’s largest cop corruption case were previously charged with defrauding the Toronto police force.
For the sake of trial fairness, however, references to these so-called “Fink Fund” allegations were not heard by a jury that began deliberations Tuesday.
Raymond Pollard, 48, Joseph Miched, 53, Steven Correia, 45, Ned Maodus, 49, and their former boss, John Schertzer, 54, are variously charged with conspiracy to attempt to obstruct justice, perjury, extortion, theft and assault.
The former members of the elite Team 3 of Central Field Command drug squad were charged by a Toronto police Special Task Force in 2004. Their trial began Jan. 16.
The jury did not hear, however, that on Nov. 22, 2000 Pollard, Miched, Correia and Schertzer were charged — along with four other officers — with theft, fraud, forgery and breach of trust in their use of the police “Fink Fund,” a cash reserve to pay informants.
Those charges were stayed on Feb. 13, 2002 because the Crown feared they would compromise the larger investigation into the allegations now before the jury.
The first formal charges against any of the defendants — Schertzer, Maodus, Miched and Correia — were internal disciplinary allegations in 1998.
A Toronto police complaint investigator alleged two drug suspects had been unjustly detained, strip-searched and their homes searched without a warrant in October 1997.
However, a hearing officer dismissed those charges on a time-related technicality.
The jury also did not hear that Maodus — who along with Schertzer is charged with assaulting pot dealer Christopher Quigley — has a previous conviction for assault.
In 2007, he was given a conditional sentence after pleading guilty to assault causing bodily harm, pointing a firearm and uttering threats based on complaints from a woman who cannot be identified.
Maodus was charged in this case after OPP tactical response officers arrested him at his Orangeville-area home in March 2002. There they found weapons and drugs: four tablets of ecstasy, 3.5 grams of heroin and 45.5 grams of cocaine.
But a judge later excluded the drugs and weapons from a trial, ruling the OPP breached Maodus’ Charter rights by making a warrantless entry on to his property, cutting his phone wires, flattening his car tires and strip-searching him in his driveway.
At the time, Special Task Force investigator Bryce Evans got wind of Maodus’ arrest.
As OPP officer Jill Manser prepared an application for a search warrant to look for weapons in his home, Evans asked if STF investigators could tag along on her search so he could look for property belonging to the Toronto police.
Alternately, the OPP could bring the goods out of Maodus’ house for Toronto police to examine, he suggested.
The OPP officer rebuffed his overtures as improper but promised to keep an eye out for Toronto police property.
After her search, the Special Task Force executed its own warrant and found 67 police memo books that Maodus was keeping in his basement, despite being under the chief’s orders to surrender at least 17 of them.
Maodus tried to exclude the notebooks from the trial, arguing they had been obtained through an improper search. Justice Gladys Pardu agreed his rights were breached, but admitted the notebooks nonetheless, ruling that excluding them would come at too high a cost to justice.
In addition, the jury did not hear that in 2008, while on bail for the charges in the case now before the jury, Maodus was fined $1,500 for soliciting a woman for prostitution — a Toronto undercover police officer.
The jury also did not hear bizarre evidence that, starting in April 2005, investigators in the cop corruption probe were sent on a wild goose chase looking into what appears to be phony evidence planted against Schertzer.
A short, anonymous list of foreign bank accounts purportedly belonging to the retired veteran detective found its way to the Special Task Force. An “asset tracing” investigation was begun, but the Crown later determined that the information was false.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Peter Small
For the sake of trial fairness, however, references to these so-called “Fink Fund” allegations were not heard by a jury that began deliberations Tuesday.
Raymond Pollard, 48, Joseph Miched, 53, Steven Correia, 45, Ned Maodus, 49, and their former boss, John Schertzer, 54, are variously charged with conspiracy to attempt to obstruct justice, perjury, extortion, theft and assault.
The former members of the elite Team 3 of Central Field Command drug squad were charged by a Toronto police Special Task Force in 2004. Their trial began Jan. 16.
The jury did not hear, however, that on Nov. 22, 2000 Pollard, Miched, Correia and Schertzer were charged — along with four other officers — with theft, fraud, forgery and breach of trust in their use of the police “Fink Fund,” a cash reserve to pay informants.
Those charges were stayed on Feb. 13, 2002 because the Crown feared they would compromise the larger investigation into the allegations now before the jury.
The first formal charges against any of the defendants — Schertzer, Maodus, Miched and Correia — were internal disciplinary allegations in 1998.
A Toronto police complaint investigator alleged two drug suspects had been unjustly detained, strip-searched and their homes searched without a warrant in October 1997.
However, a hearing officer dismissed those charges on a time-related technicality.
The jury also did not hear that Maodus — who along with Schertzer is charged with assaulting pot dealer Christopher Quigley — has a previous conviction for assault.
In 2007, he was given a conditional sentence after pleading guilty to assault causing bodily harm, pointing a firearm and uttering threats based on complaints from a woman who cannot be identified.
Maodus was charged in this case after OPP tactical response officers arrested him at his Orangeville-area home in March 2002. There they found weapons and drugs: four tablets of ecstasy, 3.5 grams of heroin and 45.5 grams of cocaine.
But a judge later excluded the drugs and weapons from a trial, ruling the OPP breached Maodus’ Charter rights by making a warrantless entry on to his property, cutting his phone wires, flattening his car tires and strip-searching him in his driveway.
At the time, Special Task Force investigator Bryce Evans got wind of Maodus’ arrest.
As OPP officer Jill Manser prepared an application for a search warrant to look for weapons in his home, Evans asked if STF investigators could tag along on her search so he could look for property belonging to the Toronto police.
Alternately, the OPP could bring the goods out of Maodus’ house for Toronto police to examine, he suggested.
The OPP officer rebuffed his overtures as improper but promised to keep an eye out for Toronto police property.
After her search, the Special Task Force executed its own warrant and found 67 police memo books that Maodus was keeping in his basement, despite being under the chief’s orders to surrender at least 17 of them.
Maodus tried to exclude the notebooks from the trial, arguing they had been obtained through an improper search. Justice Gladys Pardu agreed his rights were breached, but admitted the notebooks nonetheless, ruling that excluding them would come at too high a cost to justice.
In addition, the jury did not hear that in 2008, while on bail for the charges in the case now before the jury, Maodus was fined $1,500 for soliciting a woman for prostitution — a Toronto undercover police officer.
The jury also did not hear bizarre evidence that, starting in April 2005, investigators in the cop corruption probe were sent on a wild goose chase looking into what appears to be phony evidence planted against Schertzer.
A short, anonymous list of foreign bank accounts purportedly belonging to the retired veteran detective found its way to the Special Task Force. An “asset tracing” investigation was begun, but the Crown later determined that the information was false.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Peter Small
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