[news] Six Toronto police officers face corruption charges

[resist collective]

-------- Original Message --------
From: sabate <sabate at ziplip.com>

Six Toronto police officers face corruption charges

7 Jan 2004
By DARREN YOURK
Globe and Mail Update

Charges have been laid against six veteran Toronto police officers in 
the wake of a massive 2½-year RCMP investigation into corruption on the 
force.

Staff-Sergeant John Schertzer, Detective Constable Steven Correia and 
Constables Raymond Pollard, Joseph Miched, Ned Maodus and Richard Benoit 
have been charged with more than 20 offences, including conspiracy to 
obstruct justice, perjury, extortion, assault causing bodily harm and 
theft over $5,000.

“As I stand here today with the news that five serving officers and one 
retired officer are now facing charges I am deeply saddened and 
disappointed,” Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino said Wednesday. 
“Without doubt, this whole situation is quite regrettable.”

The officers, five of whom are still active on the force, were members 
of the Police Service's central drug squad. They turned themselves in at 
Toronto Police headquarters Wednesday morning and are scheduled to 
appear in court Wednesday afternoon. All have been suspended with pay 
while they await trial.

Constable Maodus, a 15-year member of the force, was arrested Monday by 
the Toronto Police Service Professional Standards Special Task Force and 
charged with possession of heroin, cocaine and ecstasy for the purpose 
of trafficking.

Four other officers — Greg Forestall, John Reid, Jason Kondo and Mike 
Turnbull — were named as unindicted co-conspirators Wednesday. The 
officers have not been charged with a criminal offence but will be 
placed on restricted duties.

Wednesday's arrests mark the culmination of an internal Toronto Police 
Services investigation that began in 1999 with allegations of thefts of 
relatively small amounts of money from the force's so-called "fink 
fund," used by officers to pay their informants.

That investigation led in the fall of 2000 to dozens of criminal and 
Police Act charges, virtually all of them abruptly dropped in February 
last year, with the only case that proceeded to court, and involving two 
officers from another squad, resulting in jury acquittals.

In August, 2001, Chief Fantino asked the RCMP to oversee a separate 
independent investigation into the allegations that members of the drug 
squad were beating and stealing from suspects.

Chief Superintendent John Neily, who led the RCMP investigation, said 
the evidence in case pointed squarely at a small group of officers who 
chose to get involved in criminal activity while trying to obstruct justice.

The charged officers are alleged to have falsified notes and internal 
police records, given false testimony, sworn to false affidavits to 
obtain search warrants and failed to account for evidence they seized.

“Police officers are not above the law,” Chief Supt. Neily said. “It 
never has been, and never will be, acceptable for police to engage in 
criminal activity or take the law in to their own hands. There is no 
excuse.”

“...The special task force mandate challenged us to follow the truth, 
The truth has led us to where we are today.”

Chief Fantino that while Wednesday's news was troubling, it must not 
take away from the public's trust in the good work that the vast 
majority of officers in the Toronto Police Service do every day.

“We must maintain our faith in the system,” Chief Fantino said. “I do 
today as I always have in the past. I can however tell you that the 
allegations are isolated and confined. The investigation has been 
independent, extremely exhaustive and most definitely thorough.”

“...Although I would have preferred a different outcome, I know that the 
public interest has been well served.”



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