Pubdate: Wed, 25 Feb 2004
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2004, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://www.canoe.com/NewsStand/TorontoSun/home.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Tracy McLaughlin
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/dismissed+charges

CHEERS AS PAIR FREED ON COKE CHARGE

2 Duped, Judge Says

BARRIE -- Two men wept and hugged their lawyers yesterday after a
judge dismissed charges against them of importing cocaine into Canada
in what police described as Ontario's largest cocaine bust. But before
the judge could finish his decision, the accused, Lyle Niemi, dropped
unconscious, like a lead weight from his seat in the front of the
courtroom, as people rushed to his side. Moments later he woke up with
a bewildered look and had a gash on his forehead as a result of
hitting the floor.

"It was just the stress of it all," a dazed Niemi, 40, said outside of
court, after he and former OHL player Darcey Roy, 39, had all charges
dismissed against them.

They were charged after surveillance officers caught four other men
unloading eight hockey bags stuffed with 269 kilos of cocaine off a
plane at Lake Simcoe Regional Airport north of Barrie on November 7,
2001. Niemi was the pilot and his then sales assistant, Roy, was
arrested on a dirt road near the airport.

NO PROOF

Justice Alfred Stong said there was no proof that either man knew that
cocaine was in the hockey bags.

Stong suggested the men were trapped by drug lord Dean Roberts, now
serving 19 years in prison for importing drugs.

Stong said Roberts hired Niemi to fly to Jamaica in a "risky scheme"
to "double-cross" another drug lord.

"It was Dean Roberts' desperate, late-night conspiracy to rip-off his
co-conspirator," the judge said.

Upon hearing Stong's decision, family and friends wept, cheered and
clapped in the crowded court as both men fell into the arms of their
defence lawyers, Michael Lacy and Greg Lafontaine.

Five men from Quebec pleaded guilty in the scheme and were sentenced
from 12 to 19 years in prison last year.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin