Pubdate: Fri, 08 Apr 2005
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2005, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://www.canoe.com/NewsStand/TorontoSun/home.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Alan Cairns, Toronto Sun
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?236 (Corruption - Outside U.S.)

COP WANTED RIVAL BEATEN

Addict Officer Guilty In Assault Plot On Ex's Lover

A Member of an elite Toronto Police squad was in drug and alcohol
rehab when he asked a purported Hell's Angels associate to put a
beating on a man who had stolen his girlfriend, court records show.
David Suntok, 32, a Toronto Police Emergency Task Force officer and
part of an elite VIP bodyguard squad while in Kosovo as a peacekeeping
cop, wanted his romantic adversary "knocked down ... a couple of boots
put to him ... his nose broken," court transcripts show.

Suntok did not want to kill the man because he wanted to "show up at
the victim's hospital bed to ... taunt him that he was the man behind
the violence," prosecutor Steve Sherriff told a Brampton court recently.

A striking tattoo of the word "HATRED" that spans Suntok's throat was
mostly hidden by a collared sweatshirt yesterday as he was ordered
freed on $5,000 bail by Brampton Judge Paul Currie.

3 MONTHS CUSTODY

He was freed to an out-of-town guarantor after almost three months in
custody and will return to court July 19 for sentencing.

Sherriff later told reporters that Suntok's release is a "test drive
. and if he flunks it, all bets are off."

Since his Jan. 12 arrest, Suntok, who was initially charged with
counselling or conspiring with three separate men to hurt his
girlfriend's new lover, entered a guilty plea to counselling an
undercover cop to commit an aggravated assault.

Suntok has quit the Toronto Police force and is pursuing another
career.

Agreed-upon "facts" read into the record at Suntok's Feb. 3 guilty
plea reveal he was admitted to Homewood rehab centre in Guelph last
September on "unrelated matters."

'BETRAYED' BY EX-DEALER

"For quite some time before ... he had an addiction to both alcohol
and cocaine," court was told.

While at Homewood, Suntok befriended a police agent who was portraying
himself as a Hells Angels associate.

Suntok complained about a Toronto nightclub owner and prior cocaine
supplier who had "betrayed" him by getting involved with his
girlfriend, giving her cocaine and "effectively stealing her."

An undercover officer was introduced to Suntok Jan. 5.

Sherriff told the guilty plea hearing that Suntok initially wanted his
nemesis to be "significantly harmed" or made to "never talk again,"
but over time de-escalated his plan.

Suntok's talk of getting an "untraceable, throw-away gun" did not
amount to anything.

Sherriff told court if he thought the gun existed the allegation
against Suntok would have been counselling murder.
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