Pubdate: Wed, 20 Dec 2006
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 The Ottawa Citizen
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Andrew Seymour and Chris Lackner

30 YEARS ON, DRUG SMUGGLER IS BACK TO SERVE HIS TIME

Thirty years ago, Christopher John Clarkson was on trial in Ottawa for
conspiracy to import cocaine.

Yesterday, the one-time CBC TV producer with connections to Paddy
Mitchell and the notorious Stopwatch Gang was back on Canadian soil to
start the 20-year prison sentence he was handed in absentia when he
skipped bail in 1976.

Deported yesterday from a Miami holding cell, Mr. Clarkson, 60,
arrived at the Ottawa airport aboard a Northwest Airlines jet
accompanied by two U.S. immigration officers.

He was met by the RCMP, along with officials from the U.S. State
Department, the Canada Border Services Agency and Correctional Service
Canada.

Sporting a full white beard and clutching a copy of USA Today with his
hands cuffed in front of him, Mr. Clarkson flashed a peace sign as he
was loaded into a prison van.

Wearing a green windbreaker over a tan sweater, white and grey
collared shirt and khaki pants, Mr. Clarkson said nothing as he was
taken off to prison. Mr. Clarkson's life on the lam ended in October
2005 when U.S. federal agents with guns drawn descended on a
commercial real estate office near Miami and arrested Stephen Willis
Duffy.

But Stephen Willis Duffy, a wealthy real estate agent with a high-end
car, upscale home and vacation property, whose firm, Duffy &
Associates, had recently expanded from one office to two, was really
Mr. Clarkson, who had assumed the identity of a dead four-year-old
California boy decades earlier and created an entirely new life for
himself in the United States.

Mr. Clarkson -- nephew of the prominent University of Toronto
political scientist Stephen Clarkson, who was at one time married to
former governor general Adrienne Clarkson -- was sentenced to 14
months in U.S. prison for passport fraud and false statements on a
loan application. He was ordered deported back to Canada after his
arrest last October.

Mr. Clarkson might never have been caught had he not applied for a
U.S. passport and been arrested on a drunk and disorderly misdemeanour
charge in Los Angeles in 1991. When Mr. Clarkson applied for a new
passport, he produced his driver's licence and the Duffy name came
back as deceased. The agency that reviews applicants then learned a
Mr. Duffy had previously applied in 1976 for a passport.

The investigation revealed Mr. Duffy had been arrested in Los Angeles
and his prints were on a national database. Agents tracked him to Florida.

Upon his arrival in Ottawa yesterday, RCMP officers executed a warrant
of committal and took Mr. Clarkson into custody.

Michele Pilon-Santilli, national director of media relations for
Correctional Service Canada, said the RCMP would immediately be
handing over Mr. Clarkson to their care.

Ms. Pilon-Santilli said Mr. Clarkson faces a 60- to 90-day intake
assessment in which the correctional service will determine the
details of how he will serve his 20-year sentence.

The assessment will determine where Mr. Clarkson is placed -- minimum,
medium or maximum security -- and what programming and special needs
he may have during his sentence.

To make their decision, the correctional service will take into
account the factors leading to Mr. Clarkson's criminal behaviour, his
history of offences, outstanding charges, his current mental and
physical health and the level of family support he is expected to receive.

During the intake assessment process, prisoners are usually kept in a
maximum-security institution, but Ms. Pilon-Santilli said she could
not confirm where Mr. Clarkson will be held. One option is the
maximum-security Millhaven Institution near Kingston.

Both Stephen Clarkson and Adrienne Clarkson declined to comment
yesterday on Mr. Clarkson's return to Canada. However, Stephen
Clarkson told MacLean's magazine in a story that ran earlier this
month that his nephew Christopher had kept in touch with his immediate
family over the years, but that no one has talked to him since his
arrest.

Mr. Clarkson hooked up with the Stopwatch Gang and helped them get
into the lucrative drug trafficking trade, then fled Ottawa in 1976,
jumping bail while awaiting trial on charges of conspiring to import
cocaine from Curacao into Canada. In what was considered an unusual
move, he was tried and convicted in absentia and sentenced to 20 years.

The Stopwatch Gang was a three-man crew led by the Preston
Street-raised Mr. Mitchell and included Lionel Wright and Stephen
Reid. The gang was responsible for at least

$2-million worth of daring robberies and Hollywood-style prison
escapes, stretching from Ottawa to California, through the 1970s and
1980s.

Known for carrying out their meticulous holdups in 90 seconds or less,
the gang's crowning caper took place in 1974 when they masterminded a
$750,000 gold heist at Ottawa International Airport.

Mr. Clarkson and Thomas Harrigan entered the picture, helping the
Mitchell gang plot to smuggle cocaine. The plan failed miserably and
by 1976, the members were on trial in Ottawa on charges of conspiring
to import the drug. Mr. Mitchell got 17 years, plus three more for the
gold robbery. He remains in a U.S. prison.

Mr. Harrigan and Mr. Clarkson, meanwhile, who were free on bail during
the trial, fled the country.

Mr. Harrigan was arrested again in 1989 and served a 15-year term in
Millhaven. In 1992, Ottawa lawyer Michael Edelson unsuccessfully filed
for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada to overturn the
original 1976 convictions.

Mr. Edelson contended the trial judge erred by trying Mr. Harrigan and
his co-accused, Mr. Clarkson, in absentia. That appeal was thrown out.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Derek