Pubdate: Fri, 27 Jan 2012
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Peter Small

BEATEN DRUG DEALER 'WAS ALL BENT OVER,' MOTHER TELLS POLICE TRIAL

The mother of a one-time marijuana dealer, who claims drug squad 
officers beat him and stole his money, says she was shocked to see 
how badly injured he looked hours later.

"He was all bent over, shuffling and bent over," testified Greeba 
Quigley, 75, mother of Christopher Quigley, 46.

"His face was completely red," she told a police corruption trial, 
recalling how her son looked when she bailed him out hours after the 
alleged assault 14 years ago. "He had a big cut in between his eye 
and forehead."

In the days that followed, he couldn't walk properly, she said.

"He was holding himself around the middle. He said he had terrible headaches."

Her son has claimed over six days of testimony that drug squad 
officers brutally kicked, punched and choked him unconscious in a 
police station over nine hours starting April 30, 1998, while angrily 
demanding the whereabouts of his drugs and money.

They then seized $54,000 of cash from his mother's safety deposit 
box, but returned only $22,850, he alleged.

Greeba Quigley testified that officers arrived with a search warrant 
at her Bideford Ave. home, in a comfortable neighbourhood near Avenue 
Rd. and Hwy. 401, at 12:17 a.m. on May 1, 1998.

The retired educator said she was shocked and somewhat scared when 
four plainclothes police officers knocked on her door after she had 
retired to bed.

They told her Christopher had been arrested for marijuana possession. 
"I was extremely surprised," she said. "They said Chris was in a lot 
of trouble."

They asked if her son had anything in the house. All she could think 
of was his personal watercraft in the garage. Then she volunteered 
that she was keeping money in her safety deposit box for her son and 
she handed over the key.

She told prosecutor Milan Rupic she recalls that in the weeks prior 
she had estimated how much money she held for her son. She said she 
wrote down the amount   $54,000   on a slip of paper, which she lost 
but came across four years later after she had been contacted by 
police investigating the officers.

She was testifying at the Ontario Superior Court trial of Steven 
Correia, 44, John Schertzer, 54, Raymond Pollard, 47, Ned Maodus, 48, 
and Joseph Miched, 53.

The former Central Field Command drug squad officers collectively 
face 29 charges, laid in January 2004, including attempt to obstruct 
justice, perjury, assault and extortion between 1997 and 2002.

Defence lawyers have not challenged the fact that Quigley was injured 
by police, but suggest a struggle occurred only after an officer 
tried to subdue Quigley, who they say was outraged upon learning 
police were searching his mother's house.

The trial continues, presided over by Justice Gladys Pardu.
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