Pubdate: Mon, 14 May 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

POLICE CORRUPTION TRIAL: I DIDN'T BEAT STRIPPER, 'GOOD-LOOKING'
OFFICER TESTIFIES

A former drug squad officer accused of beating a Montreal stripper in
a Toronto police interview room says he didn't have any contact with
her.

Aida Fagundo has testified that a tall, good-looking police officer
with blue eyes beat her with a telephone book after she was arrested
on a cocaine trafficking charge on Nov. 2, 1997.

"That couldn't have been me," said Joseph Miched, who is tall and has
blue eyes, to laughter from the jury.

"Did you see anyone abuse her?" asked his lawyer, Peter
Brauti.

"No, sir," he replied.

The Crown has suggested Miched was the one who administered the
alleged beating.

Fagundo, a Cuban-born Canadian now living in Spain, testified in
February via video link. For 10 minutes during her testimony, the only
view she had of the Toronto courtroom where Miched and four other
officers are on trial, was of him because for that period a camera was
trained on him, Brauti noted.

Miched agreed that she never identified him even with that exclusive
view of him.

"She looked directly at me for 10 minutes and she had every
opportunity to but she never did," he said.

The drug squad boxed in a taxi in Scarborough carrying Fagundo and two
"drug mules" with five kilograms of cocaine they had brought from
Montreal on Nov. 2, 1997.

The Crown alleges the drug squad forced drug dealer Andy Ioakim to set
up the lucrative deal, enlisting him as a "state agent," then hiding
his role from the Crown and courts in a conspiracy to attempt to
obstruct justice.

Miched testified that Ioakim was not a police agent, but a
confidential informant whose identity had to remain hidden, but that
he did disclose his existence to the Crown and in court.

Brauti read out excerpts of Miched's testimony in Fagundo's
preliminary hearing, in which he referred to the informant.

Fagundo accused the officers of stealing $10,000 in cash from her
purse and snatching her $20,000 diamond earrings. Besides alleging one
of the officers beat her with a telephone book in a police interview
room, she claimed one of them fondled her breasts.

The officers deny this happened.

Miched, 53, his former boss, John Schertzer, 54, and former fellow
officers Raymond Pollard, 48, Ned Maodus, 49, and Steven Correia are
on trial for conspiracy to attempt to obstruct justice, theft, assault
and extortion between 1997 and 2002.

The Ontario Superior Court trial continues in front of Justice Gladys
Pardu.
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