Pubdate: Thu, 26 Mar 2015
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2015 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/wEtbT4yU
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Christie Blatchford
Page: A6

SO WHY IS THIS BEING TRIED, AGAIN?

Lisi, 36, is surely no saint, but hardly a criminal mastermind

If it wasn't quite a cri de coeur for a nation weary of the war on
drugs, it was at least a moan.

It was the first full day of the drugs trial of the two poor saps
caught up in the Rob Ford scandal - the former Toronto Mayor's friend,
occasional driver and rumoured connection, Alexander (Sandro) Lisi,
and Jashmid Bahrami, who owned a dry cleaning shop in Mr. Ford's
favourite strip plaza.

The two are jointly charged - oh, the horror - with marijuana
trafficking and proceeds of crime (from the alleged sale of weed to a
Toronto Police undercover agent) and, in Mr. Lisi's case, simple
marijuana possession, and in Mr. Bahrami's, cocaine possession.

Ontario Court Justice Ramez Khawly, upon whom there are no flies, had
just asked the prosecutor if she really wanted to proceed on a case of
simple marijuana possession of under 30 grams, the lowest amount for
which one can be criminally charged.

Judge Khawly asked the identical question of federal Crown Kerry
Benzakein the day before, when the trial was slated to begin.

And from this remark - and several others Judge Khawly made as the
case went along - there hung in the air the inference that perhaps
this hullabaloo might not be worth the candle.

The trial of Mr. Lisi and Mr. Bahrami is the poochy result of the
massive 2013 Toronto Police investigation called Project Brazen 2 into
the alleged possible criminality of Mayor Ford.

The then mayor's name first came up on drug dealer wiretaps, and by
the summer of 2013, Mr. Ford had surfaced smoking crack on the
now-world-notorious video. Clearly, the police couldn't turn a blind
eye to all this - they would have been accused of protecting the mayor
- - and didn't.

But as Torontonians will also remember, the sweeping probe - it
involved surveillance even from the air, countless officers and man
hours, wiretaps, production orders, the whole shebang - resulted in
zero (0) criminal charges against Mr. Ford, though according to
information used to obtain wiretaps, there were arguably opportunities
to arrest him, such as when surveillance officers saw what they
believed were hand-to-hand exchanges of drugs.

However, only Mssrs. Lisi and Bahrami ended up being
charged.

Mr. Lisi, 36, is surely no saint, but hardly a criminal mastermind. He
is not without charm of a certain louche variety.

Mr. Bahrami, 49, was the dry cleaner in Mr. Ford's local mall. It
appears from evidence heard Wednesday that he may have been
legitimately approved to use marijuana for his crippling and
excruciating rheumatoid arthritis. What he most clearly is a mensch, a
kind and rather sweet man.

Both are pleading not guilty to all offences.

The wartime equivalent to the two of them - and only them - being
charged as a result of Project Brazen 2 might be a massive bombing
raid on weapons facilities that entirely missed the targets and killed
only passersby. It's difficult, in other words, to see them as
anything other than collateral damage.

Yet, as Detective Ross Fernandes, the former undercover officer who
befriended Mr. Bahrami testified, there were countless police
briefings and debriefings aimed at getting Mr. Bahrami to hook him up
with Mr. Lisi.

Det. Fernandes began by dropping off two shirts for dry-cleaning at
Mr. Bahrami's shop; he deliberately left a pack of rolling papers in a
pocket hoping to "stir a drug conversation." Sure enough, it did, sort
of. When he went to pick up the shirts, Mr. Bahrami took him to the
back room, to spare him public humiliation, and returned the papers to
him. Det. Fernandes acted embarrassed, and Mr. Bahrami smiled, told
him he smoked and asked if he liked weed. The agent told him he did
and asked if Mr. Bahrami could help him get a "Q.P." [quarter pound].

Thus started what Mr. Bahrami, who seemed a bit lonely, thought was a
friendship: The agent would show up, looking to buy weed; Mr. Bahrami
would call Mr. Lisi, who was already all over the news as the mayor's
pal and was steadfastly ignoring his calls, and another dealer named
Dan.

The court heard so much about this Dan, who is not on trial here (or
perhaps anywhere), that at one point Judge Khawly told the prosecutor
to get to the point with Det. Fernandes, who was launching into a
description of how Dan was once flirting with a waitress.

"For God's sakes, lead him!" the judge begged. "Lead him, for God's
sake!" Later, he told Ms. Benzakein, "Let's get to the nub of this. I
don't want to hear much more about Dan," and then said with a grin,
"So far all I have is Dan's a deadbeat," this a reference to Dan's
apparent habit of promising to sell gobs of weed to the agent, then
disappearing to his home outside the city and smoking it himself.

Poor Mr. Bahrami: As the agent kept showing up, he learned about the 
thriftiness of cops. Mr. Bahrami would offer him beer and then give him 
$20 to go buy it while he tended the store. Mr. Bahrami even insisted on 
paying for the pizza and wings the two had one evening. "He asked what 
my favourite toppings were," Det. Fernandes said. "I told him pepperoni, 
Italian sausage and mushrooms."

Surely, Mr. Bahrami should at the least get a refund.

The trial, sadly, continues.
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MAP posted-by: Matt