Two trials and tens of thousands of dollars later, man guilty of traffic offence After eight years, a pair of trials where he was twice found not guilty, and a trip to Canada's highest court, an Ottawa construction worker accused of driving while impaired by marijuana has pleaded guilty to nothing more than a traffic offence. It's the end of a long legal saga for Carson Bingley that started with erratic driving on Merivale Road in May 2009 and led to a Supreme Court decision that streamlined drugged-driving trials, just as the country moves toward legalizing marijuana by next July. [continues 983 words]
Ottawa driver's eight-year battle ends with plea to traffic offence If they have that law, they need to have the proper instrument to calculate that with. You have to have the right instrument. After eight years, a pair of trials where he was twice found not guilty, and a trip to Canada's highest court, an Ottawa construction worker accused of driving while impaired by marijuana has pleaded guilty to nothing more than a traffic offence. It's the end of a long legal saga for Carson Bingley that started with erratic driving on Merivale Road in May 2009 and led to a Supreme Court decision that streamlined drugged-driving trials, just as the country moves toward legalizing marijuana by next July. [continues 942 words]
The Ontario attorney general and Ottawa Centre MPP wants a central Civic site, an end to marijuana law's 'grey zone' and bail reform to cut jail crowding, Andrew Seymour writes after Yasir Naqvi met with the Citizen editorial board. As public consultation on a new site for the Ottawa Hospital's Civic campus officially began Thursday, Yasir Naqvi said his preference is that the hospital remains centrally located. That means proposed locations along West Hunt Club Road aren't the best choices from a dozen available federal sites, according to Naqvi. [continues 874 words]
For the second time in less than two weeks, Ontario's top court has overturned a drug conviction after concluding Ottawa police officers seriously violated the rights of a suspect. Eneida Pino was convicted of possession for the purpose of trafficking after Ottawa police seized 50 pot plants from the trunk of her car following a dramatic takedown in June 2010. The officers had been following Pino, 43, after watching her leave a suspected grow-op house. Pino and a man who was in the car with her described during the trial how an "aggressive" officer blocked the path of their car, shouted and pointed a gun at them. The officer denied that he had pulled his handgun - a claim that Judge David Paciocco concluded was a lie. [continues 342 words]
Appeals Court Says Charter Violations Necessitated a Verdict of Not Guilty For the second time in less than two weeks, Ontario's top court has overturned a drug conviction after concluding Ottawa police officers seriously violated the rights of a suspect. Eneida Pino was convicted of possession for the purpose of trafficking after Ottawa police seized 50 marijuana plants from the trunk of her car following a dramatic takedown in June 2010. The officers had been following Pino, a 43-year-old cleaning lady, after watching her leave a house on St. Claire Avenue that they suspected to be a marijuana grow operation. [continues 552 words]
An accused drug dealer who should be guilty of trafficking cocaine and crack has instead had his convictions tossed out because of repeated and serious breaches of his rights by the Ottawa police, Ontario's top court has ruled. Ottawa police found drugs stashed in Philip McGuffie's shirt pocket, sewn into his underwear and hidden between his buttocks during a pair of searches in December 2011 after they received reports that a group of men were passing around a handgun in an Elgin Street bar. [continues 557 words]
Body Cavities Are Used To Smuggle In Drugs And Even Knives, Experts Say The colloquial term for it is "hooping," and it is considered the most common way that contraband drugs enter into Ottawa's jail. Forget about the file hidden in the cake. Getting a banned item such as drugs or weapons into the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre usually involves hiding it in the rectum or, if you're female, another body cavity. But inmates who crave a fix behind bars in Ottawa will soon need to figure out a new way to get illegal items into the jail after the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services announced that full body scanners will be installed in all 26 of Ontario's adult jails. [continues 658 words]
"If I look at five inmates I'm going to definitely find one of them that is bringing in some kind of contraband" The new high-tech body scanner coming to the Ottawa jail is touted as the "ultimate substitute for strip searching" and will give correctional officers a glimpse at an inmate's insides after it is installed within the next month. The Soter RS is a full-body X-ray that the manufacturer promises will "reveal everything" in about 10 seconds. The 918-kilogram machine takes a high definition picture of inmates who stand on a moving platform that passes through a narrow X-ray beam. The images are so highly detailed that correctional officers will be able to see everything from what's under an inmate's clothes to what's in their stomachs or rectums. [continues 614 words]
Privacy expectation not diminished in shared areas, Ontario court finds Police are violating the privacy rights of condominium owners if they snoop around the common areas of their buildings without a warrant or permission to be there, Ontario's top court has ruled. The Ontario Court of Appeal ruling comes as the court upheld the acquittal of an accused Ottawa drug dealer who was charged after Ottawa police detectives surreptitiously snuck into the man's 10-unit condominium building three times. Once inside, they checked on Merith White's storage locker, spied on the hallway outside his door and listened in on conversations through the poorly insulated walls. [continues 593 words]
A defence lawyer said she plans to seek a reduced sentence for a convicted drug dealer after a judge concluded that an Ottawa police officer repeatedly violated the man's rights, including intentionally causing him pain by standing on his ankles in the cellblock. Ontario Superior Court Justice Timothy Ray found that while Const. Paul Greenwood "might have gained satisfaction" from his "purely gratuitous act," the officer also breached Phillip McGuffie's rights to be free from the intentional infliction of pain while in custody by "needlessly" putting his full weight on the 21-year-old's ankles by standing on them with both of his feet for over a minute. [continues 639 words]
A cocaine dealer who sold drugs to a flirty undercover police officer after she sent him sexy texts was sentenced Friday to 15 months in jail. Andrew Abboud had initially hung up the phone on the Ottawa detective but later agreed to sell her a few grams of cocaine after the officer told him he was missing out on a set of "great t--s." Abboud argued at trial that the officer entrapped him, but a judge ruled otherwise. Abboud argued he believed he was going to get to have sex with the woman. [continues 164 words]
Officer's conduct within limits An undercover Ottawa police officer who sent a series of racy texts to a drug dealer did not entrap him, a judge ruled Tuesday. Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Smith found that the texts Det. Joanne Pilotte sent to Andrew Abboud came "close to the line," but didn't violate Abboud's rights. "The police conduct in this case involved an officer using sexual language to establish and maintain conduct and trust with the vendor of cocaine," Smith said. "There was no coercion or threats, and no promise of sexual favours, and I find that the police conduct did not undermine any constitutional values." [continues 269 words]
Property Search Violated Charter Rights, Man Argues A former Ottawa police officer now accused of growing and selling more than $1.4 million worth of marijuana attacked the warrant police used to find the plants, arguing in court Thursday that it was based on the information of unreliable tipsters and violated his Charter rights protecting him from unreasonable search and seizure. Michael Floyd wants the evidence collected during the execution of the warrant at his Page Road property in February 2005 - including 1,475 marijuana plants and growing equipment - tossed out. [continues 507 words]
Undercover Officer Flirted To Buy Drugs An admitted drug dealer is seeking to have cocaine trafficking charges against him stayed, arguing he was entrapped because he never would have sold a female undercover officer drugs if he didn't believe he was going to have sex with her. Andrew Abboud, 29, had twice hung up the phone on Ottawa police Det. Joanne Pilotte when she called him out of the blue in March 2009 looking for drugs, even going so far as to tell her never to dial his number again. [continues 362 words]
OTTAWA - The Crown has withdrawn drug charges against two young black men after a judge suggested an Ottawa police officer's decision to stop the Cadillac they were driving in was racial profiling. Ontario Court Justice Dianne Nicholas made the comment during a June 23 preliminary hearing for Loik St-Louis, 24, and Jordan Noel, 22, who were stopped on Rideau Street on Aug. 10, 2010. The men were driving Noel's mother's 1997 Cadillac DeVille when Const. Robin Ferrie testified they caught his attention because they were in a high crime area and wouldn't look at him as they drove past, according to a transcript of the proceedings. [continues 791 words]
Drug suspect wasn't asked if he could swim Ottawa police committed flagrant breaches of the Charter rights of two men, including one who was sent into the Rideau River by an officer to recover a syringe, a judge said Friday, according to lawyers who were in court. Ontario Court Justice Heather Perkins-McVey said the officers either had a complete lack of training or didn't care about the rights of Sydney Cranham, 37, and Patrick Tobin, 40. She then stayed drug charges against them at the request of a federal Crown prosecutor VEronique Rousseau. [continues 595 words]
Trio's Charter Rights Violated By Delay, Superior Court Justice Concludes An Ottawa judge has thrown out five-year-old drug trafficking and criminal organization charges against three men after ruling that Crown prosecutors violated their Charter rights to a trial in a reasonable amount of time. "The (Charter) right of applicants to be tried within a reasonable amount of time has been denied. They have been prejudiced by this denial. It is in the interest of society as a whole that these charges be stayed," said Ontario Superior Court Justice Denis Power on Tuesday before tossing out the charges against Rafei Ebrekdjian, Joseph Chamai and Nicholas Rabay. [continues 360 words]
Judge Hands Down Two-Year Sentence After Rejecting Pleas For Leniency A mother of two who helped her husband run a large-scale marijuana grow operation was sentenced to two years behind bars Thursday. "She chose to be actively involved in this organization knowing the risks," Ontario Court Justice Ann Alder said before sending 39-year-old Mai Anh Vu to prison despite her pleas for leniency so she could care for her 13-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter. [continues 291 words]
Defence Lawyer Plans Appeal Over Judge's 'Error' In Addressing Jury A drug supplier and money launderer found guilty of first-degree murder Friday plans to appeal the verdict after his defence lawyer accused the judge of making an "error" when addressing the jury during their deliberations. Fadi Saleh, 32, showed no emotion as the foreperson of the 11-member jury stood and found him guilty of killing 27-year-old Hussein El-Hajj Hassan on Aug. 20, 2004. El-Hajj Hassan's body wasn't found until 10 months later, buried in a shallow grave off a dead-end road near Panmure Road in June 2005. He had been shot at least twice, his skull crushed and his right hand hacked off just above the wrist. [continues 966 words]
An Ottawa technology consultant who told a judge he possessed more than a kilogram of marijuana because he was using it to help a sick friend avoided a criminal record when the judge gave him an absolute discharge Wednesday. Ontario Court Justice Jack Nadelle said a discharge for Lyle "Rick" Tweedy was appropriate and not against the public interest given the extraordinary circumstances in the case, which involved Tweedy possessing a little more than 1.2 kilograms of the drug. He was, he testified, planning to make hemp oil out of marijuana to help his friend Margot MacLeod ease the pain caused by her cervical cancer. She died Jan. 12. [continues 444 words]
