Ottawa Police Chief Charles Bordeleau wrote an open letter to city residents about recent street gang violence, distributed Wednesday. In the letter while saying "we live in a safe city," Bordeleau acknowledges an increase in "targeted, street gang-related shootings," and says the incidents are related to illegal drugs, the availability of guns, and the "increased willingness of street gang members to use them." Bordealeau says preventing the activity and arresting those involved is a "top operational priority" for the force, but says longer-term solutions lie with community agencies who can assist in steering people away from the gang lifestyle. [continues 631 words]
A Quebec man on the lam from a Mexican jail has lost his last bid to stay in Canada using our justice system. Regent Boily, 62, will now turn to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights' Committee Against Torture, says his lawyer Christian Deslauriers. "Sending him back to Mexico is sending him to torture" said Deslauriers, who has asked the UN body's Special Rapporteur on torture to order Canada to keep Boily in the country. Boily escaped a Mexican prison in March 1999 after serving one year of a 14-year sentence after being busted there with half a tonne of pot in the trunk of a car. [continues 140 words]
The Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld a law allowing the province to seize alleged proceeds of crime from people who have never been convicted or even charged with an offence. Robin Chatterjee and his lawyers challenged the Civil Remedies for Organized Crime and other Illicit Activities Act, passed in 2001, which allows the Ontario government to ask a judge in civil court to order forfeiture of property allegedly obtained through illegal activity. Chatterjee was stopped by York Regional police March 27, 2003, when they noticed his car's front licence plate was missing. [continues 152 words]
Parents of a man who died of a methadone overdose administered by accident at a downtown addiction treatment clinic are seeking a half-million dollars in damages in a lawsuit. The statement of claim filed April 24 by Linda and Douglas Hatt, and on behalf of their son Wade Lamont Hatt, names as defendants the Ontario Addiction Treatment Centres and a number of doctors and nurses connected with the centre. Hatt died Oct. 15, 2005 after attending the OATC methadone clinic on Somerset St. with his girlfriend. The statement of claim alleges negligence on the part of the OATC for among other things "failing to implement a protocol at the clinic which was effective to minimize the risk of dispensing the wrong dose to a patient," and "failing to require that the methadone be dispensed by a licenced pharmacist and/or by a medical doctor who had received special training in dispensing methadone." [continues 162 words]
Arrest of Queen Bee and Her Cronies Has Crippled Local Grow-Op, Drug Smuggling Ring The day Ottawa's "Queen Bee" of drugs and dirty money rolled into court it seemed her case would never end. Money laundering and grow-op ring leader Mai Le, her family members, criminal business associates and not a few bewildered-looking people who would later have their charges dropped, trundled one by one into court to stand in the prisoners' dock and get a bail date. [continues 1203 words]
Homeowner Files Claim Over Taser Drama An Ottawa man who says he was tasered and illegally detained by Ottawa police executing a search warrant is suing six officers and the police services board for $175,000. A statement of claim filed Tuesday, on behalf of Yvon Richer, alleges Ottawa police used excessive force, breached his right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and right to freedom from illegal detention. Richer's case made headlines May 21, 2006, when tactical officers swooped in on the Navan Rd. homeowner, who they suspected of having a cache of illegal weapons, shot him and his dog with a Taser and left without finding any guns. [continues 406 words]
Trio Admit Roles In Beating That Killed B.C. Man THE MAN with half a million dollars of cocaine in a suitcase didn't expect to collapse and die outside the bus station. Graeme Ferguson, 27, died July 19, 2005, of an embolism caused by the beating he'd taken while he was chained to a chair inside a Montreal warehouse four days earlier. He'd finally convinced his captors that he'd been worried about the police presence outside the Voyageur bus station on Catherine St. and left the drugs behind. They brought him to Ottawa to retrieve his bags. [continues 737 words]
A Little-Known Law Means That Even If You're Acquitted Of A Crime In Ontario, You Might Still Have To Pay, Writes Sean McKibbon THE LONG ARM of the law is extending into the pockets of people acquitted of lucrative crimes. THAT'S RIGHT acquitted. Defence lawyers are up in arms about a law they says shifts their clients' burden from innocent until proven guilty to tainted until proven clean. Law enforcement officials say they're glad to have a tool to make sure crime doesn't pay, even when they can't prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. [continues 960 words]
A man accused of toking and driving was found not guilty yesterday after a judge found there was no way to assess the effect pot might have had on the man. "I don't have any evidence as to the effect marijuana may have had on a person. How can one make that giant leap between proof of consumption and the effect of consumption?" said Justice Richard Lajoie as he found Stephen Ayotte, 33, not guilty of impaired driving. Lajoie said he could not find impairment even if he accepted testimony by Const. Michael O'Reilly that the accused man confessed to smoking a couple of joints before his arrest May 1, 2005. Ayotte denied smoking any marijuana that day and denied making such an admission. [continues 98 words]
Three years ago, John Turmel dared the Crown to prosecute him for carrying 7 lbs. of marijuana to Parliament Hill and lighting a doobie in protest of what he said were unjust prosecutions. That prosecution came to an end yesterday with Turmel being sentenced to three years probation and fined $1,000 for possession for the purpose of trafficking. Turmel -- the Guinness world record-holder for most elections contested and lost -- was also ordered to perform 100 hours of community service by Justice Paul Belanger. [continues 192 words]
Can't Measure Pot's Effect: Judge OTTAWA -- A man accused of toking and driving was found not guilty yesterday after a judge found there was no way to assess the effect that pot smoking might have had on the man. "I don't have any evidence as to the effect marijuana may have had on a person. How can one make that giant leap between proof of consumption and the effect of consumption?" said Justice Richard Lajoie as he found Stephen Ayotte, 33, not guilty of impaired driving. [continues 192 words]
Says Sentencing Rules Wouldn't Aid Battered Woman's Case The case of a battered woman convicted in a marijuana grow-op trial shows why judges shouldn't be handcuffed by mandatory minimum sentences, a defence lawyer says. "To me, the case is such a staggering argument for why there shouldn't be mandatory minimums," defence lawyer Michael Crystal said of his client Son Thi Le's case. Community Service Le was given a 12-month conditional sentence with essentially no house arrest conditions. She was ordered to perform 120 hours of community service, to not have weapons or drugs, and to not leave the province. [continues 190 words]
Claims Mom Removed Screen To Air Out Room One of Ottawa's largest landlords blames an 11-year-old boy's deadly fall on his mother's use of marijuana. On March 4, 2003, Shane Russell fell out a window in his mother's 10th-floor apartment. His mother Laura is suing the City of Ottawa and her former landlord for $500,000. Russell blames her son's fall on an alleged lack of safety measures in the window and an allegation the landlord failed to install a screen despite repeated maintenance requests. [continues 270 words]
A sparsely furnished pot grow op that smelled of rotting vegetables was no lover's "oasis," a judge has ruled. Son Thi Le, 40, was convicted yesterday of possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking and production of the illegal plant. In a written decision, Justice Gerald Morin said he did not believe Le's story that she would flee her abusive marriage in Mississauga for the comforts of the home she and her boyfriend rented at 2281 Courtice Ave. in the Alta Vista area. [continues 190 words]
Was It A Grow Op Or Love Nest? A woman accused of growing pot in the basement of her rented South Ottawa home claimed yesterday to have been oblivious to the subterranean operation, saying it was the place she would visit her boyfriend. The grow op was discovered by firefighters last Jan. 10. They were called to the residence by neighbours who were alarmed at smoke billowing out of the roof. It turned out to be steam from the basement greenhouse. [continues 259 words]
Court drops charges against massive drug ring's alleged 'Queen Bee' to allow extradition to U.S. MONEY LAUNDERING charges against a woman accused of being the "Queen Bee" at the centre of a massive international marijuana production and smuggling network have been dropped to facilitate her extradition to the U.S., where she faces similar charges. "She's never been outside of the country. She's never been to the U.S.," Mai Le's lawyer Rod Sellar said yesterday. [continues 254 words]
Methadone clinic's five-year lease angers locals SOMERSET and Kent street area residents, angry at a new methadone clinic opening in their neighborhood, found out to their dismay the centre might be a habit that will take five years to kick. "We'd be happy to relocate if you can find us another location and get us out of our five-year lease," said Dr. Michael Varenbut of the Ontario Addiction Treatment Centres (OATC), the company opening the facility at 395 Somerset St.-- on the ground floor of a senior's residence. [continues 402 words]
Talk about a marijuana subculture. MRC des Collines police raided a cabin in a wooded area in Thorne Twp. near Shawville yesterday and found a 3,000 sq.-ft. subterranean grow-op. "Police obtained a search warrant and executed a search at a cabin on Schwartz Rd.," said Const. Marc Ippersiel of the Surrete du Quebec. Acting on a phone tip to Crime Stoppers, police were able to locate an underground bunker concealing some 3,000 pot plants. Ippersiel estimated the value of the plants seized in the bust to be between $6 million and $7 million. [continues 94 words]
Pleading for leniency in their ecstasy smuggling sentences, a young Spanish man and woman told a judge yesterday they had learned their lesson and wanted to go home. "We through our stupid actions have put our future in your hands," said Marc Cochran, 21, in a brief speech he gave in Spanish following sentencing submissions by Crown and defence lawyers. "We are young, that's why we ask you to give us the chance to rehabilitate ourselves." Crown lawyer Karen Dickson had asked the court to consider a jail sentence for Cochran and his girlfriend Monica Mengual, 21, of four years. [continues 219 words]
A federal jail guard is suing the attorney general of Canada for $150,000 following a drug search of her car in a penitentiary parking lot by OPP officers who were allegedly acting on a false tip. According to court documents, Bonnie Fellows, a 14-year veteran correctional officer, is suing the federal and provincial attorneys general, two OPP officers and two correctional officers over a Jan. 15, 2003, incident in which her van was searched. Fellows was allegedly handcuffed and strip-searched. [continues 165 words]
