Rob Ford smoked crack with sister Kathy, police documents say
Kathy Ford acknowledged to police that she and the mayor smoked crack in her basement one night in April, police documents suggest.
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s
(Open Rob Ford’s policard) sister told police she and her brother were smoking crack cocaine in her basement one night in April, police documents released by a Toronto judge reveal.
Police say in the documents that as of June this year they were investigating the mayor on allegations he was in possession of drugs and also allegations that he had assaulted his friend and occasional driver Alexander “Sandro†Lisi.
The investigation is ongoing. Mayor Ford has been in hospital undergoing his first round of chemotherapy treatment for a malignant tumour. He returned home Tuesday to await the second round.
Information
released Wednesday by Justice Ian Nordheimer comes from an application police filed in court in June to search three cellphones belonging to Michael “Jugga†James, described in the documents as a dealer of crack cocaine and heroin who supplied crack cocaine for Kathy and Rob Ford on the night of Saturday, April 26.
Ford was “kidding-around fighting†with Lisi, Kathy told homicide Det. Joyce Schertzer, who interviewed her.
“Kathryn Ford and Robert Ford were smoking crack cocaine that night,†the police documents say.
According to the documents, by April the Project Brazen 2 investigation, which began after the existence of the first crack video was revealed in May 2013, primarily was dealing with preparing disclosure information for a preliminary hearing on Lisi’s extortion and drug charges.
The probe of Ford was reactivated on April 30, when the Globe and Mail published photographs of Mayor Ford smoking a pipe in Kathy’s Etobicoke basement. The Globe paid $10,000 for the photos. Coupled with a Toronto Sun-released audio recording of Ford behaving badly at a bar, the
it appears to have prompted the mayor’s announcement he was heading to rehab.
The Star, shortly after that, tracked down and interviewed James, the man who had shot the new crack video. James and an associate showed the Star three videos taken the previous Saturday. A full account of the night from his perspective — including his recollection of Ford using racist language —
appeared in the Star on May 2.
According to the police documents, Det.-Sgt. Gary Giroux received a call that same day from Globe and Mail reporter Robyn Doolittle, who subsequently met with the detective “later in the evening.â€
Police write in the document that Doolittle provided information on her meeting earlier that week with two men who showed her the video now known as the second crack video. Police said the men gave their names as “Jugga†and “S. Pablo†and had told the Globe reporter they did not mind those names being published.
The Globe stated it had not published their names in its story earlier in the week, “because of concerns about the drug dealer’s intentions.â€
In an email to the Star, Doolittle said she met Giroux at a coffee shop at roughly 5 p.m. that Friday and “questioned him about the nicknames.†Doolittle told the Star that by that Friday she was “comfortable questioning Giroux about the names†because the men had told her they did not mind if police knew their nicknames. A police spokesman said the Globe was seeking the real identity of “Jugga,†but Giroux said he could not help the newspaper.
Around the same time, detectives had received information from two confidential sources naming Michael “Jugga†James as the person who filmed the new crack video.
Armed with all of this information, police put out an internal bulletin for two individuals and a vehicle, the police document states. That was to lead to a wild car chase at high speed, as the documents relate.
Five days later, at Giroux’s urging, undercover detectives set up surveillance on James, a 20-year-old man who had no criminal record but had had a number of previous run-ins with police. There was suspicion that he was a drug dealer and potentially armed and dangerous.
At one point, the “spin team†of detectives following him watched him reach speeds of up to 150 km/h heading south on Highway 427. Detectives broke off pursuit.
But they caught up with him later at a Toronto home.
Parts of the released police document have been censored, but it appears police did not find a gun they believed he would be carrying. A friend later told police James feared for his life because of a recent machete attack.
Later, he was charged with possession of a set of brass knuckles. The only charge laid against him, it was recently stayed.
Three cellphones taken from James were placed in an evidence bag, and police applied for a warrant to obtain information from them. The Star does not know what, if anything, was gleaned from the search, but the documents say they were seeking information to help in their probe of Mayor Ford, Lisi and James.
Police tried to interview James about his night with the Ford brother and sister and Lisi. James refused to cooperate.
That’s when Schertzer called Kathy Ford with some questions about the night.
The documents, which have not been tested in court, note that Kathy gave police two interviews, one on the phone and a subsequent one in person.
She described how on April 26 her brother Rob and Sandro were in her basement. She said Ford arrived, drunk, dropped off by his driver, Jerry. Kathy’s daughter was asleep upstairs.
James arrived. Kathy said he was someone she knew, a dealer of heroin and cocaine. Kathy told police that James supplied the drugs she and her brother used that night. Sandro, she said, did not partake.
She said her brother was drinking and kidding-around fighting with Lisi, according to the documents. She said Ford never hurt Lisi.
James, in an interview, told the Star that Ford was hitting Lisi that night and making him cry “like a baby.â€
Kathy was open to police about how she and her brother were taking drugs from a “crack pipe.â€
The police documents describe Kathy Ford’s police record, including convictions for possession of stolen goods, assault with intent to resist arrest, and possession of narcotics. They note that Lisi, on bail for the extortion charges, should not have been present with someone with a criminal record, as he apparently was that night, according to Kathy Ford.
According to the police documents, Kathy Ford was not aware that James videotaped the events in the basement until
still photos showed up in the media the next week.
Detectives, in their search warrant application, state that they want to see the videos to determine if they would support a charge of drug trafficking against James or drug possession against Mayor Ford.
The documents that were made public Wednesday were sealed on June 9. The Star learned of their existence not through the court system, but through a source.
In court Wednesday morning, lawyers for the Star and other media told Nordheimer that needing to rely on confidential sources to learn that a sealing order even exists does not serve the public interest.
“There can be sealing orders that are just buried in a court file and no one knows about them. That seems antithetical to the open court principle,†said Ryder Gilliland, a lawyer for the Star.
Nordheimer acknowledged there was a “problem†with the current system and suggested that future sealing orders could have a time limit, such as 24 hours, so that notification of their existence could be made after a warrant is executed.
But the judge stopped short of ordering the Crown to notify lawyers for the media of all future sealing orders related to Project Brazen 2.
“I would much prefer, in this particular instance, to rely on the good faith of the Crown and Toronto police to take back a message that if there are going to be any other search warrants, some type of notification should be made,†he said.
Nordheimer asked Crown attorney John Patton to speak to Giroux, the lead investigator on Project Brazen 2, about the concerns raised by the media lawyers.
