The facts are not yet in re. this alleged police brutality case involving cops who ripped off drug dealers and other criminals, but I have been following this story since it first became public many years ago. There have been several related cases and they always seem to die or get scuttled in the process. Let’s see what happens with this particular story, discussed in the COMMENTS section below. It’s particularly germane, given all the questionable antics transpiring in York Region and covered on this site.
Prisoner thought he was ‘going to die’ amid Toronto police beating, trial told (Peter Small Courts Bureau, The Star)
A former pot dealer says he felt pressured, as part of a plea bargain, into signing a document agreeing not to sue two police officers who brutally beat him in custody.
Christopher Quigley testified at a cop corruption trial Tuesday that Toronto Central Field Command drug squad officers beat him so severely after they arrested him on April 30, 1998, that he thought he was going to die.
“I was terrified,” he told an Ontario Superior Court jury. “I was being pulverized.”
Quigley said he was kicked, punched and choked by drug squad officers Ned Maodus and Richard Benoit in a police interview room with the encouragement and participation of their boss, Det.-Sgt. John Schertzer.
They kept angrily demanding where he kept his drugs and money, he testified.
He was treated in hospital for his injuries, but the officers turned around and charged him with assault, as well as possessing marijuana and the proceeds of crime, he told an Ontario Superior Court jury Tuesday.
“I was never told who I assaulted because I didn’t assault anyone,” Quigley told prosecutor John Pearson.
But he agreed to a plea deal allowing him to plead guilty to simple marijuana possession and a $1,000 fine in return for the other charges being dropped, he told prosecutor John Pearson.
His lawyer at the time, Bruce Olmsted, made it very clear to him it was the best deal he could get, he said.
The lawyer told Quigley that police would not give back the possessions they had seized unless he took the deal, he said.
They had trashed his Eglinton Ave. W. apartment and taken his $400 boots, a briefcase containing an $8,000 sapphire and other items, as well as $54,000 of his cash from his mother’s bank safety deposit box, he said.
So before he pleaded guilty he signed a document releasing the Toronto police force and any of its officers, including Benoit and Maodus, for any injuries he sustained at the time of his arrest.
Schertzer, 54; Maodus, 48; Steve Correia, 44; Joseph Miched, 53; and Raymond Pollard, 47; collectively face 29 charges, laid in January 2004, including obstruction of justice, perjury, assault and extortion related to their work between 1997 and 2002.
During one of three separate beatings, Quigley said, his head was smashed against a wall and he lost consciousness.
“I was covered from head to toe in blood,” he testified.
“That’s when I started throwing up blood. I was breathing up blood. I was choking on my own blood.”
He was finally taken to a cell in another part of the station, where another officer saw his bloodied state and immediately screamed for someone to call an ambulance.
The story continues…
Police accuser denies his injuries were minimal (Peter Small Courts Bureau, The Star)
A former pot dealer who claims drug squad detectives “tortured” him over nine hours adamantly denies his injuries were minimal or occurred after he went berserk.
In a dramatic and combative exchange with defence lawyer John Rosen, star Crown witness Christopher Quigley angrily fended off suggestions he is exaggerating his injuries because he has an “agenda.”
“You have your agenda and I have mine,” Quigley said at a Toronto police corruption trial. “And that’s to tell the truth.”
Rosen went over hospital records and suggested they don’t back up Quigley’s claim that in the spring of 1998 he was viciously kicked, punched and choked in a police interview room to the point he thought he was going to die.
“There was nothing wrong with your head,” said Rosen, lawyer for former detective John Schertzer, head of Team 3 of Central Field Command drug squad.
“There was quite a bit wrong with my head,” Quigley shot back. “I had a huge gash that required stitches. I had a massive amount of injuries done to me while I was in that room, sir.”
Rosen suggested Quigley got the head cut when he “went berserk” upon learning detectives were going to open a safety deposit box where he stashed his cash, and that he had to be restrained after he attacked an officer.
“That is the biggest lie,” Quigley replied. “That never happened, and we both know it.”
Quigley is the first Crown witness to testify at the Ontario Superior Court trial of Schertzer, 54, Ned Maodus, 48, Steve Correia, 44, Joseph Miched, 53, and Raymond Pollard, 47.
The former Team 3 officers collectively face 29 charges, laid in January 2004, including attempt to obstruct justice, perjury, assault and extortion related to events between 1997 and 2002.
Quigley has testified he was covered in blood after the beating, and when he was taken to the cells a shocked uniformed officer screamed for an ambulance.
But Rosen pointed out that the ambulance didn’t arrive until 90 minutes later.
Rosen also noted Quigley was released from Sunnybrook hospital after some seven hours.
Dramatic pictures of his injuries that Quigley had his girlfriend take of him the following day are calculated to show him when his bruises looked their worst — several hours after being inflicted, Rosen suggested.
And there is no hospital record of a nasty arm puncture wound shown in one of Quigley’s home photos, proving it was not inflicted during police custody, Rosen said.
“Wrong, wrong,” Quigley said. “It’s an outrageous statement.”
Quigley’s cross-examination continues Friday.