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." [continues 379 words]
An elite group of Toronto drug squad officers intimidated drug dealers, stole their money and lied in courts to escape "the reach of the law," the Crown alleged Monday. "They engaged in unjustified acts of physical violence against people in their custody," prosecutor John Pearson told a jury in a three-hour opening statement for the long-awaited trial of five former members of the Central Field Command. John Schertzer, 54, Steve Correia, 44, Ned Maodus, 48, Joseph Miched, 53, and Raymond Pollard, 47, collectively face 29 charges - laid in January 2004 - including obstructing justice, perjury, assault and extortion related to their work between 1997 and 2002. [continues 263 words]
A one-time pot dealer says he was severely and repeatedly beaten by drug squad officers determined to find out where he kept his drugs and money. "I was attacked by officers while I was in custody," Christopher Quigley testified Monday at the corruption trial of five former drug squad officers. Quigley described photos, shown in court, of himself with extensive bruises on his face and body that he took in his Eglinton Ave. W. apartment shortly after he was arrested in April 1998. [continues 663 words]
Eight years after they were charged and more than a decade after their alleged offences, five former drug squad officers are finally to be tried in Toronto's biggest police corruption case. John Schertzer, Steven Correia, Ned Maodus, Joseph Miched and Raymond Pollard - former members of the elite Team 3 of the Central Field Command drug squad - begin their trial before a jury Monday. The investigation has been called the largest of its kind in Canadian history. The charges, laid in January 2004 against the various defendants, include attempting to obstruct justice, perjury, assault and extortion related to their work in the late 1990s. [continues 1048 words]
