Crown drops charges against 4 suspects in Project Traveller
Posted July 21, 2014 12:52 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Charges have been dropped against the man who reportedly tried to broker the sale of an infamous video in which Toronto Mayor Rob Ford appears to smoke crack cocaine.
Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General says it has also withdrawn charges against three other individuals arrested during a gang, drugs and weapons investigation known as Project Traveller.
Ford’s own voice is not on the Project Traveller wire taps but Toronto police have spent thousands of hours conducting surveillance on the mayor, though they have not laid any criminal charges against him.
A spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s office says charges against Mohamed Farah, Nicholas Obeng, Muhideen Jama and Halima Said have been withdrawn by the Crown.
Heather Visser says the Crown is “duty bound to withdraw charges if there is no reasonable prospect of conviction, or if it is not in the public interest to proceed.”
She says some of the accused completed community service hours and made charitable donations prior to the withdrawal of charges.
Sixty people were arrested in the year-long sweep targeting gangs in the Dixon Road area of Etobicoke on June 14, 2013.
During the raids, police said they seized 40 firearms, more than $3 million in drugs and $572,000 in cash.
A number of preliminary hearings are scheduled to begin in October after the municipal election.
A preliminary inquiry and trial dates for the mayor’s former part-timer driver Sandro Lisi is scheduled for 2015.
Lisi was charged in October 2013 with trafficking in marijuana, possession of proceeds of crime, possession of marijuana and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence during an investigation into Ford, sparked by media reports of a video appearing to show the mayor smoking crack cocaine.
The preliminary inquiry, which is held to determine if there is enough evidence to go to trial, was set for March 2-6 and April 13-17 of next year, and Lisi is required to attend it. If Lisi is committed to trial on that charge, it may not take place until late 2015 or 2016.
