Amid cascading Rob Ford revelations – yes, there’s a video; yes, Ford smoked crack but only that one time and he was probably drunk; the mayor isn’t leaving and has nothing more to hide unless you count that other video – it’s tough to keep track of what’s new and what’s a rehash of what we knew before.
In depth: The Rob Ford saga
Nothing in the hundreds of mostly unredacted pages released late Wednesday afternoon has been proven in court.
If these statements are true – and Ford says they’re not – here’s what we’ve learned.
(Editor’s note: Some strong language quoted below)
1) More drugs
- The way Ford said it, he “tried” crack once, in “one” drunken stupor. But police documents suggest he bought hard drugs from alleged dealers in Etobicoke on at least one occasion weeks after police say that video was shot. Police statements that a now-infamous photo taken outside that house date to winter 2012 suggest Ford had been there before; subsequent statements caught on wiretaps allege prior drug-related interactions with the mayor.
2) More incriminating photos
- People caught on wiretaps talked about having photos of the mayor “on the pipe” and “doing the hezza” (which we’re told refers to heroin). They talked on the wiretaps about posting these on Instagram, selling them and seemed to feel these photos gave them a degree of protection from any “heat” the mayor threatened to bring on them. In one intercepted call, one male says “they love and respect Rob Ford but they have Rob Ford on a lot of f-cked up situations and they don’t wanna say anything.”
3) About that video
- “I don’t even recall there being a video,” Ford said when he asked Toronto Police repeatedly to release it (they’ve said, repeatedly, no). But police documents allege he at least knew it existed, weeks before he told the public it didn’t: Conversations picked up in wiretaps allege he offered “five thousand and a car” for the video. Wiretaps suggest that offer was deemed insufficient.
4) The Anthony Smith murder
- …is not related to the alleged crack video, police say, but was rather allegedly motivated by a November, 2012 altercation. So that’s a weight off everyone’s mind. Interestingly, that’s not….
5) What Ford’s staff said
- David Price, mayoral staffer and a close friend of the mayor’s brother, told police the alleged crack video was a motive in Anthony Smith’s murder – but police intelligence suggests otherwise. Ford’s staff recognized 15 Windsor as an alleged crack house; they thought Ford had lost his phone while cleaning up a park when his friend Sandro Lisi seemed to think it had been taken late the previous night when, according to police documents, Siyad claimed Ford was “smoking his rocks.” (When interviewed by police, Siyad denied it was his voice in police wiretaps)
The unanswered question: Who is Juiceman?
He’s referred to multiple times in police wiretaps – allegedly talking to Liban Siyad about Rob Ford’s phone, talking to Sandro Lisi multiple times in the late-night hours after Gawker and the Toronto Star published their crack video stories. But “Juiceman” is the only prominent alias that’s never attached to a real name.
The upshot: What does this mean for the mayor? Unless he faces criminal charges, probably not a whole lot. For some, these latest documents prove what they already suspected (on Wednesday, councillors said this vindicates their decision to strip Ford of his powers as mayor); the same documents probably won’t convince others.
This leaves Ford, a mostly ceremonial mayor, to campaign as an outsider until October’s election. Which is kind of what he wanted, anyway.
Read for yourself: The latest Rob Ford files
WATCH: Rob Ford barges through media leaving executive committee at city hall
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