Police have obtained another warrant in their investigation of Mayor Rob Ford.
The warrant, granted and sealed on Friday, comes days after Ontario Provincial Police assumed official oversight of the case, relieving Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who’d been the target of the Ford brothers’ vitriol for months.
Media organizations, including Global News, will be in court fighting to make the contents of this and other warrants public later this month.
So far, we know the police investigation into Rob Ford and his friend Sandro Lisi, dubbed Project Brazen 2, continued well after Lisi’s October arrest for extortion and Blair’s Halloween confirmation police had seized a video of the mayor smoking what looks like crack cocaine.
Warrants issued over the past several months gave police access to, among other things, seven mobile phones and a computer in late November, and another four cell phones in January.
Blair’s decision to pass oversight on to the OPP was borne of a desire to minimize “distractions,” he said this week – an apparent reference to accusations of bias from the mayor and his brother Doug Ford. Both have accused Blair of pursuing the investigation for political reasons; Doug Ford made a formal complaint with the Office of the Independent Review Director, alleging conflict of interest.
“I am taking this step to avoid the distractions that have assumed such recent prominence. The only public interest here is the continued investigation, without fear or favour, into evidence of possible criminality,” Blair said in a statement at the time.
Now, the investigation is being carried out by the same Toronto Police officers, but they answer to the OPP instead.
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