Watch: In the latest batch of court documents released on Thursday, there are new details about how worried Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s friends were during the hunt for the alleged crack video. Mike Drolet reports.
TORONTO – Rob Ford was “going mad” amid reports he was filmed smoking crack cocaine and his friend threatened to bring police raids on an entire community, telling them “everybody on your block is dead” if the video came out, according to newly released court documents from the Project Brazen investigation.
The documents, released Thursday, detail wiretapped conversations from the Toronto Police Project Traveller guns and gangs investigation. They shed new light on the police’s extortion case against Sandro Lisi and fears in Etobicoke’s Dixon Road community that Ford, and by extension his friend and then-driver Lisi, exercised a degree of control over police.
Watch: Rob Ford gets heated as he tries to get through media outside his office waiting on answer about latest reports
None of the allegations in the documents has been proven in court.
‘Dirty cops’
A conversation between Mohamed Siad and an unknown male intercepted by police at 12:20 p.m. on May 17, 2013 suggests Siad was concerned for his safety immediately after reports were published in the Toronto Star and Gawker about a video showing him smoking what appeared to be crack cocaine.
“The unknown male advises Siad to leave the area and not to play with his life,” the documents read.
Siad responds that he will stay with family. The unknown man then advises Siad to “be careful” of Ford because “he knows a few dirty cops and other people.”
‘Everybody on your block is dead’
One alleged conversation intercepted May 17 is between Monir Kasim – one of the men featured in the infamous photo with Ford outside the home on Windsor Road – and an unknown male. Kasim tells the unknown man “the hood” would be “raided soon” and the mayor is “going mad.”
In Depth: Rob Ford
Another conversation intercepted by police that day reveal Lisi allegedly threatening the Toronto Police would “run through” houses in the Dixon neighbourhood if the video got released.
Police allege that in the conversation, Liban Siyad is speaking to a man identified only as “Juiceman” who quotes Lisi as saying “if that video gets released, I’m gonna, I’m gonna run through all your houses, me and all the, all the Toronto Police.”
Siyad tells an unknown male that Lisi said “you’re f***ing dead and everybody on your block is dead.”
Lisi has since been charged with extortion. He’s accused of threatening Siyad and Mohammed Siad, believed to have been in possession of the video, in order to retrieve the video.
And according to the documents, in an intercepted May 20 conversation between Siyad and Elena Basso, a resident of 15 Windsor Road where police say the video was recorded, Basso complains that “Rob’s f***ing people and Cops are coming here every f***ing day.”
Watch: Toronto Police spokesman Mark Pugash maintains that Project Brazen 2 investigation is ongoing
Basso says the video and the mayor’s involvement will increase police presence in the neighbourhood, or as she calls it, bring “down heat.”
“G brought down heat on this whole f***in’ area,” Basso allegedly said, adding that the mayor has “got power” and “it doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong.”
“We’re going to feel the heat everywhere… not just in f***in’ uh Dixon Park, we’re, we’re going to feel it, people at Weston Road’s going to feel it, people on Jane Street gonna feel it, everywhere.”
Basso also characterized Ford as a “big f***ing idiot.”
“I told you guys from the beginning, he’s a big f***ing idiot,” Basso allegedly said.
Watch: Doug Ford says Rob was victim of extortion
Ford has evaded questions regarding the ongoing investigation and has refused to talk to police on his lawyer’s advice but said during an interview on CBC last week that he is “not a criminal.”
The new information, previously under publication ban, comes from warrant requests police filed in January and March – the latter just days after Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair transferred oversight of Project Brazen to the Ontario Provincial Police.
But the OPP have since handed control of the investigation back to Toronto Police.
Ford and his brother have vocally alleged the ongoing criminal investigation into the mayor is politically motivated and a waste of money, claiming Blair is biased. Blair has repudiated those accusations.
Read the full March 7 ITO below:
Read the full January 14 ITO below:
With a report from the Canadian Press
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