WATCH: Global’s Jackson Proskow breaks down the latest shocking revelation involving Rob Ford.
Editor’s note: Some strong language excerpted below.
Weeks before the alleged crack video was shown to reporters, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford offered “five thousand and a car” to get it back, newly released court documents allege.
And even after he knew of the video’s existence, Ford met with and allegedly bought hard drugs from people who bragged they had pictures of him “on the pipe” and “doing the hezzah,” according to police wiretaps. (“hezzah” is apparently slang for heroin)
In depth: The Rob Ford saga
These revelations – none of which have been proven in court – are from a slew of police documents made public today after media organizations including Global News spent months fighting in court for their release:
- Ford, who admitted last month he smoked crack cocaine once about a year ago, “maybe in one of my drunken stupors,” is said to have met with alleged dealers in north Etobicoke who claimed he “was smoking [their] rocks” on at least one occasion last spring, well after the recording of the mayor smoking what appears to be crack cocaine, which police say was made in February.
- Ford allegedly offered $5,000 and a car to those in possession of a video showing him smoking what appears to be crack cocaine; while these individuals allegedly discussed offering it to reporters, they also wanted to ask Ford for more, closer to $150,000.
- Multiple people who’ve since been arrested in connection with the Project Traveller gun-and-drug raids are alleged to have said in wiretapped conversations they had photos of the mayor “on the pipe,” “on the dugga” (marijuana) and “doing the hezzah” (heroin).
- One of the above individuals was shot on the 17th floor of a now-notorious Etobicoke apartment building in May.
- A man in possession of the alleged crack video, who’d been hawking it to journalists, is alleged to have been briefly “kidnapped” by two associates in late May, apparently over the video.
WATCH: Global’s Jackson Proskow breaks down more of the revelations contained in the latest batch of newly-released court documents regarding Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.
On March 27, the Toronto Star reported Ford had been asked to leave a military gala the previous month because several organizers felt he was too intoxicated to stay.
Ford responded to this report as he has to other, similar stories: “Lies after lies and lies,” he said later that day, calling the paper’s reporters “pathological liars.”
The report and ensuing fallout apparently caught the attention of some aquaintances of Ford’s with more damaging footage of the mayor: According to police documents, wiretaps picked up a conversation that day between Mohamed Siad and Siyadin Abdi, discussing the article and an offer Ford had allegedly made in an attempt to retrieve a video.
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Weeks later, according to the Star, Siad would show two of its reporters a video the reporters say showed the mayor smoking crack cocaine. Siad showed that same video to Gawker’s John Cook, Cook says.
The 27-year-old Etobicoke man appears to have taken a fair amount of heat over a video it doesn’t look as though he ever sold: According to police documents, two of his compatriots were caught on wiretaps in late May claiming to have “kidnapped” him briefly.
The documents indicate a series of text message later that morning indicate Siad was somewhat distraught.
Siad was arrested in June’s Project Traveller raids, charged with trafficking in guns and cocaine, participating in a criminal organization and conspiring to commit an indictable offence, among other charges.
According to reports, he was stabbed while in jail and put in protective custody.
April 20: An alleged late-night call for drugs, a lost phone
But back up a sec, to just after midnight the night of April 19, when a woman believed to be Elena Basso (“Princess” to her friends) called Liban Siyad: Rob Ford was at her house, police wiretap summaries say, and she was calling Siyad because Ford wanted drugs.
(In police interviews, Siyad has denied being the voice on the intercepts)
In a phone call later that evening, Siyad bragged the mayor was “smoking his rocks,” according to police wiretaps. Police allege that another acquaintance, Abdullahi Harun, said he had Ford “on the dugga,” and had photos of the mayor “doing the hezza,” apparently a slang term for heroin. (just over a month later, on May 21, Harun was shot in the leg on the 17th floor of the Dixon Road apartment building)
Hours later, police allege, Siyad got a call from Sandro Lisi – the mayor’s friend and sometime driver, who now faces charges of trafficking and extortion.
Lisi accused Siyad of stealing the mayor’s phone, according to the documents, threatening “that if he did not get the phone back that the mayor would put heat on Dixon.”
In a flurry of calls caught on police wiretap, the documents allege, Siyad and his compatriots wondered how they would explain how they got the mayor’s phone. During one of these conversations, with an individual referred to only as “Juiceman,” Siyad is alleged to have said he “didn’t like being threatened and that they have a picture of Rob Ford on a pipe.
“The other male advises that they love and respect Rob Ford but they have Rob Ford on a lot of fucked up situations and they don’t wanna say anything,” the wiretap summary reads.
The mayor, meanwhile, spent part of that day doing community clean-up work at Colonel Samuel Smith Park in Etobicoke.
He told his staff he must have left his phone on his car. He didn’t report its loss or theft to police, documents state.
Lisi finally met Siyad to get the phone later that day at a Country Style in northern Etobicoke, police allege. Wiretapped conversations referred to in police documents suggest Lisi exchanged marijuana for the phone; it isn’t clear how much – conversations refer to “1.5 of Kush” but it isn’t clear what measurement that is.
In the face of admissions he smoked crack cocaine and amid new revelations over his erratic behaviour, Ford has said “the past is the past” and he has no plans to step down. He maintains he isn’t addicted to drugs or alcohol and won’t elaborate on the “professional help” he says he’s now getting.
The mayor hasn’t been charged with anything in connection with this investigation. Many others named in these documents, however, have been – several in connection with the Project Traveller raids, during which dozens of people were arrested.
Lisi is charged with trafficking and extortion – he’s accused of threatening Siyad and Siad in attempts to retrieve the alleged crack video in the days immediately following the first media reports of its existence.
PHOTOS: Stills taken from Toronto Police investigation of Rob Ford and Sandro Lisi
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