Defence argues Rizzuto unfairly targeted because of family name
The police included Leonardo Rizzuto as a suspect in a drug trafficking investigation based mostly on his family name, a defence lawyer argued on Wednesday as the alleged Montreal Mafia leader’s trial began at the Montreal courthouse. The charges Rizzuto faces are related to how police found two handguns and five grams of cocaine inside his home in November 2015. At the time, they were making arrests in Project Magot, a lengthy investigation into organized crime and cocaine trafficking led by the Sûreté du Québec. When the arrests were made, the SQ alleged that Rizzuto, the son of now-deceased Mob boss Vito Rizzuto, was the head of the Montreal Mafia along with longtime friend Stefano Sollecito. The trial began with prosecutor Matthew Ferguson presenting an agreed statement of facts to Quebec Court Judge Julie Riendeau as she prepared to hear arguments on a voir dire, a sort of trial within a trial. Two defence lawyers representing Rizzuto — Dominique Shoofey and Frank Addario — argued that the warrant used to search Rizzuto’s home in Laval should be quashed because police had no reason to suspect Rizzuto was involved in drug trafficking and therefore had no reason to search. In the search, investigators found cocaine inside little packages stuffed into the pocket of a Hugo Boss suit jacket as well as a Browning .25-calibre pistol and a Walther P99 pistol with its serial number filed off and seven bullets inside the loading clip. The police also seized more than $30,000 Canadian, US$18,000, a Blackberry and three iPhones. Two members of the Barreau du Québec were present during the search because Rizzuto is a lawyer. On Wednesday, Addario argued the warrant was tainted long before they went inside because they had already violated his right to privacy nine times beforehand. He reminded Riendeau that earlier this year, the Crown announced it would no longer prosecute Rizzuto on drug trafficking charges filed against him in Project Magot after Superior Court Justice Éric Downs ruled that wiretap recordings gathered in the investigation were illegal. As part of Project Magot, the police installed listening devices in a law firm owned by now former lawyer Loris Cavaliere, a target of the investigation. Downs ruled that while a device inside Cavaliere’s personal office would have been legal, those in the firm’s conference room used by other attorneys were not legal. Rizzuto was part of Cavaliere’s firm and Sollecito was the client of a lawyer who also practised there. The police also violated rules for the handling of the recordings and Downs ruled that the recordings violated attorney-client privilege. Addario argued that the police conducted the investigation in “a negligent and careless manner” when it came to Rizzuto’s rights to privacy before they even entered his home. “Allow me to address the elephant in the room,” Addario said while addressing the judge. “Mr. Rizzuto has a notorious family name. Perhaps you have heard of his father?” “Substitute the name Rizzuto with the name Smith and imagine they are laying out their evidence that way,” Addario asked, stating that he did the same while preparing for the hearing. Addario then argued that the only informant (referred to as J.J. in an affidavit used to obtain the warrant) who gave investigators information about Rizzuto appeared to base what he said about Vito Rizzuto’s son on speculative newspaper articles published following the father’s death in December 2013. Months after alleging that Leonardo Rizzuto was “a decision-maker” in the Montreal Mafia, J.J. gave his police handler a list of names of people he believed were running things but made no mention of Rizzuto. One year later, Addario said, J.J. gave his police handler the names of three people who “respected” influential Hells Angels member Salvatore Cazzetta: Gregory Woolley, a street gang leader; Sean Purdy, a man with alleged ties to the West End Gang; and Sollecito. “But he did not mention (Leonardo) Rizzuto,” Addario said. The defence attorney told Riendeau that the Crown will likely later argue that what J.J. alleged was corroborated on May 23, 2014, when Cavaliere, who was ultimately convicted of charges related to Project Magot, was recorded while he talked to his wife on a phone. Cavaliere’s wife was reacting to a newspaper article that alleged Leonardo Rizzuto and the Hells Angels were at that point working together. Cavaliere was recorded as saying the merger of the Montreal Mafia and the Hells Angels was his doing and that he had arranged it during the Sept. 2, 2012 funeral held for a Hells Angel named Gaetan Comeau. The Crown is to argue in support of the warrant on Thursday.