Mob connections concerned neighbours
‘It’s the Musitanos, you’d better watch out,’ one neighbour recalls of warning he was given after complaining about the mounting piles of fill at Waterdown Garden Supplies
Jim Whelan lives close to the Waterdown Garden Supplies property in rural Flamborough, and for years he’s complained to anyone who’ll listen as he watched thousands upon thousands of loads of fill pile higher and higher on the property.
When he read last week that the city and two of its employees are facing a $75-million lawsuit related to the Waterdown Garden property, one of the allegations hit home — that the names of neighbours who complained about the dumping were allegedly passed on to mobster Pat Musitano so they could be threatened into silence.
That brought back memories for Whelan of a time he was threatened for being one of the property’s most vocal critics.
Whelan was standing in front of the Waterdown Garden property snapping pictures on his phone when he was accosted by “this little guy who came around with his hands in his pocket —
they pretend they got guns or whatever.”
“He came around the back of a truck and he looked at me with his peaked cap and his hoodie up so I couldn’t really see his face that good and he said — his exact words — ‘Do you know who you’re f—ing with?’” Whelan said.
“And I said ‘No, who am I f— ing with?’ He said ‘The Musitanos.’ I said ‘What’s a Musitano? If you got a Musitano in there, go get it and bring it out and we’ll deal with it,’” Whalen said. “He turned around and walked away.
“That’s kind of the way (Musitano) operated,” added Whelan, who said he never actually met the slain mobster. “He’d send someone else to do the dirty work.”
Musitano was a silent partner in a company called Havana Group Supplies Inc., which took over control of the Waterdown Garden property on Highway 5 in Flamborough in 2018. The Hamilton mobster was gunned down in a Burlington parking lot last July.
In addition to the lawsuit against the city, Waterdown Garden Supplies Ltd. is also suing the Havana Group company and its head, convicted fraud artist Steve Sardinha, for $15 million for fraud, breach of contract and conspiracy.
Sardinha and Musitano were alleged to have been childhood friends in Hamilton’s North End.
The lawsuit against the city alleges two of its employees conspired with Musitano to dump contaminated soil at the Waterdown Garden property and that thousands of loads allegedly originated from the city’s own job sites.
Among the other claims in the lawsuit, it’s alleged that one or both of the employees profited from the dumping of material at Waterdown Garden and that the manager allegedly provided warnings when bylaw enforcement would inspect the Waterdown Garden property.
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
The two employees have been placed on paid leave while the city engages a third-party agency to conduct an investigation of the allegations.
The city says it has found no evidence to support the allegations.
Whelan said he’s aware of others near the Waterdown Garden property who have been threatened or feel unsafe but they’ve been reluctant to come forward.
“I understand all that because it really wears on people,” said Whelan.
“We were always concerned because we knew the characters,” he added. “And more concerned for our older neighbours who have lived here all their lives and were very concerned about the threats.”
Gerrit Huls also lives close to the Waterdown Garden property. He says he has never been verbally or physically threatened but he has been threatened legally.
He said he twice received cease and desist letters from a lawyer for Havana Group Supplies for comments he made about the Waterdown Garden property. One of the letters, he said, was sent to his boss, which he believed was an attempt to try to get him fired.
In one letter dated Feb. 14, 2019, Huls faced a demand to retract in writing and apologize for allegedly defamatory statements he made or “we will be commencing an action against you in the Superior Court of Justice based on defamation and interference of business relations.
“If you do not immediately retract this statement, then it is clear that you are making these unfounded and false statements for the malicious purpose of putting Havana Group Supplies Inc. out of business,” the letter continued.
“I never answered it because I wasn’t going to give them anything to come back at me,” said Huls. He said he was never presented with a statement of claim.
Huls said neighbours warned him that Musitano was connected to the property and that he should steer clear for his own protection.
“That name got thrown around a lot all the time,” Huls said. “‘It’s the Musitanos, you’d better watch out.’ That never really scared me.”
The Waterdown Garden site is the subject of orders issued by the city and Ontario’s Environment Ministry related to the massive piles of soil that were dumped there.
On Jan. 12, Waterdown Garden was charged by the Environment Ministry with six offences under the Environmental Protection Act and two offences under the Ontario Water Resources Act for alleged violations at the Flamborough property.