Cheese smuggling cop’s appeal rejected
A police officer’s appeal of a conviction and sentencing for his role in a cheese smuggling operation has been dismissed.
Niagara Regional Police Const. Scott Heron was found guilty of conspiracy to smuggle cheese into Canada from the United States without paying duty and breach of trust by a public official on Sept. 18, 2015.
Justice James Ramsay, the trial judge, sentenced Heron to three months for the smuggling offence and one month on the breach of trust charge.
Heron was appealing the breach of trust conviction and his sentences.
Heron ran a smuggling operation that saw another constable bring cheese across the border from Buffalo to Fort Erie.
The cheese was then sold to local restaurants for profit, at discount prices made possible by evading a 246 per cent markup in duty.
About $133,000 of cheese and other food was smuggled into Canada, and $325,000 in duty evaded.
Heron has already completed his jail sentence, his lawyer Andrew Furgiuele said.
Furgiuele told the appeals court that Heron was challenging Ramsay’s rulings “because there are serious implications for his continued employment as a police officer if the sentence remains on his record.”
The cheese smuggling scheme began in 2009 when Heron asked his friend — fellow NRP Const. Geoff Purdie — to run contraband cheese into Canada from a pizzeria in Buffalo.
The Crown’s case against Heron depended heavily on the evidence of Purdie, who lost his job in April 2013, following his conviction in Buffalo on a charge of conspiracy to smuggle steroids from the United States into Canada.
Purdie received a sentence of one year in jail, which he served in an American prison. Part of his plea agreement with U.S. officials was that he would testify in court about the cheese smuggling operation.
Heron was convicted of breach of trust after running a check through the national police database — known as CPIC — on the licence plate of the vehicle driven by Purdie on Feb. 19, 2012.
It was on that date that Purdie told Heron he thought he was being followed while on a run across the border. Heron was entitled to access the CPIC system, but only for matters relating to his duties as a police officer.
At the trial, Ramsay found that the only reasonable inference to draw from Heron using CPIC was that he made the check to “determine to what extent his police colleagues were investigating him and Purdie.”
The appeal court rejected the suggestion that the judge erred in reaching that conclusion, stating that “the overwhelming, irresistible and only reasonable inference on the record” was that Heron conducted the CPIC query “to gain insight into the status of the police investigation.”
Blair also dismissed Heron’s request to set aside the sentences.
“Appellate courts afford wide latitude to a sentencing judge,” Blair wrote. “Absent an error in principle, the failure to consider a relevant factor, or an overemphasis of appropriate factors, they will only vary a sentence imposed at trial if the sentence imposed is demonstrably unfit …
“I see no such errors in the trial judge’s approach to the sentencing of the appellant. The sentences imposed by the trial judge are fit. Indeed, if anything, they are favourable to the appellant.”
Insp. Mike Woods of the NRP’s professional standards unit said Heron is currently suspended without pay, which has been the case since the criminal conviction was registered.
Heron is still facing Police Services Act charges. The NRP deferred the internal police proceedings pending the outcome of his criminal appeal.
“As that has been resolved, we will be moving ahead,” Woods said.
The Police Services Act is the blueprint for policing in Ontario and deals with issues of professional standards.
The act is invoked against officers for discreditable conduct or serious violations of police procedure.
The findings can lead to an officer’s dismissal from the service.
Woods said a conference call is scheduled with Heron’s lawyer and the hearing officer next week to map a way forward through the proceedings.