Officers suspended with pay for 3 years
Cops acquitted of sex assault remain off work while professional misconduct case unfolds
One year after they were acquitted of sexually assaulting a colleague, three Toronto police officers remain suspended with pay — marking 3 1⁄2 years that the trio have been compensated while off work.
Constables Leslie Nyznik, Sameer Kara and Joshua Cabero have not been charged with professional misconduct under the province’s Police Services Act in connection with the 2015 incident.
Officers who are charged criminally often also face police act charges regardless of the outcome of their criminal case.
Because of a time limit placed on misconduct charges under the Police Services Act — six months after an incident or after a complaint has been made — Toronto police have had to appeal to the civilian police board for permission to lay misconduct charges in this case.
It has been more than three years since a female parking enforcement officer, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, came forward with allegations she was sexually assaulted by the offduty officers in a downtown hotel room.
An investigation was launched by To- ronto police professional standards, resulting in the criminal charges.
Meaghan Gray, a spokesperson for the Toronto police, said in an email last week that an appeal has been drafted “and submitted to the board for consideration.”
It’s not clear when that appeal was made. Gray said she did not know the date it was sent, and a Toronto police board spokesperson said decisions about police misconduct charges beyond the six-month time limit are confidential — a decision made by the board at an April 2016 meeting.
Peter Brauti, the lawyer representing Cabero, called the delay “unacceptable.”
Brauti said he could understand why the service may have wanted the officers “in a limited role” while the charges were outstanding, but noted they’ve since been found not guilty.
“Their desire is to return to work,” Brauti said, noting the Toronto police’s professional standards division — the unit that lays misconduct charges against officers — “attended the trial each and every day.”
“At the conclusion of the trial they knew exactly what the evidence was, so why, 12 months later, are they sitting around, suspended and not able to work?”
One year ago this month, Superior Court Justice Anne Malloy found the three officers not guilty of one count each of sexual assault, stemming from a January 2015 incident.
Malloy concluded she could not convict the officers beyond a reasonable doubt because of inconsistencies in the com- plainant’s account, but noted she did not necessarily believe the testimony of Nyznik, the sole officer to testify during the trial.
She was also critical of the officers’ behaviour on the night in question, when the group was participating in a “rookie buy night,” a booze-fuelled initiation ritual that has since been banned by Toronto police.
Among the concerns Malloy raised in her ruling was the fact that Nyznik — while the group was at the Toronto strip club the Brass Rail — lied to a stripper and told her the group was “a pornographic movie crew.”
Michael Lacy, the lawyer representing Kara, said “given that the matter is still not complete as (Kara) remains suspended from active duty, it would be inappropriate to comment at this time.”
The lawyer representing Nyznik could not be reached for comment.
If the Toronto police board decides misconduct charges should be laid against the officers, it will launch a tribunal process that could stretch for months or longer, with the officers likely suspended with pay for the duration. If they are found guilty of misconduct, the consequences range from a reprimand to dismissal. A Toronto police constable’s base salary ranges between $66,462 and $94,949 per year, according to the service’s website.
Ontario is the sole province in Canada where police chiefs do not have the power to suspend officers without pay unless they are sentenced to jail time.
Police chiefs have long been calling for changes that would allow them greater powers to suspend officers without pay — in part because it’s a source of frequent public complaints.
Through its policing legislation, the previous Liberal government proposed changes that would expand the circumstances under which police chiefs could suspend officers without pay.
Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford has criticized that omnibus legislation — Bill 175, the Safer Ontario Act — saying it “hurt policing efforts in the province.”
Ford’s government has already halted the implementation of one part of the legislation — a new act governing the police watchdog, the Special Investigations Unit — and has said his government would conduct “a full and thorough review” of the remainder of the legislation, some of which is scheduled to come into effect next year.