Trial focuses on control over $25K in ecstasy pills
Man caught in U.S. with 25,000 pills was facing 15 years, lawyer emphasizes
It’s now up to a judge to decide if a Lakeshore man headed a drug smuggling conspiracy — or whether the main witness for the prosecution might better fit the bill. “Are there ever holes in the Crown’s case,” said lawyer Frank Miller, whose client, Khaophone Sychantha, stands accused of conspiring to export drugs into the United States.
In closing trial arguments in Superior Court Wednesday, the defence laid into the testimony of the prosecution’s chief witness, Nicola Kakish. Miller also criticized the police handling of the case that began when Kakish was busted on the American side of the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel on Aug. 6, 2010, with 25,000 ecstasy pills squirrelled away in hiding spots inside his Oldsmobile.
“He has all the motive in the world to come up with someone else,” said Miller. Kakish told the trial that he had been facing a 15year prison sentence before agreeing to assist authorities in nabbing Sychantha.
Federal drug prosecutor Jennifer Rooke conceded there were some weaknesses in the Crown’s case.
The police never sought to obtain phone records covering alleged drug-smuggling conversations between the main parties, including Kakish and Sychantha. The colour photographs from a lineup used by police to get Kakish to identify the accused couldn’t be found for the trial, and — “the worst thing,” according to Miller — an OPP officer told Kakish the name of the suspect police were seeking before he was shown those photos. Kakish, a dual Canadian-American citizen, confessed on the stand that he lied to investigators. When he was arrested, “he made up a story,” said Rooke. “But he was honest and forthright that he lied.” The prosecutor explained that Kakish was “nervous, scared and afraid” for himself and his family when he initially fabricated a story to try and minimize his involvement.
Kakish testified that on his third of three trips made for Sychantha and his “crew,” he drove to Sychantha’s home in the county, where his vehicle was “stuffed” with drugs to be delivered to the Detroit side. Miller described the Crown’s main witness as “a really sketchy individual ... this guy’s evidence is dangerous.”
Justice John Desotti weighed in as well during the trial’s closing, saying he was concerned how quickly the OPP “discounted the possibility of a search warrant” being executed at Sychantha’s home, where Kakish described the ecstasy pills being packaged and vacuum-sealed for transport. The trial took years to get underway after Sychantha, a dual citizen of Canada and Laos and now 37, spent years on the lam. He was on an American most-wanted list with a US$25,000 bounty on his head and described as a ringleader of a drug-smuggling operation that moved large quantities of drugs across international and state lines.
Sychantha has remained in custody since being nabbed by bicycle cops on patrol in Montreal in August 2017.
The judge will announce his decision in February.
Are there ever holes in the Crown’s case … He has all the motive in the world to come up with someone else.