More Rob Ford audio, video files found
Toronto police have obtained a search warrant to examine nearly 10 gigabytes of audio and video files from Alexander “Sandro” Lisi’s iPhone, as well as any texts between the accused drug trafficker and his friend Mayor Rob Ford, new documents revealed Monday.
The new files show police believe that the data may include evidence that Lisi — and others — could have been involved in an attempt to try to retrieve the infamous Ford “crack video.” Police list Ford as the second “person of interest” in their investigation, after Lisi.
Lisi faces an extortion charge in relation to the video, which police say shows Ford smoking what appears to be an illegal drug. The mayor, who refused comment on these latest documents Monday, has admitted to smoking crack cocaine in a “drunken stupor.”
In the Information to Obtain (ITO) search warrants, police requested to see text messages between Lisi and the following: Mayor Ford, former Ford staffers David Price and Thomas Beyer; Elena Basso, Fabio Basso, Mohamed Siad, Liban Siyad and Mohamed Farah.
“On May 17th, 2013, there is a flurry of telephone activity between Lisi’s cellular telephone and telephones associated to Rob Ford, the Basso residence, and Price,” the document states. May 17 is the day after the crack video’s existence was first reported by Gawker and the Toronto Star.
“There were over 100 text communications that were identified as either originating from or being sent to Lisi’s cellular phone on May 18th, 2013, from principal known persons in Project Traveller, persons close with Robert Ford and other parties not known to be relevant to the Project Brazen II investigation,” the document adds.
The Basso residence, at 15 Windsor Rd., is where the crack video is believed to have been shot and police say in court documents that Mohamed Siad likely shot it.
Police say in the document that a May 21 assault of Fabio Basso by an unknown individual who forcibly entered 15 Windsor Rd., is not related to the Project Brazen II investigation.
None of the allegations contained in the new documents, parts of which remain under a publication ban, have been proven in court. The document does not contain any information on what police found on Lisi’s iPhone.
While police obtained the phone after Lisi was arrested in October it was only examined recently. An investigator had to travel to Apple in California last month for the data to be retrieved.
The search warrant application was filed March 7, just two days after the OPP took over the investigation from Toronto Police.
“The mandate (of Project Brazen II) was to investigate any criminality that may exist that might be associated with the mayor or his office while ensuring that the integrity of Project Traveller remained intact,” Det. Const. David LaVallee says in the court documents.