‘OFF THE BOOKS’
Embattled police officer accuses chief of improper discipline
A lawyer for an embattled Edmonton police officer says Chief Dale McFee engaged in an “off the books” process for charging his client with lying in the wake of a botched crimescene investigation.
Const. Paul Kelly was before the Alberta Law Enforcement Review Board Thursday to appeal his disciplinary convictions related to the aftermath of a 2017 homicide probe.
The former detective was reduced to a junior constable last year after an internal hearing found him guilty of 10 offences, including deceit for filing a false complaint against two fellow officers.
McFee is cross appealing, asking the board to fire Kelly from the service.
The initial Police Act charges dealt with Kelly’s handling of an investigation at a notorious central Edmonton rooming house where two men were shot to death in September 2017. Kelly’s crime scene investigation team searched the home’s basement after 76-year-old Nexhmi Nuhi was gunned down by two assailants. The basement was then released to the landlord, who found the body of another man, Blayne Burnstick, concealed inside a garbage bag four days later.
Kelly was charged with neglect of duty for failing to find Burnstick’s body.
Years later, he was hit with a raft of additional counts for blaming others for the oversight. He ultimately faced a total of 14 Police Act charges.
Dan Scott, Kelly’s lawyer, is asking the board to throw out the latter charges for lack of evidence — and because McFee allegedly brought the complaints after the Police Act’s limitation period expired.
Scott said the deceit complaints were filed Aug. 20, 2020, years after the initial charge. They dealt with statements Kelly made in 2018 and 2019 — outside the one year typically reserved for making a Police Act complaint.
“Complaints four through 14 are an off-the-books process that is completely unauthorized by the Police Service Regulation and the Police Act,” Scott told the three-member civilian review board panel.
Megan Hankewich, McFee’s lawyer, said the convictions should stand and that Kelly is no longer fit to serve as a police officer.
She said Kelly made false complaints claiming other officers in the homicide unit failed to pass along information about the Burnstick killing, then “continuously lied” throughout the investigation.
“Police officers cannot falsely accuse anyone of an offence, whether it’s other police officers or members of the public ... and remain a police officer,” she said.
Kelly’s evidence throughout the disciplinary hearing continued to deflect blame for the faulty investigation, Hankewich said.
“Kelly could never be in a role that requires sending him to court ever again," she said.
The Kelly case is tied in with that of Dan Behiels, the suspended detective who claimed EPS brass “engaged in corrupt acts” that “effectively insulated” notorious landlord Abdullah Shah from prosecution.
Behiels leaked information to the CBC claiming a joint EPS/CRA investigation into Shah (also known as Carmen Pervez) ended without charges because of Kelly’s disciplinary issues.
In a 2021 letter to McFee, Behiels claimed the process for laying the latter disciplinary charges against Kelly was out of the ordinary and that it made the Shah case more complicated for prosecutors, given the hurdles Kelly would face testifying while his boss was accusing him of lying.
The Calgary police anti-corruption unit probed Behiels’ claims and according to EPS “found no criminality or evidence of corruption by the EPS and its members."
Shah died in 2022 after an unidentified assailant gunned him down in his driveway.
Kelly’s internal disciplinary hearing — presided over by Fred Kamins, a retired RCMP officer appointed by McFee — focused on what Kelly knew, and when, about the possible second body.
Scott said his client and a homicide detective attended the basement Sept. 14, 2017, and found a scene consistent with a single person having been shot through the main door. Kelly claimed that unbeknownst to him, another homicide detective had been told by a witness that Burnstick had been shot in the suite hours before Nuhi was killed.
Kelly said the only piece of evidence that didn’t fit during the Sept. 14 search was a spatter of blood in the kitchen. That blood was sent for testing and was later found to have been Burnstick’s.
Kelly admitted some errors in the investigation, including failing to have his team record images of the pile of plastic bags where Burnstick’s body was located. Doing so would have helped determine whether anything was added or removed between the Sept. 14 search and Burnstick’s body being found.
Kelly said he did not believe the search warrant entitled him to open the bags. Kamins disagreed.
The review board panel reserved its decision, which will be delivered in writing at a later date.