Judge tosses out case against alleged drug trafficker

Decision cites delay in prosecution and delay in disclosing evidence to defence

A Quebec Court judge has ordered a stay of proceedings on drug-trafficking charges filed more than seven years ago because the Crown took too long to disclose evidence to the accused man’s lawyers and thereby took too long to prosecute him.

On Nov. 1, 2012, more than 120 people were arrested in Project Loquace, an investigation led by the Sûreté du Québec into six men who tried to take control of cocaine distribution in Quebec. One of the alleged leaders was Mihale Leventis, a man who, at the time, was residing in a unit inside the luxury condo building next to the Old Port built by the now-deceased real estate developer Tony Magi with support from Montreal Mafia leader Vito Rizzuto. Leventis has been detained since his arrest early in December 2012.

The key to Project Loquace was an informant who worked as an undercover agent for the police. The informant, whose name cannot be published because of a publication ban, handled more than 500 kilograms of cocaine and $14 million for the group.

The same informant is part of the reason behind Judge Richard Marleau’s decision to place a stay of proceedings on Leventis’s case earlier this week. The informant was a suspect in the fatal shooting of Ali Moroue, a 26-year-old man killed in Montreal on Oct. 9, 2007.

The fact that the informant was a suspect in the homicide had been disclosed to defence lawyers involved in the Project Loquace case years ago. But in 2014, lawyers in a case filed against another of the six alleged leaders requested more information on the homicide investigation during a preliminary inquiry. A Sûreté du Québec investigator testified that he had asked the Montreal police about their investigation and was told the informant “had nothing to do with” Moroue’s death.

The SQ assumed that meant the informant had been exonerated and was ruled out as a suspect in the shooting. But, according to Marleau’s 25-page decision, that is not the case.

It wasn’t until May 2019 that defence lawyers were provided with a 20-minute recording of the informant being interrogated about Moroue’s death on June 14, 2010, by a Montreal police homicide detective.

During the interrogation, the informant said he did not know Moroue. He told the detective the information pointing in his direction likely came from another drug trafficker and claimed it was false. When the detective suggested that cellphone tracking information placed him at the crime scene when Moroue was shot, the informant asked for more information. The detective changed the subject and asked the informant to undergo a lie-detector test to rule him out as a suspect. The informant turned down the offer twice.

He was working for the RCMP at the time and the Montreal police were aware of this.

As part of the same disclosure, the defence lawyers also learned the last person to call Moroue before he was shot used a phone number “associated with” the informant. Also, a white minivan seen driving away from the crime scene after the shots were fired, matched the description of a vehicle the informant was using at the time.

No one has been charged with Moroue’s death. The Montreal police archived the case but it was not considered closed.

“(W)e can only conclude that this new disclosure was pertinent in nature and also pertinent to the defence of (Leventis) because it targeted the credibility of the key witness in his trial,” Marleau wrote.

Leventis had made two Jordan motions before the disclosure was made. The motions, based on a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that set limits on how long a person should expect to wait before they are tried, were rejected. But this time the request was accepted.

“There is no doubt that this late disclosure is a major reason why (Leventis’s) trial was not held in 2019 and prolonged it to (March this year) and the rough calculation of the delays is now 87 months,” Marleau wrote.

The maximum delay allowed in a Quebec Court case is 18 months but it can be extended if it includes a preliminary inquiry.

Leventis will remain detained because he is expected to be extradited to the U.S. soon where he is charged with being part of a network that smuggled large amounts of Canadian-grown marijuana across the border and distributed it in places including New York City and Boston between 2007 and 2009.

There is no doubt that this late disclosure is a major reason why (Leventis’s) trial was not held in 2019.