Court officer posed as cop in home invasion

TORONTO — A Toronto court officer admitted he posed as a cop and used police scanners to perpetrate a home invasion robbery against a mother with an 18-month-old infant to steal marijuana and cash.

Steven Reid, 26, and two friends presented themselves as cops as Reid flashed his court officer "badge" to Sonya Boucher.

The mother was waiting for Chinese food and left the front door unlocked at her west-end Toronto apartment on July 28, 2010.

Crown attorney Jill Cameron said Reid, Vinroy Ellis and David Nolan demanded Boucher, 35, hand over her money and drugs. Boucher pinpointed the hiding place for a large bag of grass and approximately $1,500 in cash, Cameron said.

The invaders used a realisticlooking imitation weapon.

When Chinese deliveryman Jian-hua Liang, 55, and his pal arrived at Boucher's home with supper, they were ordered to the ground at gunpoint.

Fearing for his life, Liang complied and gave the invaders his cellphone and his money, court heard.

Once the bandits

fled, police were phoned and officers nabbed Reid and Ellis a short distance away, and Reid dropped a police scanner tuned into the local division. The scanner was stolen from the Old City Hall courthouse.

When police located Reid's Jeep Cherokee behind Boucher's home, they found a duffle bag containing a 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun and one round of ammunition.

Reid also admitted he committed a break-and-enter under the ruse of executing a search warrant of an abandoned marijuana grow operation at a west-end apartment building between June 10 and June 21, 2010.