Accuser a would-be informant, jury told
Crown alleges police falsified paperwork
Acocaine dealer who claims Toronto drug squad officers stole $100,000 after illegally raiding his home 14 years ago was actually negotiating with them to be their confidential informant, a jury has heard.
Peter Brauti, lawyer for one of five defendants in a police corruption trial, read an account Monday of Andy Ioakim’s dealings with the officers he claims entered his home without a warrant in 1997 and carted off his cash and drugs.
Brauti read notes of a 2002 interview with Ioakim’s former lawyer, Sean Daley, made by Det. Ed Follert, an investigator probing allegations of drug squad malfeasance.
After receiving permission from Ioakim to speak to the investigator, Daley said he: “remembers that the police had him (Ioakim) on a tight leash — wanted to be a confidential informant,” according to the notes.
“He doesn’t remember if the police wanted him to be a CI or Andy offered up to be a CI,” Follert wrote.
Brauti asked Ioakim if he recalls this discussion about being a confidential informant.
Ioakim replied that he doesn’t recall even talking to the lawyer, but is in no position to dispute what he said.
Confidential informants help police with their investigations, but their identity is kept secret and they don’t have to testify in court. Their role in assisting police is supposed to be passive.
But the Crown alleges the drug squad bullied Ioakim, now 55, into playing an active role as a “state agent” in the subsequent arrest of Montreal cocaine dealer Aida Fagundo, and that they then concealed his role in paperwork they filed, thus attempting to obstruct justice. Ioakim has testified that he actively set up a cocaine deal with Fagundo, under pressure from the officers, not that he was a passive informant. John Schertzer, 54; Steven Correia, 45; Joseph Miched, 53; Raymond Pollard, 47; and Ned Maodus, 48 — former Central Field Command Toronto drug squad officers — face various charges, including attempting to obstruct justice, perjury, assault and extortion. The trial continues Tuesday.