Charges against officer, operator stayed in Ottawa police tow-truck kickback scheme

All criminal charges against the final two accused in an Ottawa police tow-truck kickback scheme have been stayed for unreasonable delay in prosecution, an Ontario court judge ruled Tuesday morning.

Const. Hussein Assaad and Ottawa United Towing operator Jason Ishraki were the last of what were originally six accused in the plot three Ottawa police officers and three civilians to have their chargeseither withdrawn by the Crown or stayed by a judge.

• Ottawa police officers charged in tow-truck kickback scheme resign from force

Only a single charge laid in the lengthy RCMP anti-corruption investigation, called Project OWrecker, resulted in conviction. Even then it was a conditional discharge, which will likely see no lasting criminal record imposed against now former cop Kevin Putinski. Putinski resigned as part of his plea.

The combined prosecution of all accused included allegations of the selling of secret police information, tipping off suspects to the police cases against them, and a proposed plan to carry out an ATM heist by orchestrating a shooting in another part of town to distract police officers.

The Mounties secured wiretaps in the case and planted a listening device in Assaad's personal vehicle.

Those intercepted communications made up the bulk of the Crown's case against the officers.

'How long does it take to fax a form?'

Ontario Court Justice Sheila Ray delivered a scathing indictment of Crown and police inaction in the case, which began when it took more than 200 days for the RCMP to turn over disclosure of the 1,041 hours of intercepted audio a task that could have been done in less than one day.

Lawyers argued the evidence could have been turned over in a data "dump" as is normal occurrence in other criminal prosecutions. Instead, police and Crown organized the material, provided summaries and hyperlinks throughout it.

Ray found the Crown failed to disclose the information used to obtain the warrants into the case until the rest of the police evidence was ready to be turned over.

The Crown argued against the delay, citing complicating factors like the pandemic and "hallmarks of complexity" a large number of witnesses, including expert witnesses, and charges spanning nearly two-and-a-half years. All factors the judge agreed could addlength to the proceedings.

"But this should not have caused delay to the degree that occurred," Ray said.

"How long does it take to fax a screening form? That takes five minutes to fill out and that can be amended later? As they often are."

Ray said she saw "no link between the pandemic and the delay" and condemned the Crown for its inaction that left one of the civilian accused "hapless" and "unrepresented." The charges against that accused were ultimately withdrawn, too.

Judge criticizes Ottawa police anti-misconduct unit

Ray also characterizedthe actions of Ottawa police's professional standards unit, which investigates internal officer misconduct, as "astonishing."The unit chose to serve a notice of a disciplinary proceeding on Assaad while he was in the middle of giving testimony to the judge about Ottawa police policy.

Ray said the unit's actions created "an abuse of process issue" that very rarely happens in the criminal justice system, usually to the credit of the actors in the criminal justice system.

Defence lawyer Joseph Addelman, who represented Assaad, said in a statement to CBC News:"The conduct of the RCMP and Ministry of the Attorney General resulted in severe delay and hardship to my client."

Those rights "were damaged beyond repair," Addelman said.

"The harm done was not just to my client but to the administration of justice and to the community.This was a win for the administration of justice as much as it was for my client."

Mash Frouhar, the lawyer for Ishraki, said Ray "properly recognized the excessive delay" in the case.

"My client is happy to be able to finally move on now that these charges have been stayed."