Steps to secure police drug lockers ‘unimplemented’: Judge

An Ontario judge presiding over a trial hampered by a cop’s theft of drug evidence has convicted three remaining accused in the case, but found that Toronto police had failed to fix all weaknesses in their drug storage system, exposed in the wake of officer thefts.

Several “significant” recommendations made by the OPP to improve Toronto’s drug locker storage system remain “effectively unimplemented,” said Ontario Superior Court Justice Susanne Boucher in a decision released Friday, though she noted the force has taken some “very important steps” to mitigate the risk of further officer thefts.

Boucher made the findings in a decision that convicted Gregory Ehret, Carlos Moreira and Rene Velez Lau of conspiracy to commit drug trafficking and Ehret and Velez Lau of possessing fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking — dismissing a defence application seeking a stay of charges due to what Boucher called “egregious” police misconduct in the case.

The men were among the more than 100 arrests made in Project Sunder, a massive 2020 anti-gang takedown that resulted in hundreds of gun and drug charges.

Five people were being jointly prosecuted when the trial began in April until two were suddenly acquitted after court heard that drug evidence had been stolen by a Toronto officer.

Shortly after documenting drug evidence seized in Project Sunder in September 2020, former cop Lorenzino Censoni returned to his station’s drug storage locker, tore into two evidence bags and ingested what he thought was cocaine, nearly dying of a fentanyl overdose just meters from the police station (he pleaded guilty to theft and unlawful possession of fentanyl, and resigned from Toronto police).

The two people acquitted midtrial had been charged directly in connection to the drugs stolen by Censoni. Lawyers for the remaining three had argued their clients, too, should have their charges stayed or the evidence tossed due to the officer’s misconduct, and alleged Censoni’s actions were part of a bigger problem with the integrity of the Toronto police drug locker storage system.

“The Toronto police took inadequate actions toward security during a period in 2020 and 2021, when it came to light that there were a wide variety of thefts from that locker system,” defence lawyer David Heath told the court in April.

In a 14-page decision released Friday, Boucher called Censoni’s misconduct “a complete violation of public trust and of the integrity of exhibit management,” but found Ehret, Moreira and Velez Lau were “merely spectators” to that misconduct. Their charges did not stem from the drugs Censoni stole, though that hadn’t been apparent at the start of the trial, she said.

“While the misconduct occurred in the overall investigation, ultimately the misconduct was not connected to the remaining accused persons in any meaningful way,” Boucher ruled.

The defence allegations had compelled Toronto police to disclose internal documents detailing how it handled Censoni’s theft and those of Paul Worden, a veteran homicide cop who stole drugs 27 times in the span of three years, thefts discovered just months after Censoni’s overdose. That included the disclosure of a never-before-seen investigative report by the OPP, who when called in to investigate Worden’s thefts found vulnerabilities in Toronto police’s “dated” drug evidence storage system — weaknesses that meant other thefts by officers may have occurred but gone undetected.

Court heard Toronto police have acted on some recommendations made by OPP in their review, including installing security cameras in drug storage areas and instituting a fail-safe system that flags when officers make repeated attempts to access an evidence locker managed by another cop.

But Boucher found that although Toronto police have taken some “very important steps” to act on mitigation measures identified by the OPP, there remain “shortcomings in addressing some of the risks to exhibit integrity.”

“The court would conclude, based on the trial evidence, that several significant recommendations remained effectively unimplemented,” Boucher wrote.

Included among the fixes Boucher said were still to be made were regular auditing of drug evidence — “the TPS has not had such an audit in a while and does not have one scheduled on the horizon,” she noted — and the development of a more robust policy to detect irregularities in the documentation of drug evidence, something that currently falls to couriers who pick up evidence from temporary storage at each of Toronto’s local divisions.

Boucher said Toronto police should take another look at the OPP’s recommendations “with a view to meaningful implementation in the spirit of the recommendations, rather than engaging a box-checking exercise to see if existing policies could be said to address the issues identified by the OPP.”

A spokesperson for the Toronto police said that, as with all judicial comments, “the TPS will review the comments and decision and properly apply them to our business practices as we work towards continued improvement.”

George Gray, the lawyer representing Ehret, said Boucher’s findings that Toronto police have not acted on fixes to its drug locker storage system “should be a concern for everyone who cares about the integrity of the evidence in the thousands of criminal prosecutions that depend on those evidence lockers.”

“For some reason, it took three lawyers in a public trial, cross-examining several members of the TPS to uncover basic and easily identifiable deficiencies in the evidence management system,” said Kabir Sharma, lawyer for Moreira.

“The public deserves better.”

Wendy Gillis is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and policing for the Star. Reach her by email at wgillis@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @wendygillis

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