Mayor Rob Ford needs to listen to councillors, says deputy mayor
Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly talks to media about Rob Ford scandal
Now we know why Mayor Rob Ford refused to have an official driver.
Who would want a chauffeur at the wheel — with long ears and beady eyes — during all those mystifying late-night peregrinations around the city: pulling over in parking lots, gas stations, Tim Hortons, near high schools; the rambles down isolated pathways, left strewn with empty vodka bottles and juice boxes?
Who would want a witness — insufficiently trustworthy — to twitchy transactions, packages and manila envelopes exchanged between a chief magistrate and his bagman, content of the goods unknown, though bird-dogging cops noted the behavior certainly suggested criminal activity?
What was good buddy and occasional driver Sandro Lisi — facing drug charges, earlier provided with character reference letter to the court on another matter, written by the mayor on City of Toronto letterhead — delivering to Ford on all those occasions that couldn't just be brought to the front door, requiring instead such clandestine hand-offs?
And if the officers who were conducting surveillance on Lisi and Ford over a period of five months — it's unclear if Lisi led to Ford or Ford led to Lisi — had reasonable concerns that criminal activity was occurring, why didn't they bust the duo red-handed?
A compendium of material contained in the ITO — Information to Obtain a search warrant — released in redacted form Thursday provides an alternate log, a different day-diary from the working hours itinerary that Ford has often cited to describe his mayor-at-the-helm existence, the call-me-anytime guy who's always ready to listen. But the documents, while providing a mountain of provocative material, raise more questions than they answer.
In the end, all those countless hours of surveillance, the untold expense of Project Brazen 2, the hard slogging of cops including Toronto's top homicide inspector, resulted only in a handful of minor drug charges against Lisi and the owner of a cleaner's which, police allege, was used as a marijuana trafficking arcade.
An ordinary person might wonder whether there's one law for small fry, the pathetic druggie riff-raff, and another for the mayor of Toronto, who has not been charged with anything and, unless police Chief Bill Blair is withholding, will not be charged with anything criminally.
Blair has always maintained that his cops would follow the investigation wherever it led. Yet we know now where it did indeed lead; we've even seen the photographs. And still Ford remains foot-loose and indictment-free, holed up with his mom and brothers Friday before returning home, perhaps waiting for another anvil to fall on his head.
I could say he's taking this lying down.
Ford clings to this delusional notion that he can slide past scandal by saying nothing of significance, claiming he can't address allegations coalescing the wayward mayor while matters are before the court. This is hooey. He's not before the courts. There's nothing preventing him from explaining his suspicious midnight rambles, nor the hundreds of phone calls he made to Lisi and other unsavory characters who inhabit Ford's orbit.
Instead, the mayor goes trick-or-treating in a Maple Leaf jersey, yet again trotting out his kids as props.
Ford's apologists — admittedly, a much-shrunken chorus of boot-lickers — have offered nonsense about proven-until-guilty and everybody-gets-their-day-in-court. But, I repeat, he hasn't been charged thus the legal niceties don't kick in. But maybe Ford's acolytes, particularly in the media, are more preoccupied with rehabilitating their own reputation as journalists.
This is the same constituency — augmented by phony hand-wringers — that would apparently blame alleged addiction, personal demons, for the monumental misjudgments of an elected politician. Ford needs help, is their refrain. This is a lame exculpation on which to hang the whole sordid tale. Drug-users aren't necessarily addicts, heavy drinkers aren't necessarily alcoholics. Fully functioning addicts are the norm, not the exception, though our society has elevated the public confessional to one-excuse-fits all.
And of course there's that other small matter — the video. Or videos, plural. Police have recovered the notorious video which shows Ford smoking what appears to be crack cocaine, which two Star reporters watched three times back in April, when an intermediary was trying to peddle the thing for six figures. While everybody was searching high and low for it, while persons unknown must have believed they'd effectively deleted it from a hard drive, turns out cops have had the item in their possession since June 13 — though unaware, Blair insists — seized among a slew of electronic devices during the Project Traveller raids. Only on Tuesday, said Blair, did the tape come to light by investigators using data recovery software.
This is the video that Lisi had allegedly tried to retrieve, which is why he's also been charged with extortion. At his bail hearing Friday — released on $5,000 — the police information sheet obtained by reporters alleges Lisi "without reasonable justification or excuse and with intent to obtain a digital video recording did induce" two individuals "by threats or violence or menaces to deliver said digital video recording to Alexander Lisi contrary to the Criminal Code."
But wait. There are two videos, Blair revealed at his shocking press conference.
What's on the other one? Are we not to know? Because a few reporters have already been told by sources what its contents might be.
If true, believe me, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Some want to keep it that way.
Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
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