OPP officer guilty in drug, forgery case

These are violations by the Ontario Provincial Police officers dealing with the Criminal Code of Canada, Controlled Substance and Abuse Act, Customs and Excise Act, etc.

OPP officer guilty in drug, forgery case

Postby Thomas » Wed Aug 22, 2018 3:36 pm

OPP officer guilty in drug, forgery case

An officer with the Ontario Provincial Police’s Leeds County detachment was found guilty, earlier this year, of drug trafficking and forgery.

Jason Redmond pleaded guilty to trafficking in marijuana, while a judge also found him guilty of dealing in a forged document. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 29.

The charges stemmed from Project Arrowtown, a multi-agency police operation launched in 2014 that also resulted in the arrest of two other Leeds OPP constables, George Duke and David Vogelzang.

Earlier this year, Duke pleaded guilty to a series of charges stemming from the Arrowtown sweep.

Vogelzang was charged with obstruction of justice and pleaded not guilty; the charges against him were dismissed.

Vogelzang and Redmond’s trial unfolded in April. The text of the decision, by Superior Court Justice Wolf Tausendfreund, was made public last month.

It shows both Vogelzang and Redmond were charged with obstruction of justice in connection with an undercover operation in the Brockville area.

“The only person to testify in this trial was the undercover officer whose name, for purposes of this operation was Spencer Knoll,” the decision reads.

The court heard that Knoll’s persona was “one who skated close to and at times over the legal line” and who sold clothing and alcohol at discount prices.

During a meeting at Boston Pizza on March 28, 2015, Vogelzang and Redmond told Knoll about rumours circulating in the community that he was a cop, the court heard.

The facts before the court include Redmond trying to reassure Knoll: “You don’t understand – it’s small town politics.”

Redmond later says: “Just because people think it, doesn’t make it so.”

Tausendfreund notes that the obstruction of justice charge against Redmond hinged on whether Redmond was attempting to “ferret out if indeed Knoll was a policeman.”

However, the judge concludes he has reasonable doubt as to whether the Crown had established that Redmond was, in fact, obstructing justice.

He also concludes that Vogelzang’s presence at the meeting was not “that of a participant in a plan to ferret out if Knoll was or was not an undercover police officer.”

As a result, Tausendfreund dismissed two counts of obstruction of justice against both men.

Meanwhile, his ruling also noted that by October 2015, “the undercover operation was nearing its conclusion.

“Knoll was given one further task. He was to attempt to have Redmond provide him with a forged court document for which Knoll was to pay him an unspecified sum of money. The plan included a fictitious story that would require Redmond’s assistance in the form of providing a purported court document.”

Knoll then came to Redmond with a fictitious scenario: “He told Redmond that one of his sources of income was as a courier of undeclared cash that he brought into Canada periodically from the United States. He did so for unnamed and of course fictitious people in the United States. He had enough of it and wanted out. However, he needed a reason.

“Within a few days he was to bring $30,000 in U.S. funds into Canada. The plan included his partner, Sam. If the money were to disappear, it would be sufficient to terminate any continued obligation he would have to continue as a courier of undeclared funds for the unnamed people in the U.S.”

“The story to the unnamed suppliers of the fictitious money would be that he was stopped by the border police. During the course of being questioned, the police felt that he was lying. They arrested him, searched him and found the $30,000 in U.S. funds which they confiscated. … What Knoll needed was a court document to confirm that he in fact had been so charged. That is where Redmond came in. Could he be of assistance?”

The court heard that Redmond gained access to a court document on the Internet and altered the document to suit Knoll’s request.

Redmond “declined the offer of payment on four different occasions until Knoll stuffed $500 in U.S. funds into a lunchbox belonging to Redmond’s young son.

Redmond made neither a responding comment nor did he further resist,” the judge added.

The information was enough for Tausendfreund to find Redmond guilty of knowingly dealing with a forged document. However, he found Redmond not guilty of breach of trust for dealing with the forged document while a police officer.

“Redmond found the document in question on the Internet,” the judge concluded.

“Anyone with access to the Internet could have done so. The fact that he was a peace officer, I find had no part to play in the production of the forged document. It may well be that Redmond’s experience as a peace officer assisted him in preparing this document. However, he was not at that time acting in connection with the duties of his office.”

https://www.recorder.ca/news/local-news ... rgery-case

https://www.thewhig.com/news/local-news ... ery-case-2
Thomas, Administrator

User avatar
Thomas
Site Admin
 
Posts: 2562
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:18 pm
Location: Canada

No jail for OPP officer in sting

Postby Thomas » Tue Oct 30, 2018 2:03 am

Conditional discharge, suspended sentence for Cst. Jason Redmond, who was arrested in Arrowtown case.

A Leeds County Ontario Provincial Police officer, who was snared in an elaborate police sting three years ago, was given a conditional discharge for dealing marijuana and a suspended sentence for forgery in Ontario Superior Court on Monday.

Jason Redmond had pleaded guilty to the pot-trafficking count and was found guilty of the forged-document charge earlier this year.

The two charges were the only ones that stuck among multiple charges against Redmond and OPP colleague David Vogelzang resulting from an undercover operation that police dubbed Project Arrowtown.

The two charges of obstruction of justice against Vogelzang were dismissed at trial in April.
Of the remaining four charges against Redmond, the constable was found not guilty on one count, two were dismissed and another one was withdrawn. At the trial in April, Superior Court Justice Wolf Tausendfreund also found Redmond not guilty of breach of trust.

Project Arrowtown was launched in 2014 and used an undercover cop posing as a petty criminal to trap the two officers.

In October of 2015, the undercover officer used the alias of “Spencer Knoll” to persuade Redmond to give him a forged document. Knoll, posing as an illicit money courier, wanted Redmond to manufacture a document to show that the bogus courier’s money had been taken by authorities. Knoll would use the forged document to convince his crime bosses that he no longer had the money, some $30,000.

Redmond found a document on the Internet and changed it to suit Knoll, resulting in the forgery charge. Court heard that Redmond rejected Knoll’s attempts to pay him on four occasions, but later accepted $500 U.S.

Along with the marijuana charge to which Redmond pleaded guilty and was given a conditional discharge, the forged-document charge was the most serious. He got the suspended sentence and one year’s probation on that one.

The other charges didn’t survive the court process. The two counts of obstruction of justice – for trying to find out if Knoll was undercover – were withdrawn against both Redmond and Vogelzang.

One charge of trafficking drugs against Redmond was withdrawn.

An earlier charge that Redmond breached his trust as a police officer was thrown out by Justice Tausendfreund because anybody could find the document on the Internet – it didn’t take a police officer.

Redmond isn’t the only Leeds OPP officer to be convicted of crimes this year.

In September, George Duke, a veteran OPP officer, was sentenced to 21 months in jail on theft, breach of trust, drug and firearms charges.

He was also caught in the Project Arrowtown dragnet but his case was different from the Redmond sting.

Duke pleaded guilty to stealing $11,500 from undercover officers posing as drug-money couriers and possession of drugs including methamphetamine, marijuana and crack cocaine.

Some of the drugs – marijuana and crack – were discovered in his duty bag in his locker at the OPP detachment.

Duke, 55, is now serving his time in the St. Lawrence Valley Correctional and Treatment Centre in Brockville, where he receives treatment for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

https://www.recorder.ca/news/local-news ... r-in-sting
Thomas, Administrator

User avatar
Thomas
Site Admin
 
Posts: 2562
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:18 pm
Location: Canada


Return to Federal Statutes Violations

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 18 guests