Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story Page 25

  At a press conference at Police Headquarters that afternoon, Deputy Chief Mark Saunders said investigators were targeting the Dixon City Bloods. “This gang has been networking with associates from Windsor to Edmonton since 2006, where members have been responsible and involved in shootings, robberies, possession, and trafficking of drugs and firearms.” Chief Bill Blair said investigators believed the gang was part of a network of gun smugglers moving weapons across the border through Windsor. “I think we’ve cut off that pipeline, that supply of guns, and that’s going to make the city of Toronto a safer place.”

  But when it came time for questions, the media wanted to know about the mayor. The chief was asked if the investigation into the Dixon City Bloods had extended to the mayor’s office. “I’m not in a position to disclose that,” he said. Neither would he say whether officers had come across Ford’s name during the year-long probe. When asked about the photo in front of 15 Windsor Road, he confirmed that it was real and that “there are aspects of those individuals who form part of this investigation.” Again and again, Blair was asked about whether Ford had connections to Project Traveller, and every time the chief was interestingly vague. “All of the evidence has been secured and it will come out in court, where it belongs,” Blair said. “We will not jeopardize this case.”

  His silence was remarkable.

  As Star columnist Rosie DiManno wrote afterwards, “Given the intense speculation since Crackgate exploded, the questions flung daily at the mayor—which he has largely refused to answer, apart from saying that he is not a crack addict and insisting no videotape exists—Blair could have easily removed Ford from the equation by clearly stating what the investigation is not pursuing, the angles that have no merit or traction, which wouldn’t compromise the case when it’s prosecuted. This Blair painstakingly avoided doing.”

  At City Hall, the mayor played dumb. “I understand there were some raids done on Dixon Road. Some houses that are, I think, they’re on Windsor … that’s all I know,” Ford said. Reporters tried to question him again later in the day. “I’ve answered so many questions, I don’t know if you guys can’t get it through your thick skulls. Seriously? … I’ve already answered all these questions. I have nothing to do with this.”

  Ford was asked if he believed he was under investigation.

  “They can investigate me all they want. I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. “I have nothing to hide.”

  FIFTEEN

  OUTRIGHT

  WAR

  When Alexander “Sandro” Lisi left his Etobicoke home on July 11, 2013, a Toronto police surveillance team was following him. Officers watched as Lisi gassed up his Range Rover, visited with friends, and made a stop at Richview Cleaners.

  Then the officers tailed Lisi to another gas station, an Esso, which happened to be located at the end of Rob Ford’s street. When Lisi arrived at 5:40 P.M., the mayor’s black Escalade was already there. Ford had shown up two minutes earlier and headed straight to the bathroom, despite the fact that his house was less than a minute away.

  Lisi parked his Range Rover on the far side of the gas pumps and climbed out carrying a large manila envelope. He walked to the back of his car, put something inside, then headed into the kiosk while text messaging. Ford was still in the bathroom. Lisi grabbed a few bottles of Gatorade and a bag of chips, then headed to the cash register. At 5:42 P.M. he went back outside, looked around, walked to the mayor’s Escalade, and slipped the manila envelope into the passenger side. A few minutes later, Ford left the washroom, bought some Gatorade and chewing gum, then went back to his Escalade and drove off.

  Ford’s approval rating had climbed 5 points since the crack story broke. Those close to him say he felt emboldened, having once again survived a scandal where others had written him off. Perhaps he thought he was being careful. Perhaps he felt invincible. Or maybe he couldn’t stop himself. Whatever the explanation, Ford’s drinking and drug use didn’t slow down that summer. If anything, he became reckless.

  The police investigation into Rob Ford had begun on May 18, two days after the story of the crack video broke. Between June 26 and September 7, 2013, investigators involved in Project Brazen 2 documented nearly a dozen covert handoffs between Lisi and Ford: at his child’s soccer game, at the Esso station, at Ford’s home, in a small park that in 2010 the city had renamed Douglas Ford Park in honour of the mayor’s late father.

  The pair’s preferred meeting spot seemed to be the parking lot of Scarlett Heights high school, which is about the length of three football fields away from his mother’s home. The scenario was usually the same: Ford would drive up in his Escalade, Lisi in his Range Rover. Lisi would get out of his car carrying something—a plastic bag, an oversized computer case, dry cleaning, a gift bag—and get into Ford’s SUV. They’d sit for a while, sometimes an hour, then part ways.

  There was a meeting on Monday, August 26, two days before the mayor casually confessed to reporters he had “smoked a lot” of marijuana. And two more in early September, around the time the Ontario Press Council held hearings into the Toronto Star’s and The Globe and Mail ’s reporting on the Fords.

  On one occasion, Ford met another individual in the lot— someone in a white stretch limousine. At least one of Ford’s Scarlett visits was photographed by a Cessna spy plane. It was Sunday, July 28, and Ford had spent his early afternoon on Newstalk 1010, explaining to listeners why Toronto desperately needed a proper football stadium. At 4:15 P.M., he was followed to a liquor store in Etobicoke. With the sun still high in the sky, the mayor drove over to Scarlett Heights and parked in the empty rear lot. He tossed something in the garbage and then waited, reading something on his lap. A little while later, Lisi arrived. He parked about twenty feet away and then walked over to the Escalade carrying some McDonald’s takeout and a white plastic bag. Ford and Lisi sat for thirty minutes, eating and talking. At one point, the mayor got out to urinate under some trees. Before they went their separate ways, Lisi also tossed something in the garbage.

  Later, police went to investigate. Lisi had thrown out a submarine sandwich bag. Ford had gotten rid of two empty liquor bottles—Iceberg Vodka and Russian Prince Vodka—as well as a McDonald’s receipt.

  On one occasion, one of Ford’s staff members met Lisi at a grocery store near the mayor’s house. Court records would show that Ford sometimes asked his young special assistants to set up meetings with Lisi.

  It wasn’t just the mayor’s behaviour that was troubling for investigators, it was the company he was keeping. Lisi had an extensive criminal record, including criminal harassment, assaulting an ex-girlfriend, and threatening another woman. And he wasn’t the only dodgy person the mayor of Toronto was hanging out with.

  There was also Bruno Bellissimo, whom Ford had known since high school. Bellissimo, an admitted crack user with a fraud and theft convictions, had been with the mayor and Lisi at the Garrison Ball. On March 25—the night before the Star’s story about that event was published—Ford had gone to visit Bellissimo at the Toronto West Detention Centre after visiting hours. Bellissimo had been arrested for assaulting his parents and threatening to kill his mother. Ford had initially asked if he could have a tour of the facility, since he was the mayor. When the guards refused, Ford revealed that he wanted to see Bellissimo. He was again denied. On August 12, the day before one of Ford’s clandestine meetings with Lisi, The Globe and Mail wrote about the mayor’s mysterious jailhouse visit. Ford has never explained what he was doing there.

  A few days before the Globe story appeared, Ford had shown up drunk at Toronto’s Taste of the Danforth street festival. Someone there filmed him slurring and swaying, telling people on the street he wanted to go “party.” When the footage landed on YouTube, it caused a firestorm. It was the first time Toronto residents were presented with indisputable evidence of Ford being impaired. On his Sunday radio show, Ford admitted to having had a few beers, a significant confession, considering his reaction to the Garrison Ball stor
y.

  In the middle of August, the Toronto Star published a front-page story exposing Ford’s connections to Etobicoke’s drug scene, the nefarious company he was keeping, and the fact that Toronto police were investigating attempts by the mayor’s friends to get back the crack video—a video Ford still claimed did not exist. Even with the spotlight again drawn to his substance use, Ford continued to live recklessly. He didn’t stop meeting with Lisi, partying with friends, and drinking to excess. On August 27, police were yet again called to Ford’s home for a domestic assault. No charges were laid.

  By now, Project Brazen 2 was hardly a covert operation. Even the Fords knew they were being watched. (Doug Ford would later tell the Toronto Sun he’d seen a surveillance plane circling overhead at his mother’s home. He told the paper, “I stood there and gave them the finger.”) But the billion-dollar question was, What would come of it? Were police going to charge the mayor? Or just his friends? If so, what was on the table? Drug use? Something to do with the video?

  The answer came at 8 P.M. on October 1. Word came down that Toronto police were raiding numerous addresses in north Etobicoke. Sandro Lisi, as well as an associate of his, fortyseven-year-old Jamshid Bahrami, the owner of Richview Cleaners dry-cleaning shop, had been taken into custody. Lisi was charged with marijuana trafficking, possession of the proceeds of crime, possession of marijuana, and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence. Bahrami was charged with possession of cocaine, three counts of trafficking in marijuana, and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence. That night, I waited in a car near Ford’s house with Star reporter Jayme Poisson. We watched a chubby raccoon wander up and down the sidewalk for a few hours. It was quiet.

  The next morning, the mayor invited reporters to a press conference at his local Etobicoke Esso station, the same gas station where police had watched many of those mysterious package handoffs between Ford and Lisi. Ford looked calm and confident. “He’s a good guy,” Ford said of Lisi. “I don’t throw my friends under the bus.”

  Numerous sources say that behind the scenes both Rob and Doug Ford were nervous. And with good reason. If police had been following Lisi, the mayor knew he was likely caught up in that investigation somehow. Doug Ford had his own political career to think about. He had his sights set on being premier of Ontario within the next two years. If Rob went down, the whole Ford brand might go with him.

  Within days of Lisi’s arrest, word got around that police had compiled nearly five hundred pages of intelligence to request a search warrant in connection with the arrest—which is unheard of, considering the relatively minor charges that were laid. There was obviously more to it. I, along with every other journalist in Toronto covering the Ford story, had heard that police were investigating the mayor, but we had no idea how elaborate that probe was until details of those documents began to leak out. The Cessna. Tracking devices. A secret video camera. The surveillance teams. The wiretaps. The information gathered apparently contained details about the crack cocaine video and Ford’s drug use, and included interviews with former staff members that would be devastating to the mayor.

  Media lawyers—including some from the Star—applied to have those documents made public. On October 30, Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer became a hero to every journalist in the city when he agreed to release a redacted version of the five-hundred-page document, allowing reporters to see the part that formed the core case against Lisi—a part in which the mayor played a starring role. In November, Nordheimer would consider releasing the rest.

  Nordheimer saw no reason to delay. A PDF of the Project Brazen 2 documents would be emailed to reporters the next morning.

  ON THE MORNING OF OCTOBER 31, Star reporter Jayme Poisson picked me up outside the same Starbucks where I’d met Mohamed Farah seven months earlier. We got to the Star around 8:30 A.M., and already the whole place was buzzing. It felt a lot like an election night. Every desk was filled. Reporters were jogging around the newsroom while editors were shouting at one another to figure out where so-and-so was stationed or which reporter would be chasing which councillor for reaction. Since I’m usually stationed at City Hall, I grabbed a desk with Kevin Donovan’s investigative team. Every reporter in the city was going to be chasing the same story with the same information. Our job, as soon as the Project Brazen 2 documents came in, was to plow through those nearly five hundred pages the fastest, pull out the highlights, and present them in the best way possible. Donovan divided the document up into five sections. I was given pages 100 to 180. Another reporter on the team was assigned to go through surveillance photos. Each of us would write up relevant bits for a quick-hit web story while also recording any names, addresses, and anecdotes that needed following up.

  The search warrant application was due any time after 9 A.M. We had an idea of what the full document included, but it wasn’t clear how much Ford would be implicated in this first partial release. Would it show photos of Ford buying? Would it link the mayor to the Dixon City Bloods? What about his relationship with the Basso family at 15 Windsor Road, or the attempts to retrieve the crack video?

  The mayor was clearly on edge. When he left his home that morning at 9:30 A.M., he lost his temper at a group of reporters who swarmed him near his car.

  “Are you a focus of the police probe?”

  “Guys, can you get off my driveway, please?” He began repeating the sentence over and over.

  “What can you tell the people of Toronto about your involvement?”

  “Can you get off my property, please! Okay don’t— Get off my property!” he started to scream as the crush of reporters and photographers retreated to the sidewalk.

  When a Sun photographer stepped back onto the driveway to take Ford’s photo, the mayor angrily approached him. “What don’t you understand? Get off the property, partner!” he hollered, shoving the camera lens aside.

  Around the time the mayor pulled into City Hall, the photos connected to Project Brazen 2 were released. Many looked like something out of the Cops reality show. Grainy nighttime photos of the mayor and Sandro Lisi walking near his SUV. Aerial photos of Ford’s Escalade in an empty parking lot. Gas station surveillance footage. Mug shots of Ford’s friends.

  Then the document itself came in ten minutes later. It was worse than I thought it would be.

  I started reading a police interview with former Ford staff member Chris Fickel.

  In November, December 2012 and into January 2013,

  FICKEL noticed that LISI was driving the Mayor around a lot of the time.

  FICKEL does not know where the Mayor got marihuana [sic] from but has heard that “Sandro” may be the person who provides the Mayor with marihuana and possibly cocaine.…

  FICKEL does not know what LISI does for a living but believes he is a drug dealer.

  FICKEL bases this information on rumors but it seems to be common knowledge.

  I read about the mysterious envelope handoff at the Etobicoke Esso station on July 11. The timing was shocking to me. This would have been just a few days after Toronto was hit with a massive rainstorm that in a matter of minutes had turned highways into rivers, commuter trains into sinking ships, and basements into swimming pools. The July 8 flood was the most costly natural disaster in Ontario’s history. And there was Ford, in the middle of this crisis, engaged in suspicious behaviour.

  The revelations kept coming with each new page.

  The mayor’s recently fired chief of staff, Mark Towhey, told detectives he suspected Lisi was a drug dealer. George Christopoulos told police that a young aide had “brought up concerns that Lisi was providing the mayor with illegal drugs” and that Lisi was driving the mayor to “hot spots.” On June 15, police watched the mayor’s executive assistant, Tom Beyer, meet with Lisi at a grocery store near Diane Ford’s home. Lisi got in Beyer’s car, they drove a short distance, and then parted ways. The documents also indicated that police believed 15 Windsor Road was a drug den and that Ford may have been paying the Bassos’ water b
ills.

  The most interesting details related to phone records. Ford and Lisi were in almost constant communication. Lisi was also in regular contact with people in Ford’s office. But most damning was that the records suggested something nefarious had happened after the crack video story went live, with the mayor phoning Lisi, who phoned Basso, who phoned Mohamed Siad—the dealer selling the footage—then Basso and Lisi speaking again, then Lisi phoning the mayor. This continued throughout the week. And on day eight, the mayor announced there was no video.

  About an hour after the documents arrived, my cell phone rang. It was a cop I’m friendly with.

  “The chief is having a press conference in half an hour. You’re gonna wanna watch it,” he said.

  “Can you give me a hint? Are you arresting him?”

  “No. Just watch.”

  “If you’re not arresting him, then what’s the big deal?”

  “Just trust me. You’re going to love this.”

  AT 11:30 A.M., pretty well everyone in the Star newsroom put down their work and headed for one of the large TV screens in the newsroom, where local news was running Chief Bill Blair’s press conference live. We were clustered into two groups, one near the editors’ hub in the middle and one at the back, where most of the reporters working on the story were sitting.

  Right on time, Chief Blair walked to the podium with a prepared speech. He spoke in his trademark choppy, cop-talk manner.

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Blair began. “As you are aware, the Toronto Police Service undertook a very significant major investigation last year. It culminated on June 13 of this year with the arrest of several dozen suspects, the laying of over two hundred charges, and the execution of numerous search warrants.…”