HUNTER: Are wheels coming off Project South cop corruption probe?
· Toronto Sun
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Project South has been billed as the biggest corruption scandal in Toronto Police history, but as the allegations become more explosive, the cast of characters keeps shrinking.
Is the probe coming off the rails?
Were some of the officers charged simply stupid cops as opposed to bad cops? Small fry swept up in a horrific betrayal of public trust.
Cozy relationship with organized crime
Every single legal machination zeroes in on just three stars with a cameo from a fourth.
The alleged primary villain in the probe is TPS Const. Timothy Barnhart, along with co-stars Sgt. Robert Black and Sgt. Carl Grellette. They are the Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and George Clooney of this sordid affair.
Const. Saurabjit Bedi is allegedly the Gabby Hayes of the group. A buddy of Barnhardt, he faces numerous charges including cocaine trafficking and corruption. He is allegedly heard on wires saying he wanted in on the other cop’s schemes.
The sprawling investigation that has laid bare cozy relationships between rogue cops, organized crime figures and other villains was a .45 calibre slug to the heart of the city and its police service when it was announced last February.
Suspected jailhouse murder plot
The probe was sparked by an alleged murder plot targeting a senior manager at the Toronto South Detention Centre who fell afoul of jailhouse gangbangers. Then, all hell broke loose.
Investigators claimed that some cops were lifting info from police databases and selling addresses and personal records to criminals for $500 a throw. But as one source told The Toronto Sun : “I can make more money doing paid duty.”
“The others have already been severed from Project South, so that leaves just the three. But it also appears that the wheels are falling off the investigation,” the source told the Sun .
Some of the charges appear gratuitous. One cop is accused of theft of uniforms, which is startling except TPS officers receive six new shirts per year.
‘Some of this is overkill’
“Every single police home has old uniforms lying around, old pepper spray and other stuff. And in the data breach, most of that was also nickel-and-dime stuff, serious, but it has nothing to do with Project South,” the source, who is familiar with the probe, alleges.
“Some of this is overkill. A lot of this stuff has been trumped up.”
As an example, all of the auto theft charges have been kicked to the curb.
Still, some of the cops are likely to lose their jobs and are possibly headed to the slammer and that’s largely because they said hello to Tim Barnhardt.
If convicted, Barnhardt et al. will almost certainly get hammered with time behind bars. The latest recently unsealed Information-to-Obtain (ITO) document, Barnhardt comes across as a wannabe crime lord and, worse, a coked-out fantasist.
‘None of it got off the ground’
On wires, he muses about opening illegal cannabis dispensaries, an empire of happy-finish style massage parlours and myriad other schemes.
“He wanted them in 12 and 32 divisions so they could be protected by Barnhardt and others,” the source alleged. “None of this ever got off the ground.”
Barnhardt also allegedly plotted packing cannabis into GPS-tracked suitcases. The dope payloads would then be smuggled through Toronto Pearson International Airport to international locations. That too never came to fruition.
And the source wondered why Project South investigators didn’t allow the whole scheme to play itself out. For more clarity and an opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff. The marquee from the supporting cast.
“Aside from the big three, the other cops were just stupid. They were caught on wires doing stupid shit with other people. Most of these guys are small fry,” the source said.
‘Making out like a bandit’
Of the three leading lights, the source alleged only Barnhardt was seeing any real dough. He was allegedly “making out like a bandit.”
Barnhart is unlikely to be as lucky as some of the others. Court documents have revealed the 55-year-old disgraced cop to be deeply troubled with a nagging cocaine addiction.
One of those ensnared in Project South’s wide net was Const. Elias Mouawad. He is not an outlier and is slated to plead guilty Monday to running an illegal query on a license plate and relaying that data to a friend.
The pal is allegedly connected to the Big Show, but that too may change.