There have been many surreal moments in the life and death of Toronto’s most famous mayor, Rob Ford.
But it was a video few had seen until Thursday that brought Ford’s mayoralty into question and overwhelmed a city.
For the first time, that 70-second clip of Ford smoking crack in what police described as a drug house was made publicly available after a criminal charge against Ford friend and sometimes driver Alexander “Sandro” Lisi was withdrawn.
In the sudden closing of that case at a University Ave. courthouse Thursday morning, Superior Court Justice Ian MacDonnell noted that the end of Lisi’s criminal proceedings also “closes a rather tumultuous chapter in our city’s civic life.”
It has been more than three years.
A publication ban on the evidence at that hearing has until now prevented that video and other details from being revealed. Ford died of cancer as the case was proceeding to trial.
Nothing apart from that illness — not documented substance abuse, or allegations of drunk driving, racism, homophobia or a lack of political control over council — kept Ford from mounting a real challenge to return to the mayor’s chair in 2014.
He was never charged. He never testified. Those on the periphery of the whirling saga, like Lisi, who still declare loyalty to the late Ford, faced criminal charges. Ford’s former staff and friends were interviewed by police and compelled to tell their version of the story under oath.
When news of the video’s existence was first published by the Star and Gawker in May 2013, it soon reached nightly international talk show levels.
It’s a video the late Ford tried to deny was real, facing an onslaught of questions as mayor of Canada’s largest city. At first, Ford said he could not comment on a video “that I have never seen or does not exist.”
Months later, Ford would admit to smoking crack (once, in one of his “drunken stupors”).
For a time he tried to goad former police chief Bill Blair into releasing the crack video, making demands to see it but never agreeing to speak with detectives as part of their investigation into his activities and associates, known as Project Brazen 2.
Senior officers, including now police Chief Mark Saunders, then deputy chief, were tasked with trying to find out then whether the video really existed, who had it and whether what it reportedly showed actually happened.
In October 2013, Blair told reporters crammed into a police headquarters press room that his investigators had found the video, recovered from a laptop seized during a large guns and drugs raid, and that he himself had watched it.
Ford apparently never did.
That investigation of alleged gang members in the city’s northwest, known as Project Traveller, led to dozens of dramatic arrests that traumatized a tight-knit community.
After setting up wiretaps, detectives unexpectedly heard the mayor was not only associating with those suspected gang members they were investigating but that they had filmed him smoking crack.
Those eventually convicted on guns and drugs charges included the man responsible for filming the video, Mohamed Siad — who in a separate cellphone clip released Thursday brags about how to “catch your f——— mayor smoking crack.”
And detectives heard Lisi’s attempts to try to recover the video, which led them to arrest him for allegedly extorting another convicted gang member, Liban Siyad.
The preliminary hearing in Lisi’s case began last year in a half-full, second-floor courtroom at Old City Hall that overlooks the curved towers and podium of the new city hall where Ford was mayor for four years.
For the first day, March 2, police detectives had prepared a long slideshow of evidence. Everyone, except a group of unwitting journalism students on a well-timed field trip, was waiting for slide number 29: “Video of Robert Ford.”
“Could you please play this video clip,” Crown John Patton finally said.
And for the first time, in open court, Ford — sun shining on his face and the pipe in his hand — was publicly seen inhaling from the crack pipe on a large television.
Ford’s death, the “current frailties of the case” and lack of co-operation from both Siyad and Siad were reasons cited by Crown lawyer Patton for the charge being withdrawn.
Outside the courthouse, Lisi, in a dark blue suit and striped tie, flanked by his robed lawyers, said nothing — keeping a silence he has maintained since his arrest. His legal team described their client as the victim, as “collateral damage.”
“It’s been an extremely difficult toll. It’s been a matter that’s been in the public realm and he’s been under the spotlight for close to three years,” said Toronto lawyer Seth Weinstein. “People invading his privacy, people following him. He has not been able to live his life for the last three years, so he’s obviously looking forward to that spotlight dimming.”
Co-counsel Domenic Basile said the case against his client was unnecessarily dragged on.
“I don’t have the exact numbers, but millions of dollars, I think I can comfortably say, of taxpayers’ money were spent on this investigation, on the continued prosecution of these matters,” Basile said, noting Lisi was earlier acquitted on related drug charges.
He called Lisi a “very loyal friend to Mr. Rob Ford” who tried to get the video back from those trying to sell it to the media. They, Basile said, were the ones trying to extort the mayor. No one else faced extortion charges in relation to the video.
The defence lawyers also hinted at a possible lawsuit, noting “irreparable harm” to Lisi and his family, but refused to comment further on that point.
After the video was published Thursday, the former mayor’s brother and one-time Etobicoke North councillor Doug Ford told the Star he had “no comment.”
“We said from day one it’s very political and I guess this proves it,” Ford told CP24 from Chicago of the charge against Lisi being withdrawn.
Ford said his late brother suffered from a disease, eventually admitted it and got help.
As for a judge lifting a publication ban on the infamous crack video, Ford said: “They just want to rehash it and trample all over Rob’s grave and I just wish they’d let Rob rest in peace.
“Obviously they don’t want to do that. They just want to keep beating on Rob. If it makes them feel better, well I guess what comes around goes around.”
MORE FROM THESTAR.COM:
With files from Jacques Gallant and David Rider
Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be a registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free).
To join the conversation set a first and last name in your user profile.
Sign in or register for free to join the Conversation