A Barrie, Ont., man at the centre of an alleged used car fraud investigation, dubbed Project Warden by Toronto Police, says he has been vindicated after the Crown dropped all 92 criminal charges against him.
Harris Bocknek, 36, was charged alongside colleague Fadi Zeto, 33, in November 2024, accused of committing fraud against 22 customers totalling $2.2 million, selling what police believed were stolen used luxury cars and trucks.
“It was botched from the word go,” said Bocknek, who was the finance and assistant sales manager at Rouge Valley Mitsubishi in Scarborough.
Bocknek told CTV News he wants everyone to know he is an innocent man who had his name and reputation dragged through the mud by the Toronto Police Service, which he says mistakenly believed Bocknek and Zeto were selling stolen vehicles with falsified documents.
In late August, all 176 charges against Bocknek and Zeto were dropped by the Crown, which cited no reasonable prospect of conviction.
“It’s just a huge weight off,” said Bocknek upon being exonerated in court. “That was the first night I had a good night’s sleep in probably 10 months.”
Police alleged the men were committing fraud by knowingly selling stolen cars and trucks and altering vehicle CARFAX reports and documents to cover their tracks.
“I submit from the first day on, myself, the co-accused, that nobody had any part in this. Everything that we did was above board,” he said. “Obviously it’s been a shock as to how shoddy it really was.”
Bocknek said he kept all the vehicle records and sales documents to prove his innocence. Now he is taking aim at police who investigated him for months prior to charging him last November.
Since then, Bocknek said several banks have cut ties with him and his credit rating has taken a hit. One bank told Bocknek it had to stop doing business with him following extensive media reports stemming from the Toronto Police press conference in November.
Bocknek said he wants police held accountable, having lost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to false allegations.
“I think part of it was a lack of understanding on the investigators’ side. They were looking at the wrong document. It may have been the right CARFAX report, but it was the wrong report number, it was the wrong date. Once we were able to show the correct documents and that they weren’t doctored, they weren’t altered, everything fell into line pretty quickly.”
In a statement to CTV News, Toronto Police Service said it is the Crown’s discretion whether to pursue charges in court. “The Crown’s decision does not negate the reasonable grounds upon which charges were laid or the validity of the charges related to Project Warden.”
Bocknek believes had police spoken with him, they never would have charged him in the first place.
“We’re able to now show it, every single document that’s been floating around has been authenticated. It is the correct document. Nobody would ever tamper with or alter that especially under my watch and as I said from the beginning for one simple reason, I was raised better than that,” he said.
Bocknek still faces provincial offences related to the police investigation and wants those charges to be withdrawn as well so he can have his dealer’s licence reinstated. Bocknek said he hopes to get back to doing what he loves, finding customers their dream car.
