Search warrant documents filed by police in their investigation into Rob Ford were completely unsealed by a judge today.
The information contained in two “Information To Obtain” (ITO) documents that were used in order to obtain search warrants in Project Brazen 2 have been released in parts to the media over the last few months but on Thursday, Justice Ian Nordheimer lifted the publication ban completely, allowing journalists to report on all the documented information.
The new revelations reveal the intense pressure that was put on a Dixod Road apartment complex allegedly by Ford's friend Alexander “Sandro” Lisi. Police allege Lisi was trying to unlawfully gain access to a video showing the mayor smoking from a glass pipe. That video was taken by an alleged gang member who lives in the Dixon Road complex.
Lisi has since been charged with extortion but the allegations have not been proven in court.
Police allege Lisi contacted the man accused of filming the mayor and warned him that if he didn't give him the video, "heat" would be put on the housing complex.
Police say they heard someone they believe to be Lisi speaking about how Ford has connections and can insist a police raid be done on the homes of accused drug traffickers.
“The most import thing about all of this is Mr. Lisi is seen here to be making those extreme efforts to retrieve the video and people are very concerned that Dixon will get heated up by alleged dirty cops who the mayor knows,” media lawyer Peter Jacobsen told CP24 Thursday.
In one phone call overheard by police through court-ordered wiretaps, a person identified as “Juiceman” is heard telling another person about how he was threatened.
“If that video gets released, I’m gonna, I’m gonna run through all your houses, me and all the, all the Toronto Police,” Juiceman said he was told. “I’m gonna done you guys.”
Siyad is also heard saying that Lisi called “Juiceman” and told him “you’re dead and everybody on your block is dead.”
Jacobsen said this shows that pressure was mounting on the alleged gang members.
“What we can see here is that there was allegedly extreme pressure being put on by Mr. Lisi to get the phone back,” he said.
Other conversations show alleged gang members discussing fears about being kidnapped and how they might leave town ahead of expected raids because Ford “is going mad.”
In one conversation dated May 18, 2013, police heard someone they believe to be Lisi tell alleged gang member Liban Siyad “to tell all his boys that it’s going to get worse and worse. All summer until that phone gets back and that the whole place is going to get lit up.”
Elena Basso, a resident of the home where the video was allegedly filmed, is also heard discussing police activity with Siyad at one point, telling him: “You know it’s going to go down, he’s the f---in’ Mayor of Toronto.”
Basso goes on to say that the mayor has power and that other neighbourhoods – Weston Road and Jane Street – will also “feel the heat.”
She also tells Siyad she warned him that Ford is a “big idiot.”
