The New Toronto Police Union President: Jon Reid’s History of Corruption

Artwork by Author (2020)

Jonathan Reid was recently elected as the new Toronto Police Association (TPA) president, replacing Mike McCormack who left amid a storm of controversies. Given the other candidates running, he was a middle-of-the-line candidate, mostly promoting a status-quo policing agenda and fighting the “hostility” directed at police.

Virtually all recent TPA presidents have had long rap sheets containing charges of serious criminal activity and/or police misconduct. TPA presidents are elected, so for whatever reason, our Toronto police officers seem to have a preference for these type of union presidents. This made me curious as to what kind of trail Jon Reid has left over his 32 years of policing. The following is what I could find from searching news articles, court records, and police arbitration documents.

Policing History

The “fink fund” and drug squad criminality and misconduct

Rumours of corruption have plagued Toronto’s central drug squad since 1999, when allegations first surfaced that officers were stealing from the so-called “fink fund” used to pay off informants.

TLDR: Reid was charged for criminal activity and police misconduct in connection with stealing money from a fund meant for paying informants. The criminal charges were allowed to expire due to a larger investigation targeting many of the same targets of the “fink fund” investigations. Reid was not charged in this secondary investigation, but was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator. The TPS has stated they believe he committed the criminal acts he was previously charged with, but did not elaborate (from what I can gather) on why he was not also charged.

A timeline of the case (parts are transposed from this article):

• 1997: Members of the drug squad arrested two men and then entered their homes without search warrants. Both men were released the same day (no charges laid). One of the arrested men (Sipar) filed a complaint. There were numerous other complaints around this time against this TPS drug squad as well.
• 1998: The police complaints investigator determined the drug squad officers should be charged with discreditable conduct for their behaviour, which included Reid and four others. However, the probe was shut down because it took too long to notify the offending officers of the disciplinary proceedings. Sipar appealed the ruling.
• 1999: Internal affairs detectives began investigating complaints that the officers obtained illegal warrants and stole cash/jewelry and the OCC ordered TPS to re-open Sipar’s complaint investigation.
• At this time, a case against a drug trafficker was dropped by the prosecution so as to not disclose another complaint against the drug squad officers Reid and five others. There were also many other drug squad cases during this time that were dropped or stayed with little explanation.
• A routine audit found discrepancies in the budget for paying police informants (AKA the “fink fund”).
• 2000: Reid and six others were charged in connection with police pocketing money from the fink fund. Reid was initially suspended from duty, but was reinstated (reduced responsibilities) less than a month later.
• Reid’s charges included: two counts of theft, two counts of fraud, two counts of forgery, two counts of uttering a forged document, two counts of breach of trust, and five charges under the Police Services Act.
• 2001: A larger investigation into perjury, corruption, and theft within TPS was launched.
• 2002: Charges against eight of the drug squad officers were stayed as to avoid compromising “an ongoing criminal investigation”.
• 2003: The criminal charges against Reid were allowed to expire and three out of five of Reid’s Police Service Act charges were withdrawn. The two remaining charges were minor: failure to submit a report prior to going off duty and failure to fully document a meeting in his memorandum book. At this time his duties were fully restored.
• 2004: Eight drug squad members were charged and four were named as “unindicted co-conspirators”, one of which was Reid.
• 2008: Defense requested that all charges be stayed on the grounds that the officers’ rights were violated due to excessive delays: the judge granted this request. Contrary to the judge’s decision, the Ontario Court of Appeals ordered a new trial, stating that the delays were not unreasonable.
• 2012/2013: Five drug squad member were convicted of conducting searches without warrants, falsifying notes, not accounting for all of the money seized in drug raids, obstructing justice, and perjury during the late 1990s. They were initially sentence to 45 days of home arrest, but in 2015 that sentence was appealed and they received a three-year sentence. However, the sentence was stayed due to how much time had elapsed since the offences.

When the perpetrators of the crime are police officers sworn to uphold the law, the objective of denunciation has heightened significance.

Public confidence in the honesty of the police is fundamental to the integrity of the criminal justice system.— court’s statement on TPS drug squad case (2015)

TPS asserts that even though the charges were not brought to trial, they still believe Reid committed the criminal behaviour alleged:

It is (and has always been) the position of the Toronto Police Service that P.C. Reid did, in fact, perform the acts which lay behind the criminal charges which were laid on November 22, 2000 and which were stayed on February 13, 2002.

It is the position of P.C. Reid that the allegations are false.

Reid filed a complaint against TPS

Reid and three others filed a complaint against TPS for not being given the opportunity to be considered for a promotion in 2001. The arbitrator sided with Reid, as the arbitrator did not view ongoing criminal and misconduct charges as “reasonable cause” for not to promoting Reid:

I am not persuaded that there was “reasonable cause” to exclude them from the promotion process in 2001 […] the best remedy for him may still be to give him the chance that he lost, and then to determine later, if it is necessary, whether compensation of some kind is appropriate.

Reid’s missing notes

In 1998, a civilian (Quigley) was taken in for questioning about a pair of stolen sunglasses. Quigley alleges that six officers beat him (unprovoked) to the point of losing consciousness in order to extract information from him on where drugs and money were stored in his home. During his nine-hour detention he was subject to further beatings and had to get help walking out of the room due to the severity of the injuries. There was one officer who was not a part of the trial but also beat him (name not provided). He alleges they threatened to ransack his apartment if he did not comply. He eventually did comply, but asked the officers to not hurt his dog. Once the beatings stopped he started throwing up and choking on blood so he was then taken to the hospital. He was later released on bail and charged with various offences. His lawyer advised him to take a plea deal for possession of marijuana ($1000 fine) in addition to agreeing not to sue the officers who assaulted him.

When he was released he reported that his home was “torn apart” and his dog was let out and missing (later located at the Humane Society). They additionally searched his mother’s home, allegedly stealing $54,000. The police log only noted that $22,850 was contained in the deposit box, which they returned.

The trial was stayed in 2007 due to the involved officers being the subject of other criminal charges as well. Once the trial began in 2012, crucial evidence was not used or went missing. The accused officers allege that Reid was told by Quigley’s mother the night of the arrest about $20,000 to $25,000 stored in her safety deposit box. Reid’s field notes of the interview mysteriously went missing. The defence asserted that the notes were lost during the Special Task Force investigation and that their contents would exonerate them, i.e., the notes would prove that the amount logged by police was the same as what Ms. Quigley reported was in them. The Crown argued that the notes were destroyed by the defendant to cover up their criminal actions. Reid was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case, but was strangely not called to testify. The jury concluded that there was not enough evidence to conclude that the assault occurred beyond a reasonable doubt, but did charge the subject officers with obstruction of justice. This case still appears to be working its way through the courts.

At least six other similar complaints about the police were made around the same time from different complainants. For instance, in 1999 officers from the same drug squad were alleged to have stolen $200,000 from a civilian’s safety deposit box.

TPA Election

Jon Reid won by 86 votes out of over 5000 cast. The candidate who came in a close second place was Andrew Nanton, who had a more divisive and aggressive platform towards those he viewed as against the police.

Reid’s platform included:

• Stating that policy makers betray police by “kneeling at the alter of public opinion” and that “this storm of media, political and public hostility must stop.”
• Creating an in-house house media team in order to take “control of our [police] media representation” since media organizations are “hell bent on inciting public hostility towards us [police].”
• Advocating for Special Constables to not be subject to police watchdogs (SIU) oversight and to get suspension with pay.

Summary

Investigations and prosecutions costing over $15 million spanning more than a decade led to convictions of some of the drug squad officers. TPS has stated that although Jon Reid did not see his day in court, they believe he committed the offences he was charged with: theft, forgery, fraud, breach of trust, and numerous police misconduct charges. Not one officer served jail time or was fired, and many were suspended with pay for years during this legal battle. Jon Reid was suspended less than a month, then continued to work as an officer largely uninterrupted.

To further illustrate the lack of impact this corruption case had on Reid: there was a trial in 2014 that hinged on whether drugs and firearms were seized legitimately from the accused. This relied on the credibility of the officers conducting the seizure. The defendant in the case requested the records of charges and serious misconduct cases against all officers involved in the seizure. Reid, one of the involved officers, testified that he has had no “disciplinary action” against him and that past complaints against him have not been substantiated. Because Reid was never on trial in the drug squad corruption case, him being listed as a co-conspirator was omitted from consideration in this case. Therefore, the courts concluded that nothing in Reid’s record could be considered “serious misconduct” that should be disclosed to the accused.

There was enough evidence against Jon Reid to charge him with several criminal and police misconduct offences, but that evidence was never given the chance to be tested in court due to many delays and technicalities. It is unclear why TPS chose not to bring him to trial if they had strong enough evidence to state in writing that they believed he committed criminal acts and to list him as a co-conspirator in criminal cases. Reid was given no official punishment other than limiting his responsibilities for a few years and not being considered for a promotion while he had unresolved criminal/police misconduct charges (which he filed a complaint about and won).

In conclusion, TPA president Jon Reid’s pattern of policing fits in well with his predecessors: allegations of criminal activity, police misconduct, and a lack of accountability.

The officers in leadership positions have consistently advocated for and enforced policing culture and standards that have made it extraordinarily difficult to hold officers accountable. This allows corrupt officers to progress along their policing careers largely uninterrupted. The blue code often leads to harsh punishments for cops who report or speak out against corrupt officers, which damages the whistleblowers’ careers effectively keeping them out of leadership positions. All of this reinforces the cycle of keeping corrupt police in power.

But how do we discern how prevalent these “bad apples” are in the TPS? The police don’t get to elect their police chief, but they do get to choose their union representative, and our police have consistently elected union representatives that are the targets of serious police corruption investigations.