STAGE 9: FRAUD SQUAD II

The Metro Toronto Fraud Squad is the most overworked police force in the country. Waiting times are typically up to two years, and the Fraud Squad urges people to hire a private investigator to do most of the work beforehand. With PII, we had done exactly that. The Fraud Squad is not known to be user-friendly, either, though my lawyer had said they would at least be honest.

The meeting took some weeks to organize, and happened on March 5, 1996. Much to my disappointment, my lawyer (Mr. Richard Darrah) declined to attend, and not because he thought Jim Brown was innocent. This was not an encouraging sign.

The meeting started forty minutes late, and I gave the "standard" presentation to the two police officers. No sooner had I finished than they started verbal heavies, like on TV, telling me that people had destroyed their carriers by basing cases on circumstantial evidence, and why hadn’t I brought the case to them earlier? (Was this a fair point, from their perspective, given the Fraud Squad request for PI assistance?) They also made it abundantly clear that the Fraud Squad did not want this case, and I should take it to the Globe & Mail. Lastly, the Fraud Squad told me that if there was no evidence of criminal fraud, I would be fired by the end of March.

I signed for the search warrant. From watching PII doing their investigation, I figured the Fraud Squad would probably know the status of the case by the end of the day.

Despite several phone calls, we didn’t hear from the Fraud Squad by the end of March, indicating that there was some criminal evidence. We didn’t hear until July 4, when I called them on a whim.

In the Spring of 1996, some strange messages came down from Head Office. Every few years, Management and the PWU get into contract renewal. They growl and snarl at each other until everyone says that things have never looked so bad, and we are definitely facing a strike this round. This time, all of a sudden during the growling, Management completely changed their stance and accepted the PWU position. No explanation, no rumors. Had the Fraud Squad come visiting again? The PWU didn’t know what had happened.