Pot wasn't mine, officer tells court
By: Bob Mitchell, Toronto Star (CN ON), 08-19-09

A 14-year veteran Peel Police officer, accused of stealing fake cocaine from a botched RCMP drug delivery, insists he was following orders when he took the substance home.

Const. Sheldon Cook, 40, says his immediate bosses knew he took 15 dummy bricks home with him when he discovered the packages in the trunk of his police cruiser after his shift ended in the early hours of Nov. 17, 2005.

He said Act. Det. Warren Williams told him to keep the bricks at his Cambridge home and ranking Det. Marty Rykhoff was aware he was doing so and would return them to morality squad officers the next morning.

Cook was among several officers, including Williams and Rykhoff, who unloaded boxes of rotting mangoes with hidden suspected bricks of cocaine from a courier delivery truck in Mississauga the night before.

"Policing is like a paramilitary organization," Cook testified today at his Brampton trial. "When you're given a direct order by a ranking officer, you don't ask why. You just do."

Cook has denied stealing the product, which he says he knew was fake.

He also explained why a small quantity of marijuana and allegedly stolen MP3 players were also found in his garage during a search conducted on Nov. 18, 2005.

He said the pot was in a box stored in his garage by his brother Darren. The property belonged to a tenant, who skipped out on a condo leased from his brother, a real estate agent.

"I had absolutely no knowledge there was any marijuana in my garage," Cook told his lawyer Pat Ducharme. "There was no odor. . . If I had known, obviously I would never have allowed the boxes to be stored in my garage."

Cook's brother put the boxes belonging to a tenant, identified as Shannon Brake, in his garage in October 2005. Brake moved to Newfoundland and has never been located, court heard.

Cook's brother also stored his own property in the garage and a backyard shed while his new condo was being built, court heard.

The marijuana, fake cocaine and MP3s were discovered by the RCMP at Cook's home during a search warrant after a GPS tracking unit hidden among the dummy drugs led police there.

Cook has pleaded not guilty to seven criminal charges in this judge-alone trial before Justice Casey Hill that has spread over numerous days since last November.

Federal prosecutors David Rowcliffe and Ania Weiler say Cook took the drugs, which they say he believed were real — not fake — during his involvement as part of Rykhoff's crew investigating the seizure of 102 bricks of suspected cocaine from a courier.

The white powder turned out to be flour, part of a mistake-filled RCMP controlled delivery from Peru to Canada that went missing 12 hours earlier after arriving at Pearson International Airport.

Police also found 21 MP3 players allegedly among more than 400 stolen from an unrelated police seizure. Cook maintained the MP3 players belonged to his brother, who bought them at a Brampton flea market.

His brother intended to use them as gifts for his real estate clients. He gave four to Cook for his own use, one for himself and the others were hidden under his bed for Christmas gifts for his two children and a niece.

"I did not steal those MP3 players," Cook said. "They are the property of my brother and they were bought legitimately by him at a flea market."

Cook was shocked when he was arrested inside his home for conspiracy to import cocaine.

He maintained Williams left a cell message telling him not to return the drugs until the afternoon morality shift started. But he wound up working overtime and never got a chance before numerous RCMP officers, some wearing bullet proof vests, suddenly showed up at his home as he was about to drive his young children to a friend's house.

Rykhoff and Williams both denied any knowledge of the fake drugs found at Cook's home when they testified as Crown witnesses in February.

Cook thought all of the packages were unloaded and moved initially into William's CIB van and later transferred to a morality van. He saw Rykhoff remove a box from the back of the courier truck and walk away with it before they left the scene.

The dummy drugs ended up in a compartment in his personal water craft after the box broke when he was transferring it from cars in his garage, Cook testified.

Cook thought Rykhoff told morality about the circumstances involving the packages in his possession.

He desperately tried to get Williams and Rykhoff to tell Internal Affairs and a private investigator he hired as to how the fake cocaine ended up in his possession. But neither would because they feared they would be prosecuted or face Police Act charges, Cook said.

Rykhoff never showed up for work on Nov. 17. Instead, he went to Halifax with friends for a college football game, faking illness and phoning in sick.

Rykhoff was subsequently convicted of Police Act offences and docked five days pay. He was also suspended until mid-January 2006.

Cook is charged with attempt to possess a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking, possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, possession of stolen property (MP3 players) from a police investigation and breach of trust as a police officer.

He remains suspended with pay.

© 2004 H.U.M.A.N.: Hemp Users Medical Access Network - Toronto Medical Marijuana