The 8,000 members of the Toronto Police Association will be asked to pay an extra $475 each to top up a legal defence fund that is being drained by the legal bills of officers facing criminal charges and civil suits, sources say.
The special levy of $3.8-million is likely to heighten controversy within the police union over how its legal fund is collected and spent.
The TPA board and the directors of its legal assistance plan are already pitted against each other in a civil court fight over jurisdiction and accountability of the legal fund. Costs from that case alone could reach $500,000, sources say.
The makeup of the legal assistance plan's board, elected by police union shop stewards in February, has also raised eyebrows. It is led by a political rival of the TPA chief and includes among its directors one of six facing criminal charges stemming from an investigation of drug squad officers.
Neither TPA president Dave Wilson nor his political rival Mike McCormack, would comment on the impending dues increase.
One of the drains on the legal plan has been the continuing prosecution of six officers who were charged after a three-year RCMP-led probe into claims that drug squad officers stole drugs and cash from drug dealers in the late 1990s. Since criminal charges were laid in 2004, an estimated one million pages of disclosure have been turned over to defence lawyers. All six officers were committed to trial on various charges after a four-month preliminary hearing last summer.
A "dream team" of criminal defence lawyers -- Harry Black, Peter Brauti, Pat Ducharme, Alan Gold, Irwin Koziebrocki and John Rosen -- will try later this year to have the case thrown out for unnecessary delay. A trial date has been set for January, 2008.
Another case requiring funds involves a former president of the police union: Rick McIntosh, who resigned after he was charged in 2004 along with Constable Bill McCormack Jr. -- brother of Mike McCormack -- and Constable George Kouroudis with influence peddling and breach of trust. The three were accused of involvement in a scheme to shake down bar owners in the downtown entertainment district. A preliminary hearing in that case has been going on since last spring.
Then there is Constable Ned Maodus, who faces charges in four separate criminal cases in Windsor, Orangeville, and Toronto. Constable Maodus, the first Toronto police officer to be suspended without pay without any criminal conviction, has on different occasions been represented by Mr. Black, Mr. Brauti and Mr. Ducharme.
All of the accused in both cases deny any criminal wrongdoing. None of the allegations have been tested in court.
Constable Mike McCormack acknowledged that the court actions could cause "financial harm" to the association, but the costs are "unavoidable," he said.
"We feel the service has laid a lot of frivolous and vexatious charges. If the service was not as frivolous, we would not face these unavoidable costs."
Toronto Police brass were overzealous in laying the charges in both the drug squad and entertainment district cases, Constable McCormack said, adding that some in the association believe the brass was seeking to "bankrupt" the association and bring it to its knees.
Mr. Wilson, who fended off a challenge from Constable McCormack for the leadership of the TPA by just 24 votes last fall, also said he has serious concerns about the way police brass probe internal matters.
Since a 1991 police shooting, TPA members have been billed a special assessment to ensure legal funding is available. The current assessment -- deducted from the pay of both uniformed police and civilian members -- puts about $1-million annually into the legal plan's coffers.
The politics of the legal plan have become tinged with bitterness since last January, when the police association leadership voted to dissolve the plan's own board of directors amid accusations by Mr. Wilson that there was a shortage of communication and accountability. The TPA locked the legal plan's staff out of its offices at the association's 180 Yorkland Boulevard headquarters, seized files and accounts, and announced that contracts with long-time legal plan manager Walter Jackson and assistant manager Maria Taylor were "null and void."
Former legal assistance plan chairman Sergeant Steve Smith and his board members -- Constables Rod Lawrence, Dale Carter and David Deviney -- asked the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to overturn the move.
In an untested affidavit, Sgt. Smith alleged that Mr. Wilson had tried to interfere with the LAP's funding of Rick McIntosh in the bar district case and tried to influence a review of two association lawyers as part of an overall plan to seize control of the LAP.
In a Feb. 27 decision, Mr. Justice Romain Pitt found that the TPA could not constitutionally disband the LAP. The association was ordered to return everything it had seized. Mr. Jackson and Ms. Taylor were reinstated.
Mr. Wilson has denied that he tried to interfere and asserted that he merely sought "greater financial accountability" from the LAP. As the president and the public face of the association, he argued, he should know how much is paid out, "who receives the coverage" and the allegations involved in each case. He said it is his duty to ensure the money is on hand to provide members with a proper legal defence.
A new seven-member LAP board -- elected to three-year terms by the association's 87 shop stewards on Feb. 27 -- is now led by Constable Mike McCormack.
Constable McCormack said it is imperative that the LAP board stay free from political influence.
But the new LAP board is filled with the potential for conflict of interest.
Constable Steven Correia, one of the six accused drug squad officers and himself the recipient of legal funding, is now vice-chairman of the LAP.
Former drug squad member Constable Jonathan Reid, who is one of four officers named as an "unindicted co-conspirator," but not charged in the drug squad case, was also elected to the LAP board.