Toronto cop docked eight days’ pay after judge finds his account of drug arrest ‘simply could not have happened’

A Toronto police officer blasted by an Ontario judge for testifying “with little regard for truth or accuracy” — leading to an arbitrary detention and the collapse of a gun and drug prosecution — has been docked eight days’ pay at a police disciplinary hearing.

Const. Michael Reeves pleaded guilty to one count of discreditable conduct at the Toronto police tribunal after a scathing rebuke from Ontario judge Philip Downes, who found that a drug transaction Reeves claimed he’d witnessed “simply could not have happened” as described.

“This is a troubling and serious finding to have to make,” Downes wrote in his March 2020 judgment. “This is severe state misconduct from which courts must dissociate themselves by excluding evidence linked to that conduct.”

In a “difficult decision,” Downes did just that — excluding evidence that included the discovery of a loaded firearm, resulting in the acquittal of Toronto man Andre Stevens, who was facing multiple drug and gun charges stemming from Reeves’ account.

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