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March of Crimes

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January 18, 2011 | 11:42 am

Convicted shoplifter banned from Chinatown and Kensington Market

The Lucky Moose in Chinatown (Image: Colin Rose)

Helping yourself to a five-finger discount has never been so sticky: Anthony Bennett, a 52-year-old with a history of repeated shoplifting, has been banned from both Toronto’s Chinatown and Kensington Market neighbourhoods. Again (he was already observing a temporary ban). You may remember Bennett as both the perpetrator and victim in a high-profile citizen’s arrest case from 2009: Bennett stole some plants from the Lucky Moose grocery store, only to be later chased down by the shop’s owner, David Chen, tied up and thrown in the back of a van, vigilante style. (Chen was acquitted of assault and forcible confinement charges last October.)

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March of Crimes

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November 9, 2010 | 10:20 am

Toronto public school board catches $88,500 fraud without a huge scandal

Terry Baytor (Image: Facebook)

A we-assume-formerly respected principal, teacher and baseball coach from Martingrove Collegiate in Etobicoke has been charged with theft and fraud. Terry Baytor, whose mustachioed mug has since moved from the public board to a cushy private school gig, apparently pocketed $72,000 from an account that was supposed to be for student fundraising. Of that, he paid himself $16,000.

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March of Crimes

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October 21, 2010 | 12:11 pm

134 tons of pot set ablaze by Mexican government, Cheetos sales spike downwind

Burning giant piles of drugs isn’t exactly new in the history of media relations, but we can’t think of anything else quite on this scale: the Mexican government invited national and international press from the capital to Tijuana where, after a gun battle with drug traffickers, the Mexican army seized 134 tons of marijuana. The press was invited to watch as the army got really high set the ganja ablaze.

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March of Crimes

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August 11, 2010 | 1:13 pm

From careless to carless: GTA teen arrested after bragging of reckless behaviour on Web site

bmw550ifreak’s M5: thank heavens it wasn't equipped with Wi-Fi (Image: 5 Series Forum)

In the age of social networking, most people have come to terms with creepy 24/7 on-line peer surveillance; Facebook firings and cyber-bullying are just two well-known examples. Today’s conviction of 19-year-old Vladimir Rigenco for careless driving is another. It all began with a forum post in March on a BMW 5 Series Web site, where the accused, writing under the name bmw550ifreak, bragged about driving at a speed of 140 kilometres an hour through a residential area.

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March of Crimes

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June 21, 2010 | 10:27 am

Revisiting Aqsa Parvez: Q&A with Mary Rogan

The author of “Girl, Interrupted”—Toronto Life’s cover story about the life and death of Aqsa Parvez—discusses honour killings, Islamophobia and how the 16-year-old’s murderers got off easy.


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March of Crimes

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May 28, 2010 | 9:49 am

Industry Minister Tony Clement confesses to routine lawbreaking

Tony Clement: music lover (Image: Geoff Cheng)

Tony Clement has managed to keep a relatively clean record in the Harper government: he’s hasn’t freaked out at airport workers, dropped an F-bomb in front of activists, or forgetten that Canada includes Quebec. He has, however, confessed to breaking the law.

The National Post has the sordid details:

“The fact of the matter is I have compact discs that I’ve transferred, I have compact discs from my children or my wife that I’ve transferred on to my iPod. None of that is allowable under the current regime,” [said] Mr. Clement, a music buff who also legally purchases songs from iTunes to build a digital database that now stands at 10,452 songs.

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March of Crimes

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May 25, 2010 | 1:31 pm

Victoria Day in Toronto: even the TTC assaults involve fireworks

Roman candle for an English queen (Image: Samuel Johnson)

Sometimes, it must be really terrible to be a TTC employee. If they are not getting robbed, spat on or heckled, somebody thinks it’s a kick to shoot them with a Roman candle. That was the case yesterday, when a bus driver was attacked in north Toronto. We’re assuming that the driver—who was mostly unharmed and refused ambulance care—was unimpressed with the festive nature of the Victoria Day assault.

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March of Crimes

27 Comments

May 25, 2010 | 12:09 pm

Charges against Michael Bryant dropped, cyclists’ outrage not so much

Michael Bryant, free and clear (Image: attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca)

Less than one year ago, former Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant was charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death. This morning, those charges were dropped.

The accusations were made after an August 30 confrontation between Bryant and cyclist Darcy Allen Sheppard.

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March of Crimes

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May 21, 2010 | 12:49 pm

Toronto cops charge and arrest cartoonishly evil operators of moving company

Some stories have it all: nefarious acts, last-minute betrayal, even a labyrinth of shadowy aliases.

Toronto police arrested nine people yesterday in connection with a moving-company scam in which clients’ possessions were locked in a truck while shady characters demanded extra charges—in some cases thousands of dollars—and then often dumped their stuff on the side of the road. The only thing missing here is a bald sociopath in a swivelling chair slowly stroking a cat.

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March of Crimes

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April 9, 2010 | 11:36 am

Holy smoke: Toronto church argues that pot is a religious right

You'll never get to heaven if you're scared of gettin' high (Image: Katheirne Hitt)

Two hippies-cum-spiritual-priests from Toronto are challenging Canada’s drug laws, claiming that members of the Assembly of the Church of the Universe—namely, themselves—should be exempt from marijuana regulations because the plant is sacred to their religion. “Reverend Brothers” Peter Styrsky and Shahrooz Kharaghani were charged with drug trafficking in 2006 after police raided their church. As part of their defence, they say that smoking marijuana brings them closer to God. The Crown begs to differ, however, saying in the Toronto Star that the Church of the Universe is “an inside joke” that “offers no comprehensive system of belief by which to live,” and thereby doesn’t quite qualify as a religious institution.

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March of Crimes

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April 9, 2010 | 9:44 am

The Rahim Jaffer affair: a six-point primer

Jaffer, then and now

When Rahim Jaffer had his cocaine possession and drunk-driving charges dropped and received a $500 slap on the wrist, even the judge called the plea bargain “a break.” Fortunately, the Star is here to show that even the whiff of a crime doesn’t pay. Thanks to a lengthy exposé on the cover of the paper today, Jaffer is getting his comeuppance in the courtroom of public opinion. The piece is sprinkled with “busty hookers,” Harbour Sixty steaks, pro football players, strip clubs, luxury cars and hints of influence peddling. To help grease the wheels of justice, and to make sense of the scandal in general, here are the six top indignities in Jaffergate thus far.

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March of Crimes

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April 7, 2010 | 2:44 pm

Torontonian super-nerds bust cyber-crime ring that stole NATO plans, Dalai Lama’s e-mail

On the DL: We doubt the Dalai Lama was ROTFL

In what may be the least surprising news to make the front pages of newspapers this year, a team of University of Toronto–led computer security experts have concluded that people use the Internet to spy on other people. In this case, huge amounts of highly sensitive data has been hacked into, and the suspect in the case is China. Well, it might not be the Chinese government, but a series of elaborate cyber-attacks targeting sensitive government data from countries around the world have been emanating from within China. Well, maybe not even from China, as the researchers freely admit that it’s easy for hackers to mask the true origin of their attacks. At any rate, somebody, somewhere is using such Internet services as Twitter, Blogspot and Yahoo Mail to steal classified information and a year’s worth of the Dalai Lama’s personal e-mail (yes, the Dalai Lama has e-mail).

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March of Crimes

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April 6, 2010 | 3:37 pm

Igor “The Terrible” Kenk wants to be reunited with all “his” stolen bikes

(Image: Patrick Goossens)

It was only a matter of time before Igor Kenk resurfaced. The famous cycle-theft kingpin turned up this week at a St. Jamestown youth centre, where 1,800 of the bikes that helped him get convicted were being fixed up so they could be given to children in need. According to the Post, Kenk offered to “help” at the repairs clinic, but simply left his name with a volunteer, who recognized him instantly from the flurry of media coverage. Kenk, who was released after a 16-month prison term last month, also asked  if he could buy back some of the frames. “Of course they’re my bikes. Think of them as my puppies,” Kenk creepily told the Star.

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March of Crimes

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April 6, 2010 | 10:06 am

Health Canada’s weed is mostly shwag, critics warn

Last week’s police raid on Toronto’s Cannabis As Living Medicine (CALM), eastern Canada’s oldest medical cannabis club, had little in common with a blockbuster movie drug bust. In this surveillance video posted by CALM on YouTube, undercover officers flit past a parked disability scooter before taking one employee to the ground. Patrons inside remain seated as they look on, nonplussed. Now the Queen Street East compassion club’s 2,000-plus members have to go without the 16.5 kilograms of marijuana, 1.9 kilograms of hashish and 200 grams of hash oil that were seized in the bust. But the real story here isn’t the bust—it’s the blame. Critics of the cops say places like CALM need to exist because Health Canada’s federal marijuana program doesn’t know how to properly deal drugs, delivering insufficient quantities of a poor-quality bud.

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March of Crimes

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March 31, 2010 | 3:25 pm

Government to cops: probably best not to Taser pregnant women, genitals

Set Tasers to stun (Image: hermanturnip)

Common sense would suggest that pregnant women, young children and the elderly are not viable Taser targets, but it has taken the sages from the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP two years to come up with the guidelines to protect such individuals from high-voltage zapping by law enforcers. The new regulations, which go into effect this summer, also discourage police from using Tasers and other energy-based weapons on those who are driving or cycling (we assume a baton to the front-wheel spokes would not be a suitable alternative), and those in handcuffs. Officers will be instructed to aim away from sensitive areas, like the head, throat and genitals.

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