Charges that involved top cop dropped against OPP officers

Charges against two senior Ontario police officers have been dropped — effectively ending a disciplinary process that threatened to tarnish the reputation of the head of the province's police force.

The charges against Supt. Ken MacDonald and Insp. Allison Jevons were thrown out on Wednesday when the hearing resumed at OPP headquarters in Orillia. MacDonald used to head the unit that probes internal corruption and Jevons was a senior investigator in the unit.

They were both charged with neglect of duty and deceit. But the two officers claimed they were victims of a witch hunt inside the Ontario Provincial Police force being orchestrated by OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino and the head of the OPP union, the Ontario Provincial Police Association.

The decision also comes more than a year after Fantino began a series of legal moves aimed at having Justice Leonard Montgomery removed from the case because of remarks he made during the proceedings.

The motion was rejected by a divisional court and upheld last month by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

On Wednesday, when the hearing was scheduled to resume, the charges against the two officers were dropped — and that means Fantino will not have to return to the witness box.

The disciplinary case centred on an investigation that looked into why OPP supervisors in eastern Ontario looked the other way when a local officer allegedly took a baseball bat to his wife's car. When MacDonald and Jevons concluded there was misconduct, the police union filed a complaint claiming major problems with the whole investigation.

Fantino, who was new to the job as commissioner, ordered a review of the findings. He later agreed with the union and charged the two senior officers with neglect of duty and deceit for their handling of the investigation.

MacDonald and Jevons, however, fought back and in the process made their own allegations. Part of their evidence was an email in which the union said it wanted to "Take down MacDonald."

MacDonald and Jevons also claim Fantino bowed to union pressure.

Days before charging MacDonald, another senior officer testified Fantino said, "Are you going to execute the disloyal one, or am I?" The senior officer made notes of the comments.

The defence claimed that when Fantino learned those notes were about to become evidence, the officer was told he was being transferred to North Bay.

Lawyers for the two accused officers said that amounted to witness tampering.

During his testimony Fantino called the allegations "hysterical nonsense" and denied he was bowing to pressure from the OPP union.

Fantino also denied any personal vendetta against MacDonald and Jevons.

CBC.CA