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A Peel Regional Police officer accused of stealing bogus bricks of cocaine from a delivery truck in Mississauga testified today that he saw his immediate boss take a box containing the unknown substance from the vehicle and walk away with it.

Cst. Sheldon Cook, 40, told court he didn't know why Det. Marty Rykhoff removed the box from inside the truck on the night of Nov. 16, 2005.  But he suspected Rykhoff had a good reason because of his morality experience.

Cook, one of several officers working under Rykhoff that night, is accused of stealing 15 of 102 bricks of the "cocaine" seized hours earlier from a courier cargo truck at the force's Lakeshore community station in Mississauga.

Cook has pleaded not guilty to seven criminal charges.

The drugs turned out to be flour, part of a botched RCMP controlled delivery from Peru to Canada that went missing 12 hours earlier after arriving at Mississauga's Pearson International Airport.

Cook, a 14-year veteran, said he never thought the drugs he's accused of stealing were real.

Having some street crime experience with drugs, Cook rubbed a bit of the white, chalky, powdery substance found in a football-sized beige package between his fingers to see if he could tell what it was.

"Usually cocaine has a crystal look and it breaks down into an oily substance when it's rubbed between your fingers," Cook said.  "This was dull.  It remained chalky.  There was also no odour usually associated with cocaine or heroin ..."

In February, Rykhoff denied taking any of the boxes with the cocaine-like substance when he testified as a federal Crown witness in the trial that began last November.

He also denied framing Cook by stealing what he thought were bricks of cocaine and then placing them in the trunk of the accused man's police cruiser.
Rykhoff, a 24-year-veteran officer, also denied telling Cook to “secure” the box - and that he would return it to morality the following day.

Defence lawyer Pat Ducharme has suggested this trial that Cook didn’t take any of the suspected drugs and didn’t know anything about them until he opened the trunk of his cruiser at the end of his shift.

He suggested Cook took the box home and put it in his garage under Rykhoff’s orders, believing his immediate boss would pick it up the next day.  But Rykhoff didn’t show up.  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.

Two days later, RCMP investigators used a GPS signal hidden in the missing box to locate the 15 bricks in a compartment in a Sea-Do in the garage at Cook’s Cambridge home.  Officers executing a search warrant also found marijuana and several MP3 players allegedly taken from an un-related investigation.

Federal prosecutors David Rowcliffe and Ania Weiler say Cook took the fake bricks of cocaine, which he believed were real, during his involvement as part of Rykhoff’s crew.

Cook is charged with attempting 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.

The trial continues this afternoon.

Comments by others, 1, to this web-page;

Uatu     Aug 17, 2009 9:45 PM

"Instead of turning the dummy drugs into morality squad officers..."

Well of course he didn't do that. He would have been arrested on the spot.