Opening comments: More at the end.
Lots more to this story here.
Mississauga News - Nov. 7, 2008 - By Louie Rosella - lrosella@mississauga.net
Charged office faces court
The trial is scheduled to begin next week for a Peel Regional Police officer arrested in late 2005 over allegations he was attempting to traffic cocaine.Officials with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC), the federal government organization responsible for prosecutions on behalf of the Attorney General of Canada, indicated that Cst. Sheldon Cook, 39, will appear in a Brampton courtroom Monday.
Justice Casey Hill will be presiding over the case.
Cook, who works out of Peel's 12 Division, has been charged with possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, along with attempting to possess a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking.
The marijuana charge stems from a seizure of less than a pound of pot on Nov. 18, 2005. The other charge was laid after the RCMP tracked a shipment of what investigators believed was 15 kilograms of cocaine to a home in Cambridge. The substance found at the home turned out to be a flour-like substance meant to look like cocaine, court heard.
The bogus drugs were being used by the RCMP in a drug sting, according to Cook's lawyer, Alan Gold.
A 14-year police veteran when arrested, Cook remains suspended with pay by the force until his case is dealt with by the courts.
Meanwhile, Justice Canada has decided not to prosecute more than half-a-dozen drug cases where Cook was the arresting officer.
Just a month after Cook was charged, a judge acquitted former Toronto Argonaut Orlando Bowen of drug and assaulting police charges that were laid by Cook and another officer. Bowen has filed a lawsuit against Peel Police that is still before the courts.
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