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| Mayor Rob Ford walks past Halloween decorations on his way to talk to media at City Hall in Toronto on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Ford says he has no reason to step down despite police confirmation that they have seized a video that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe. |
TORONTO (AP)
-- Toronto police said Thursday they have obtained a video that appears
to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking a crack pipe - a video that Ford had
claimed didn't exist and has been at the core of a scandal that has
embarrassed and gripped Canada for months.
Police
Chief Bill Blair said the video, recovered after being deleted from a
computer hard drive, did not provide grounds to press charges. Ford, a
populist mayor who has repeatedly made headlines for his bizarre
behavior, vowed not to resign.
Speaking
outside the door his office, where visitors were free to check out the
Halloween decorations, Ford said with a smile: "I have no reason to
resign." He said he couldn't defend himself because the affair is part
of a criminal investigation involving an associate, adding: "That's all I
can say right now." Toronto police discovered the video while
conducting a huge surveillance operation into a friend and sometimes
driver suspected of providing Ford with drugs.
Ford
faced allegations in May that he had been caught on video puffing from a
glass crack pipe. Two reporters with the Toronto Star said they saw the
video, but it has not been released publicly. Ford maintained he does
not smoke crack and that the video does not exist.
The
scandal has been the fodder of jokes on U.S. late night television and
has cast Canada's largest city and financial capital in an unflattering
light.
Ford was elected mayor three years ago
on a wave of discontent simmering in the city's outlying suburbs. Since
then he has survived an attempt to remove him from office on
conflict-of-interest charges and has appeared in the news for his
increasingly odd behavior. Through it all, the mayor has repeatedly
refused to resign and pledged to run for re-election next year.
But the pressure ramped up on Thursday with all four major dailies in the city calling on Ford to resign.
Cheri
DiNovo, a member of Ontario's parliament, tweeted: "Ford video nothing
to celebrate Addiction is illness. Mayor please step down and get help?"
On Thursday, Blair said the video of the mayor "depicts images that are consistent with those previously reported in the press."
"As
a citizen of Toronto I'm disappointed," Blair said. "This is a
traumatic issue for citizens of this city and the reputation of this
city."
Blair said the video will come out when
Ford's associate and occasional driver, Alexander Lisi, goes to trial
on drug charges. Lisi now also faces extortion charges for trying to
retrieve the recording from an unidentified person. Blair did not say
who owned the computer containing the video.
Blair
said authorities believed the video is linked to a home in Toronto,
referred to by a confidential informant as a "crack house" in court
documents in Lisi's drug case.
The prosecutor
in the Lisi case released documents Thursday showing they had rummaged
through Ford's garbage in search of evidence of drug use. They show that
they conducted a massive surveillance operation monitoring the mayor
and Lisi following drug use allegations.
The
documents show that friends and former staffers of Ford were concerned
that Lisi was "fuelling" the Toronto mayor's alleged drug use.
The documents also detail evidence that led to Lisi's arrest on drug and extortion charges.
The police documents, ordered released by a judge, show Ford receiving packages from Lisi on several occasions.
"Lisi
approached the driver's side of the Mayor's vehicle with a small white
gift bag in hand; he then walked around to the passenger side and got on
board," reads one document dated July 30, 2013. "After a few minutes
Lisi exited the Escalade empty handed and walked back to his Range
Rover."
Another dated July 28 says Lisi "constantly used counter surveillance techniques" when he met with Ford that day.
On
August 13 documents say Lisi and Ford met and "made their way into a
secluded area of the adjacent woods where they were obscured from
surveillance efforts and stayed for approximately one hour."
Ford
recently vouched for Lisi in a separate criminal case, praising his
leadership skills and hard work in a letter filed with the court. The
letter was part of a report prepared by a probation officer after Lisi
was convicted of threatening to kill a woman.
Ford
said previously that he was shocked when Lisi was arrested earlier this
month, calling him a "good guy" and saying he doesn't abandon his
friends.
The documents also say that Ford met
Lisi through Payman Aboodowleh, a volunteer football coach at Don Bosco
Catholic Secondary School, where Ford coached the team while also
serving as mayor. He told police he was "mad at Lisi because he was
fuelling the mayor's drug abuse," the document says.
Former
Ford staffer Chris Fickel told police he didn't know where the mayor
got marijuana from, but "has heard that `Sandro', Lisi's nickname, may
be the person who provides the mayor with marijuana and possibly
cocaine," the document alleges. However, Fickel added, he has never seen
Lisi provide the mayor with drugs. The mayor would call Fickel and tell
him to tell "Sandro" that "I need to see him," Fickel told police.
Ford's
controversies range from the trivial to the serious: Walking face-first
into a TV camera. Falling down during a photo op while pretending to
play football. Being asked to leave an event for wounded war vets
because he appeared intoxicated, according to the Toronto Star. Being
forced to admit he was busted for marijuana possession in Florida in
1999, after repeated denials. Making rude gestures at Torontonians from
his car.
Ford was fired earlier this year from
his beloved volunteer job coaching football over disparaging remarks he
made to a TV network about parents and their kids at the school.
Ford
has long vilified the Toronto Star, accusing the paper of trying to
take him down. Blair's revelations vindicated the paper's reporting.
"The
mayor has said there wasn't a video," Toronto councilor Paula Fletcher
Fletcher said. "He has said there is a conspiracy against him. With
Chief's Blair's press conference I think that's put to rest."
Councilor Joe Mihevc said he continues to be shocked by the "depth and revelations that are coming out."
"The
mayor has to come clean and do it as soon as possible," Mihevc said.
"He needs to talk honestly about his use of illicit drugs."
