A jury in the coroner’s inquest into the death of Windsor construction worker Takis Escoto is recommending the Ministry of Labour changes regulations governing heavy equipment.

The jury, which heard three days of testimony this week, made six recommendations Thursday.  If implemented, the recommendations require all heavy equipment operators to be certified and take formal training with refresher courses.

The inquest heard the driver of the front-end loader that struck and killed Escoto June 1, 2011, had no formal training and did not require a special licence.

A signal person should be required when heavy equipment is operated in reverse for any distance longer than the length of vehicle, according to the recommendations. The signal person and the operator should be required to have audio communication. If the job site is accessible to the public, a signal person should be present at all times.

Reverse speed should be mechanically governed on all heavy equipment, the jury recommends, and such machinery should have back-up safety technology like cameras or ultrasonic, radar or radio frequency identification systems installed.

All of the recommendations are directed at the Ministry of Labour. The province is under no legal obligation to implement any of the recommendations.

Ministry representatives at the inquest Thursday declined to comment.

Escoto, 34, was a Coco Paving labourer on a watermain project on McKay Avenue. He died of massive internal injuries sustained when he was struck by a front-end loader being driven in reverse. At the time of the incident, workers at the job were approaching the end of a 12-hour workday and were cleaning up the site.

In separate proceedings, Coco Paving Inc. was charged with nine safety infractions and was fined $212.505.

This week’s inquest heard that, in the past 14 years, 17 workers have died in exactly the same manner that Escoto did.

Escoto’s father, Ramiro, said he agreed with the jury’s recommendations and hopes the ministry moves quickly to enact them.

“We shouldn’t wait for more workers to die on the job site.”

Ramiro Escoto sat in on every day of the inquest. He took notes and tucked them into a folder which also held a photo of his deceased son.

“I have only pictures, memories and grief,” he said, pulling the photo from the folder Thursday.

His wife stayed away from the inquest because she could not bear to hear the testimony, Ramiro said.

Takis Escoto was the eldest of Ramiro’s five children. Ramiro found work in the heavy construction industry after immigrating to Canada from Nicaragua. Takis followed his father’s footsteps into the industry.

Takis was single and spent a lot of time with his tight-knit family. “He had his own house, but for some reason, he was always living in my house,” Ramiro chuckled.

Since his son’s death, Ramiro has become the Labourers’ International Union of North America’s health and safety spokesman. He visits job sites and makes sure collective agreements and safety regulations are adhered to.

“I don’t want another family to go through what I am going through.”

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

Ramiro Escoto holds a photo of his son, Takis Escoto, outside Superior Court Oct. 31, 2013, following the coroner’s inquest into the death of his son, Takis Escoto. (NICK BRANCACCIO/The Windsor Star)

A Toronto-area man awaiting sentencing for his role in a marijuana grow operation in Windsor testified Monday against the men charged along with him.

Hoa Tran, 45, testified he met with a man named Joe both times he came to Windsor to install lights for marijuana plants at an industrial building at 3966 North Service Rd. In court Monday, Tran identified Joe as Giuseppe John Zambito.

Zambito, 45, is on trial in Superior Court along with John Steven Derose, 37 and Giorgio Loiacono, 41. The three men are charged with marijuana production, possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, theft of electricity and removing a brick wall without the owner’s permission.

As Tran testified through a Vietnamese interpreter Monday, Zambito stared at him, shaking his head back and forth, at times muttering under his breath.

Tran said he came to Windsor twice with his brother-in-law Simon Xd Lieu, 49. The two men had been hired to install lights at the grow op. Tran said he had experience in setting up such operations.

On their first visit, in March 2010, Derose was inside the large, L-shaped building, erecting a wall inside. Small marijuana plants were already growing under fluorescent tubes.

When Tran and Lieu returned in April, the plants had grown significantly under the new lighting the two men had installed, Tran said. They had come to install lighting in the second grow area. On April 27, 2010, Windsor police raided the building, finding Tran, Lieu and Zambito inside.

A search that same day of Zambito’s house turned up a cache of guns. Police went to the elementary school where his wife, Luana Zambito, 45, worked and arrested her. The charges against the woman were dropped when Zambito pleaded guilty to improper storage of the firearms.

A Windsor man with a long history of drug dealing was sentenced Tuesday to 14 months in jail.

Ronald Patrick Briden, 57, racked up his fourth set of convictions since 2004 for possessing opiates for the purpose of trafficking.  His latest crimes are among the 20 criminal convictions he has amassed in his lifetime.

In September 2011, drug officers raided Briden’s Marentette Avenue home. Inside they found  22½ tablets of hydromorphone and morphine. His children were home at the time.

In sentencing Briden Tuesday, Superior Court Justice Joseph Quinn said the fact that the opiates found were “small in number” is a mitigating factor in the case.

Federal prosecutor Ed Posliff told the court earlier that there is an “underlying fraud” to Briden’s crimes. “Though the quantities are small, the nature of these drugs suggest a misuse of prescriptions.”

Defence lawyer Maria Carroccia had asked for a sentence of six months in jail. Quinn instead imposed the sentence suggested by the prosecutor.

Briden owns a racehorse and repairs cars to supplement social assistance.

Charges against Briden’s wife, Delores, were withdrawn when Briden pleaded guilty.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

Scott McLaughlin is a psychopath with violent tendencies that appear to be escalating, his sentencing hearing heard Thursday.

Dr. Derek Pallandi used words like “callous, cunning and manipulative” to describe McLaughlin. The psychiatrist  interviewed McLaughlin for six hours earlier this year and reviewed some 12,000 pages of documents related to McLaughlin’s criminal history. He concluded that McLaughlin suffers from psychopathy, anti-social personality disorder and a disorder in which he abuses multiple substances, predominantly cocaine and alcohol.

McLaughlin, 42, is the subject of a Superior Court hearing in which the Crown is seeking to have him declared a dangerous offender. Such a designation could keep him behind bars indefinitely.

It was triggered after McLaughlin pleaded guilty last year to the kidnapping and rape of a 71-year-old Essex County woman. Even before that 2009 crime, McLaughlin had more than 60 criminal convictions.

Since the age of 16, McLaughlin has had an “uninterrupted interface with the criminal justice system,” Pallandi noted. Assistant Crown attorney Gary Nikota admitted he hasn’t checked the math, but said it appears that McLaughlin has spent almost  22 of the last 26 years behind bars.

“That speaks to the severity of the disturbances,” Pallandi said.

Except for five months beginning in September 2005, McLaughlin has spent his entire adult life either behind bars or on conditions of parole or other forms of judicial release.

When Pallandi spoke to McLaughlin about his crimes, McLaughlin “tended to minimize the seriousness of the offences.”  He described them as misunderstandings, or that he had been unfairly targeted by police.

“He made a fair bit of effort to make me believe he was misunderstood,” Pallandi said. This, he concluded, was an example of “impression management,” one of the markers of a psychopath.

In fact, Pallandi said, McLaughlin shows all the characteristics of a psychopath.

Pallandi, called to testify by prosecutors, has yet to be cross-examined by the defence.

While McLaughlin has committed assaults and other violent acts in the past, his criminal record is mostly filled with property crime convictions, court heard. The last offence – the kidnapping and rape – appears to be a departure for McLaughlin, Pallandi said.

McLaughlin hijacked a cab and took the driver on a four-hour ride. He beat her and sexually assaulted her along the way.

He stole her cellphone and money and left her on a snowy road before leading police on a high-speed chase through Essex County.

Pallandi said the crime included gratuitous violence. He doesn’t believe the crime demonstrates that McLaughlin is a sexual sadist, “but certain elements suggest sadistic qualities.”

McLaughlin threatened his victim, used physical force and degraded her.  “She didn’t fight back,” Pallandi said, calling the scope of McLaughlin’s crime “excessive.”

McLaughlin dragged the incident out for hours, Pallandi said. “This is not a momentary occurrence.”

It proves McLaughlin’s “inability to contain his behaviour.”

Pallandi said offenders usually demonstrate a decline in violence as they age. In McLaughlin’s case, his violence appears to be escalating, the doctor noted.

“It’s kind of unusual.”

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

A convicted rapist the Crown wants kept behind bars indefinitely is a high risk to reoffend, his sentencing hearing was told Friday.

Scott McLaughlin, 42, has more than 60 criminal convictions to his name. His latest involved the kidnapping, rape and robbery of a 71 year-old woman.

Dr. Derek Pallandi, a psychiatrist tasked with generating a report for the courts on McLaughlin, said there is 82 per cent probability that someone like McLaughlin will reoffend within the next decade. The probability is 39 per cent that he would commit another sexual offence within the next five years and 52 per that he would commit another sexual offence within the next 15 years.

“Mr. McLaughlin likely requires the most stringent of externally imposed controls for the protection of the public,” Pallandi concluded.

The Crown is seeking to have McLaughlin declared a dangerous offender. Such a designation could keep him incarcerated indefinitely.

In earlier testimony, Pallandi said he has diagnosed McLaughlin with psychopathy, anti-social personality disorder and a disorder in which he abuses multiple substances, predominantly cocaine and alcohol.

But some of Pallandi’s conclusions that led him to the diagnoses were questioned Friday by defence lawyer John Liddle.

Liddle questioned the validity of one of the risk assessment tools Pallandi used. Pallandi conceded he had incomplete information in some of the categories.

McLaughlin’s hearing resumes later this month.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

Off-colour jokes. Derogatory comments. Unwelcome advances.

Laura Brinkmann says she put up with all sorts of sexual harassment while employed at the “boys club” known as the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers. But, after being allegedly sexually assaulted by a director while at a trade show in California, the former marketing co-ordinator is suing for $450,000, claiming constructive dismissal, emotional distress and punitive damages.

Brinkmann claims Jordan Kniaziew, vice-president of sales and marketing at Orangeline Farms in Leamington, grabbed her by the arm hard enough to leave a bruise and planted a kiss on her lips at a restaurant in Monterey, Calif., in July.

That same evening, Kniaziew sent Brinkmann text messages of a sexual nature, pestering her for her hotel room number and requesting to meet, Brinkmann alleges in a statement of claim filed in Superior Court. She says one of the text messages from Kniaziew read, “I really want to have sex tonight. LOL.”

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Contacted by The Star Monday at his family-run greenhouse operation, Kniaziew said he was stepping into a meeting and would call back later. He never did.

The Star left a phone message for his lawyer, who also did not return the call.

The claims contained in the civil suit have yet to be tested in court.

Brinkmann said she left the restaurant immediately after Kniaziew grabbed her. She went to her hotel room and called her husband to tell him what had occurred.

The next morning, the OGVG’s general manager asked her about the bruise on her arm. She then became the target of jokes from another director, Jim Veri, who, among other comments, asked if she had bruises on the inside of the thighs, too. His comments elicited laughter from Gilvesy and Kniaziew, she says.

Veri, vice-president of a greenhouse operation in Exeter, Ont., called Exeter Produce and Storage, had tormented Brinkmann for years, she claims. In 2009, she filed a sexual harassment complaint against him.

She said she was denied a raise because of it.

On the California trip, Brinkmann tried to avoid Veri, she says. Veri kept approaching her making lewd comments in the presence of other OGVG members.

Brinkmann says sexual harassment is part of the “culture” at the OGVG. “As items have been brought to the AGVG’s attention the typical response given to employees for sexual harassment and workplace violence has been ‘that’s just how this industry is,’” her statement of claim says.

Brinkmann’s lawyer, Richard Pollock, said Monday that the woman called police in California to report the alleged sexual assault. To Brinkmann’s knowledge, no criminal charges have been laid against Kniaziew, Pollock said.

She left her job Aug. 1 upon her return to Canada.

Pollock declined to comment further on the lawsuit. “The statement of claim speaks for itself.”

The lawsuit names Kniaziew, Veri and the OGVG. None has yet filed statements of defence.

“We’re really not in a position to comment,” said London lawyer Margaret Szilassy, who represents Veri.

OGVG general manager George Gilvesy, mentioned in the statement of claim but not being sued personally, took a phone call from The Star Monday, but refused to comment. He referred questions to the OGVG lawyer who did not return phone and email messages left Monday.

Brinkmann claims “constructive dismissal,” saying it was impossible to keep working for the organization. “The cumulative conduct of the defendants…  created a work environment in which no reasonable person would be expected to continue employment.”

She says the six or so trade shows she attended annually as part of her job were especially stressful. Brinkmann says she was told she was expected to “be available 24/7” while at trade shows and that her husband, who was a former board member, was not welcome to travel with her.

The OGVG was formed in 1967 and represents 220 greenhouse operators who grow tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers. The organization conducts research, lobbies government and promotes the industry through the media and at trade shows .There are hired staff members, but they answer to a board of directors composed of operators. As is the case historically, all the current directors are men.

The local greenhouse industry has seen its share of controversy.

Police have raided greenhouses in Kingsville and Leamington and found illegal workers hired outside the federal program for offshore agricultural labour.

Earlier this year, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario found a Kingsville greenhouse owner guilty of discrimination for referring to Caribbean workers as “monkeys.” One worker who complained was fired and sent home. Double Acres Farms was ordered to pay the man $23,500 — more than four times what he would have earned if he had been left to finish out his work term.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

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“Is there a problem?”

Those four words sparked a brawl in the stands at a Windsor Spitfire game in 2011 that resulted in one man in hospital with a bleeding brain and another on trial Tuesday charged with aggravated assault.

Godfrey Glen Cammidge, 32, is accused of stomping on Daniel Roy Goodison’s head during a beer-fueled melee April 21, 2011. He is also charged with assaulting Goodison’s friend, Justin Blackburn, and escaping lawful custody by breaking free when people tried to detain him for police.

Cammidge’s friend, Michael G. Walsh, 33, is also charged in relation to the incident. He is charged with assaulting Blackburn and obstructing a police officer. After a ruling Tuesday by visiting Superior Court Justice John Desotti, Walsh will be tried separately.

Testifying at Cammidge’s trial Tuesday, Goodison, 32, said he remembers little about the incident.

“We were chirping,” he said. “I don’t remember anybody hitting me. I just remember waking up in the hospital.”

He said he suffered a fractured skull and bleeding brain, and still has headaches.

Court heard Goodison had three times the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream for driving.

The game that night was between the Spitfires and the Owen Sound Attack. The Owen Sound bus driver, Allan DeBoer, testified he was in the upper-level lounge of the WFCU Centre when the fight broke out.

DeBoer said there were four or five men throwing punches. He said one man fell to the ground and he saw Cammidge step back then raise his leg in a stomping motion. He saw the fallen man’s body go limp.

“I didn’t know if he’d killed him at that point, or if he’d just gone unconscious.”

DeBoer said he then stepped in and tried to detain Cammidge until police came.

“I thought it was an absolutely terrible thing to do to a defenceless person.”

ssacheli@windsorstar.com or on Twitter @WinStarSacheli

A Windsor assistant Crown attorney fired for using the services of a prostitute in a courthouse washroom was sentenced Thursday to nine months’ probation.

Bruce Coates, 63, said he is a sexaholic who is getting counselling for his addictions.  He told the court Thursday that he has also been seeking treatment through Narcotics Anonymous for years before the Sept. 18, 2012, incident.

A victim services worker in the Crown’s office walked in on Coates and the prostitute in the handicapped washroom on the fifth floor of the Ontario court of justice building. Court heard the worker reported what she saw to Windsor’s then deputy Crown attorney, triggering an investigation.

Court heard there is video of the prostitute approaching a courthouse elevator and Coates quickening his pace to catch up to her. Coates is seen getting off on the fifth floor and motioning to the woman to follow as he enters the washroom.

Court heard Coates paid the woman $40 for oral sex.

The woman was in court on that date to deal with a criminal charge of communication for the purpose of prostitution. Court heard the woman and Coates had “prior acquaintance,” but there is no indication that Coates was in any way involved in her case.

Coates, who had been with the provincial Crown’s office in Windsor for 10 years, was suspended two days after the incident. He was called into a meeting four days after that where he was terminated after acknowledging what he’d done.

Defence lawyer Andrew Bradie said Coates has already paid dearly for his crime. He lost his job that paid $180,000 a year and now collects a pension of $34,000.

This was Coates’s first criminal conviction. Any other man in Coates’s situation would be eligible for alternatives to sentencing like attending counselling referred to colloquially as john school or making a donation to a local charity, Bradie said.

“He has suffered already,” Bradie said. The man’s crime showed “a terrible lack of judgment.”

Ontario’s attorney general brought in a prosecutor from out of province to handle Coates’ s case. Daniel Chaput, a senior Crown attorney from Winnipeg, said the aggravating factors in the case were “glaring.”

Coates, Chaput said, was “entrusted by the public to uphold laws.” By breaking the law he “breached the public’s trust.”

Coates addressed the court after pleading guilty Thursday. “I’m going to keep this simple. I was wrong and I’m sorry. That’s all I’m going to say.”

Ontario court Justice Bruce Frazer, the out-of-town judge brought in to hear Coates’s case, handed Coates a conditional discharge with probation. Coates must perform 80 hours of community service and take any counselling suggested by his probation officer.

“You were in a trust relationship with your immediate employer and the people of this fine province,” Frazer said. “You availed yourself of someone you knew to be vulnerable.”

The maximum sentence Coates faced was six months in jail.

Coates presented the court with letters of reference attesting to his good character. The judge said they show Coates had a reputation as “someone who stands tall in defence of victims.”

Court heard Coates has had his share of heartbreak in his life. His mother died when he was 25. His father, an alcoholic, committed suicide in 1989 after being charged with drunk driving. A brother died recently of AIDS.

Coates has tried to resign from the Law Society of Upper Canada, the governing body for lawyers in Ontario. His lawyer said the law society has launched an investigation and won’t accept a resignation until the probe is complete.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

A Windsor contractor on trial for his alleged role in a marijuana grow operation testified Friday he had no knowledge of the operation taking place in a portion of his building he says was subleased to a group from Toronto.

“I was just running a business,” said Giuseppe “Joe” Zambito, 45. “I worked out of my end of the building. I knew nothing about a grow-op. Then I got busted.”

He is facing several charges along with John Steven Derose, 37 and Giorgio Loiacono, 41 in connection with an operation uncovered by Windsor police at 3966 North Service Rd.

On April 27, 2010, police raided the building and found Zambito, plus Hoa Tran, 45, and Simon Lieu, 49, of Toronto inside. Hundreds of marijuana plants with an estimated street value of $500,000 were seized.

Zambito under questioning by his lawyer Paul Esco testified he was standing in a doorway that day speaking angrily with the two Toronto men because one had taken his parking spot and he was seeking a rent payment.

During the brief confrontation, the two men suddenly bolted, Zambito said. He was then suddenly kicked, struck on the head and pushed inside the building as Windsor police identified themselves while shouting, Zambito said.

He was arrested and placed in handcuffs in the centre of the room, he said.

Zambito testified he initially met the Toronto men only two months earlier through a local real estate agent. They shortly after agreed to sublease a section of the building Zambito was himself renting for his own business. He was told they wanted to operate a “fish business.”

After they took possession on March 15, 2010, he never smelled marijuana in the building, had any clue a grow op had started and only saw the men twice afterwards, including the day of his arrest, Zambito said.

Tran testified earlier in the trial the only role played by the two Toronto men was to be called on by Zambito to install lights for marijuana plants at the industrial building.

On their first visit, in March 2010, Derose was inside with small marijuana plants already growing under fluorescent tubes, he testified. When Tran and Lieu returned in April, the plants had grown significantly under the new lighting the two men had installed, Tran said.

“Mr. Tran, anything he said is a lie,” Zambito testified on Friday.”I didn’t hire him to work for me. It was his grow-up. I had nothing to do with that grow-op.”

Federal prosecutor Richard Pollock during cross-examination detailed how a large, high-powered light-bulb was found by police stored in the garage of Zambito’s home.

Zambito told the court he had no knowledge how the light bulb got there.

“You have no idea how a bulb got inside a storage cabinet, on a shelf, in that garage? Pollock responded.

“I have no idea,” Zambito said.

He also confronted Zambito on his failure to produce a sublease agreement. The business owner told the court it was confiscated by police who told him during his arrest he could use it as toilet paper.

Zambito further testified to Pollock he knew nothing of a hydro bypass discovered at the building and lacked any knowledge of gardening by noting his entire back yard is cement.

Pollock concluded the day by noting how Zambito has already pleaded guilty in court to stealing hydro at his home.

The trial will resume sometime in early January. New dates will be set in court on Dec. 6.

Both Zambito and his wife have also filed a separate $1-million malicious prosecution lawsuit against Windsor police.

Luana Zambito was arrested on the same day as her husband when several guns – including a 12-gauge shotgun and a Ruger .300 hunting rifle with scope – were found inside the family home.

The charges against the woman were dropped when Zambito pleaded guilty to improper storage of the firearms. But the public school board refused to let his wife return to her Grade 1 classroom teaching job – she had 15 years experience – at King Edward public school.

The civil lawsuit’s allegations have yet to be argued and proven in court.

The Zambitos, each of whom are seeking a half-million dollars in damages, in their lawsuit accuse police of “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” negligent investigation, malicious prosecution and false imprisonment.

A Superior Court judge ruled Friday blood samples taken by police from an Amherstburg man as he lay injured in a hospital bed shortly after a 2010 fatal snowmobile crash, which claimed the life of his passenger Corey Meloche, 19, are not to be allowed as evidence.

Trevor Skeates crashed the snowmobile he was driving in an accident around midnight on Jan. 10, 2010 after hitting a ditch on Concession Road 9.  He has been on trial after being charged with impaired driving causing the death.

There were blood samples taken by both hospital staff and Amherstburg police at the former Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital about 90 minutes after the crash which showed Skeates had a blood alcohol level of up to twice the legal limit at the time of the accident, according to testimony during his trial.

His defence lawyer Patrick Ducharme repeatedly maintained those blood samples leading to his client’s charges were taken without consent – most notably by police – and should not be allowed as evidence during his trial.

Justice Tom Carey ruled Friday the police blood samples can not be used as evidence since Skeates’s right to counsel was violated.

But all hospital records will be allowed to remain as evidence, Carey said.

The trial had been adjourned pending the ruling on blood samples and will resume on Dec. 12.

Neither Ducharme nor ssistant Crown attorney Tim Kavanagh wished to comment Friday on the ruling.

A senior addicted to a tea he makes from dried poppy pods Monday became the first local resident to be sentenced in relation to the illicit drug known as doda.

Gurdareshan Singh, 65, was sentenced Monday to six months’ house arrest for bringing a kilogram of ground up poppy husks across the border in his car in March 2011. Border police charged Singh with possession of an illegal substance for the purpose of trafficking, but Superior Court heard Monday that the stash was for his personal use only.

Singh pleaded guilty to a single count of importation.

“It’s a cultural thing,” said defence lawyer Frank Miller, pointing to cases in the Toronto area where members of the East Indian community there have been prosecuted for selling doda openly in Punjabi meat shops as “spices.”

Singh’s supply “came across marked as mixed spices,” Miller said.

Doda contains morphine and codeine, both opiates controlled under Canadian drug legislation. Doda has a lower opiate content than heroin, but is equally addictive.

“It’s referred to as poor man’s heroin,” said Richard Pollock, a federal drug prosecutor in Windsor.

Like heroin and other opiate addictions, methadone is used to break doda dependency. But, according to a doctor who testified in a 2010 case from the Peel Region, there is no cure for doda addicts who will revert to the drug if they stop their treatment. Dr. Stephen Black said 80 to 90 per cent of the doda addicts he treats relapse.

Doda keeps users awake, but can also make it difficult for them to concentrate. If too much is taken, it can cause lethargy or sleepiness.

Toronto-area judges have noted that many doda addicts work in construction or drive taxis or trucks for a living.

Singh is a truck driver by trade.

The poppies originate in the southwestern U.S., where they are sold as “dried flowers.”

A box full of dried poppy heads — the main ingredient for the opiate “doda” — is shown after a 2009 seizure by the Canada Border Services Agency in Calgary. Popular in South Asian cultures, doda is considered equivalent to morphine by Canadian authorities. Image provided by CBSA. (Handout / The Windsor Star)

Sellers break up the pods or grind them into a fine powder. “It’s marketed and sold illicitly as poppy pods,” Pollock said. “That would be of no use to any florist.”

In Singh’s case, like others, the box of pods was marked “Arizona grown.”

The first doda prosecutions in Canada were in British Columbia. The drug is now being seen in Windsor because “we’re on the road to Toronto,” Pollock said.

Two Toronto- area truck drivers — Satwinder Jeet Singh Kehra and Anoop Kumar Ubbu­­  – are currently before the courts in Windsor on charges that they had boxes of poppy heads hidden in the shipments they were bringing across the border. Ubbu, a trucker who lives in Etobicoke, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. He is expected to testify at the trial of three men accused of loading the contraband into his truck.

Singh got his supply from a U-Haul outlet in Detroit. Drug officers had been watching the business and observed Singh’s attendance there.

It’s unknown what Singh paid for his supply, but a recent case out of Brampton suggested the going rate is $50 for a 56 gram (two-ounce) bag.

While on house arrest, Singh must abide by a curfew of 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. except for work or medical emergencies. He is banned from possessing any weapons for the next 10 years and provide a blood sample for the national DNA databank police use to solve crime.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

Twitter@WinStarSacheli

Forty years after presiding over the first moot court named in his honour, retired Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Thomas Zuber ended his service Tuesday by gently grilling the competitors in the 2013 Zuber Moot Competition.

Zuber, Ontario Court Justice Lloyd Dean and Superior Court Justice Steven Rogin queried the four University of Windsor second-year law students in a mock appellate trial over whether a woman should be allowed to wear a niqab while testifying in a sexual assault trial. A niqab is a head covering often worn by Muslim women and allows only the eyes to remain visible.

– Zuber finalists Shaun Bernstein and Neeta Sandhu, both 2nd-year law students, presented their cases in front of 2013 Zuber Moot Court which included Justice Thomas Zuber, Justice Steven Rogin and Justice Lloyd Dean at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law Tuesday November 19, 2013. (NICK BRANCACCIO/The Windsor Star)

Zuber’s question to competitor Babaneet (Neeta) Sandhu about whether a judge should be allowed to wear a niqab while administering justice seemed to stump Sandhu. She said the question was speculative and she couldn’t answer it.

“I’ve enjoyed it very much,” Zuber said of his tenure in the moot competition. “It’s kept me in contact with students. It’s my way of helping out.”

Last year’s winner Fariya Walji, who is currently interviewing at law firms, said many law partners list being a Zuber Moot winner on their resumes.

Law school dean Camille Cameron called Zuber a “true friend of the law school.”

The Town of Amherstburg is facing a $9-million lawsuit filed on behalf of 129 residents whose basements and crawlspaces flooded in August 2011.

The lawsuit alleges the flooding occurred because the town ignored problems in the sewer system. The system is “overloaded” because “Amherstburg allowed the development of additional residential homes…without adequately addressing their sewer incapacities,” the lawsuit claims.

It also says, when the flooding began, the town “failed to respond adequately to emergency calls from homeowners.”

The lawsuit also names the Ontario Clean Water Agency, a Crown agency that oversees municipal waste water facilities.

None of the claims contained in the lawsuit have yet to be tested in court.

Hundreds of homes throughout the municipality flooded with storm water or sewage or both when the skies opened up and dumped 18 centimetres of rain in a single morning Aug. 9, 2011.The storm knocked out power, disabling sump pumps. Homeowners reported that for days after the initial downpour, water percolated up through their toilets and shower drains.

At the time of the flooding, Amherstburg’s director of public services blamed the problem on individual homeowners’ connections to the sewer mains.

All of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are clients of a single unnamed insurance company. The company is suing on its clients’ behalf.

Lawyer Robert Reynolds said the plaintiffs likely don’t know they are parties to the lawsuit. Several contacted Wednesday afternoon had no idea.

Sue Laprade said she and her parents lost the contents of the crawlspace in the Concession 3 home they share. Everything in storage — Christmas decorations, clothing, artwork and sentimental items like mementos from her children’s early school years — was destroyed. The items were all stored in rubber bins, but the water was so deep, the bins began to float and tipped over.

“Lots of people had finished basements. I can’t imagine,” Laprade said.

The town was served with the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon, said deputy clerk Paula Parker. She said the town plans to defend itself.

Parker said every resident who filed a claim against the town to recoup flooding losses was denied compensation.

This is the only lawsuit filed against the town in relation to the 2011 flood. There won’t be more because the two-year limit from the date of any losses has passed.

Parker said the town has never been sued for flooding before.

Shelby Askin Hager, deputy city solicitor for the city, answers questions during a city council meeting on November 30, 2011. (NICK BRANCACCIO/The Windsor Star)

Windsor’s deputy city solicitor said the city gets lots of claims for flooded basements. Checking records dating back a decade, Shelby Askin Hager said the city has never been sued for flooding.

Hager said there are “nuisance” provisions in the Municipal Act that protect municipalities from being sued for flooding. The suit against Amherstburg makes passing mention of nuisance, but claims the losses were caused by negligence and a breach of fiduciary duty.

The Amherstburg lawsuit covers 75 properties for which insurance claims were filed. The lawsuit alleges the flooding has affected property values.

“Any future prospective home buyer will be aware of the Amherstburg sewer backups,” it says. “The plaintiffs have suffered significant market value loss as a result.”

The lawsuit also claims that the homeowners face the threat of not being able to insure their homes, being charged exorbitant premiums or being able to get only reduced coverage. “Accordingly there has become incredible, increased anxiety.”

Amherstburg has 40 days to file a statement of defence with the court.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

Online Canadian banking service Peoples Trust admitted a month ago to a security breach in which criminals in China used the web to access the personal information of up to 13,000 clients.

Now local law firm Sutts Strosberg has filed a class action lawsuit — in partnership with two law firms in Toronto and Vancouver — seeking $13 million in compensation for affected customers.

The local legal firm is involved because one of the primary plaintiffs in the claim filed in Supreme Court of British Columbia against the Vancouver-based company is University of Windsor business student Gianluca Tucci.

“He is concerned about the effect this privacy breach will have on his credit file and inconvenience he will face in trying to address his concerns,” said lawyer David Robins of Sutts Strosberg.

“It’s not so much like money was stolen here. It’s more a big headache. The nature of the claim is for breach of privacy, breach of contract, breach of warranty and negligence.”

Tucci was not to talk about the case based on his lawyer’s advice.

Peoples Trust is federally licensed trust company launched in 1985 that operates largely online, providing financial services that include savings accounts, credit cards and mortgages.

The company grew concerned a couple of months ago after several customers complained they had received bogus text messages supposedly from the company urging then to call a number in Utah right away, Robins said. The phone number was not in service, according to the company.

But Peoples Trust hired a forensic investigator who learned the company’s system and customers’ personal information had been compromised by someone in China.

People’s Trust sent notice to the privacy commissioner of Canada about the privacy breach in mid-October and two weeks letter issued a letter to 12,000 to 13,000 customers informing them they were at risk of identity theft, Robins said.

Banking information was not accessed, but personal information — largely submitted during the online application process — was accessed. It included names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, date of birth and social insurance numbers.

Some of the bogus text messages from the wrongdoers also called on customers to reveal account information.

The trust company has not yet been formally served with the lawsuit so did not wish to comment on Wednesday.

“Until we have chance to review the lawsuit, I really can’t say anything,” said Darren Kozol, general counsel and corporate secretary for Peoples Trust in Vancouver.

But the online violation will be worrisome for quite some time for customers such as Tucci, Robins said.

The list of information could potentially be used for such purposes as obtaining loans, credit cards or to engage in other forms of identity theft, the lawyer said.

Every affected customer has also been “flagged” for up to the next six years, according to the company, so their credit files will alert others their data has been compromised and lenders should take additional steps to verify identity before completing transactions, Robins said.

“People are worried about damage to their credit reputations,” he said. “Some are distressed. People have to spend time and be faced with anxiety, frustration and inconvenience to reduce the likelihood of identity theft and address the flags on their files.

“What’s of greatest concern is there remains a substantial chance the cyber criminals who accessed this information will use this for future criminal purposes.”

Any Peoples Trust customer whose information was compromised can learn more about the class action lawsuit at peoplestrustprivacyclassaction.com, Robins said.

Sewage backups are so pervasive in Amherstburg the town has been flooded in recent years with lawsuits alleging negligence.

Besides a $9 million lawsuit served on Amherstburg this week, there are at least 10 other lawsuits dating back to 2008 alleging the town is responsible for flooded basements and crawlspaces, a search of court files by the Windsor Star turned up Thursday. Several suits seeking damages of $25,000 or less appear to have been settled. Still outstanding, however, are millions in claims, including a $1 million lawsuit filed in 2009 by former MPP Remo Mancini for flooding at his Laird Avenue home.

The town administrator who tracks actions against the town repeated Thursday that she is unaware of any lawsuits other than the $9 million served on Amherstburg Tuesday. Deputy clerk Paula Parker said the town created the position of “risk assessment manager” only recently and she took on the job title in January.

She said she had no record of the lawsuits turned over for litigation prior to her taking over the post.

“Hopefully there will be a better practice going forward under myself,” she said.

Resident Cheryl Hodgkin said Thursday she believes the town is trying to cover up its sewer problems. Her Front Road house flooded with sewage in 2007. A pair of lawsuits both naming the town among the defendants – one she filed personally and another filed by her insurance company that names her and a neighbour as plaintiffs – have been lingering in the court system for more than four years.

In the meantime, Hodgkin has put her house up for sale. She has had it on the market for 18 months. It isn’t selling because buyers know about Amherstburg’s flooding problems, she said.

Several of the lawsuits against the town, including the $9 million one filed on behalf of 129 homeowners this week, claim property values have been diminished, house insurance is harder to get, and homes are more difficult to sell because of sewage problems.

A $250,000 lawsuit filed in 2009 claimed a house built on the waterfront in 2005 for $850,000 suffered repeated flooding. The case was dismissed last year with the consent of all parties, suggesting the claim was settled out of court.

In another lawsuit, filed in 2009 in relation to flooding at a Front Road North home in March 2007, the town brought a motion to court drawing the Ontario Clean Water Agency into the lawsuit as a defendant. That lawsuit, claiming $200,000 in damages, is still before the courts.

In all its statements of defence, even those in cases that were settled, the town denies responsibility for flooding problems.

The latest lawsuit alleges basements flooded in August  2011 because the town has ignored problems in its sewer system. It alleges the town has allowed new housing developments to tap into existing sewers which are now “overloaded.”

Amherstburg Mayor Wayne Hurst could not be reached for comment. Messages left for him over two days by The Star were not returned.

ssacheli@windsorstar.com or on Twitter @winstarsacheli

Guards at Windsor Jail let inmates smoke marijuana to keep them calm and one allegedly supplied oxycontin, Percocet and steroids, testimony at a dangerous offender hearing revealed Tuesday.

“There’s a lot of drugs in there,” corrections officer Renzo Anzolin testified. Drugs like cocaine and hashish have been found, but it’s mainly pot and pills, he said.

“We’re more of a marijuana institution. It’s prevalent, very prevalent.”

When asked who is smuggling the contraband into the jail, Anzolin testified, “It could be officers, it could be volunteers.”

Anzolin, who has worked at Windsor Jail for 25 years, testified at the sentencing hearing for convicted rapist

Convicted rapist Scott McLaughlin. (Windsor Star files)

.  The Crown is seeking to have McLaughlin, 45, declared a dangerous offender. The designation could keep him incarcerated indefinitely.

McLaughlin was incarcerated in Windsor from January 2009 until December 2011. He was transferred to London after flying into a rage upon hearing that guard Mark Heath was sleeping with his girlfriend, court heard. That same guard, McLaughlin alleged, was supplying him with steroids and other drugs to sell behind bars.

Anzolin testified he happened upon McLaughlin during that rage. McLaughlin threatened Anzolin, saying he could harm the man’s children.

Anzolin reported the threat, thus triggering McLaughlin’s transfer.

Anzolin testified he learned the cause of McLaughlin’s rage days later from an inmate being released.

“If that was the case, I could see why he was pissed off,” Anzolin said. But he never asked McLaughlin nor Heath about it. “I didn’t want to know what the truth was.”

Carol Varney, an operational manager at the jail, spoke of the “code of silence,” among officers. “If any officer says anything against another officer, you’d be ostracized,” she said.

Varney said she got a phone call from the girlfriend of another inmate who told her a guard named Mark was having an affair with McLaughlin’s girlfriend. The woman told Varney McLaughlin was threatening to attack any guard as retribution.

Varney said she had noticed Heath on two occasions speaking with McLaughlin’s girlfriend near the jail steps. Once, he was holding the woman’s young son on a parked motorcycle. Heath and the woman looked “comfortable” with each other, Varney testified.

She said, as a manager, she felt a duty to report what she’d heard and seen to her superintendent.

Varney said McLaughlin told her about the guard, but didn’t name him. He told her that he had lent that guard “large sums of money” and that the guard had been supplying him with steroids. McLaughlin told her the guard had made enemies among the inmates in the area of the jail where McLaughlin had been housed, and that McLaughlin had used his influence to protect him.

Varney believed McLaughlin was sharing this information with her to prevent being transferred out of a facility where he enjoyed “seniority” among his fellow inmates and where he got regular visits from his son.  McLaughlin was transferred nonetheless, and Varney repeated to investigators what McLaughlin had told her.

Court heard an external investigation into Heath and another officer was launched in early 2012. Heath went on a stress-related leave and has never returned to the job.

Court has heard the other officer’s employment was “terminated.”

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

A former elementary teacher received 45 days house arrest Wednesday for snorting cocaine in a staff washroom during breaks from teaching at St. Gabriel grade school.

Sean Gibson pleaded guilty to one count of possession of cocaine.

The 39-year-old former teacher’s sentencing took place in front of a group of students — a Grade 11 class from St. Joseph Catholic high school happened to be on a field trip in the courtroom.

When Ontario Court Justice Lloyd Dean asked the accused if he had anything to say before sentencing, Gibson said no.

Dean denied a prosecution suggestion of 30 days in jail, agreeing instead with the defence request for house arrest. But because of aggravating factors, including the type of narcotic, Dean increased the length of time, allowing Gibson off the property for a month and a half only for academic, medical, religious or medical reasons.

“You were using this drug while the care of children was put in your trust,” Dean said.

Dean also noted, however, that he saw no evidence that children were ever in danger, that Gibson entered a guilty plea, that he has no previous drug charges, that the amount of cocaine he had was small, and that he is awaiting placement in a substance-abuse program at the Homewood Health Centre in Guelph.

The Crown dropped a second possession charge after tests showed that a substance seized from Gibson’s apartment was not illegal.

Gibson was arrested Oct. 17, 2012, after police received a tip and conducted an investigation, including at the South Windsor school.

“It was believed that Mr. Gibson was using cocaine daily within the school,” said federal prosecutor Celina Aguero, who argued that the offence represented a public-safety issue. “Officers began conducting surveillance on Gibson.

“Officers noted that Mr. Gibson would make frequent trips during the day to a particular, single washroom within the school.”

Officers cleaned the washroom before Gibson entered several times Oct. 16 and 17, 2012, and swabbed surfaces immediately after he left in order to test for drugs.

“Gibson was, in fact, using cocaine in the school washroom during the course of the day,” Aguero said. “Cocaine residue was being left on the counter top.”

Police followed Gibson, who went home at lunchtime. They arrested him when he exited his apartment building around 12:20 p.m. without incident. Officers found .1 gram of cocaine in a ziplock baggy in a pant pocket.

Gibson was on probation at the time for a threat made to an ex-spouse.

Defence lawyer Anthony Barile said his client has shown remorse and accepted responsibility for his actions. He noted that Gibson has already paid a heavy price — he was fired from his job of 10 years and has been out of work since shortly after his arrest.

Barile said Gibson is the father of two young children, who he sees several times a week, and has been under court-ordered conditions for a year without issue.

“No harm ever came to a student,” said Barile, who added that his client pleaded guilty on the first day of what was scheduled as a trial.

Both Barile and Gibson declined comment outside court after the hearing.

The Ontario College of Teachers lists Gibson as being suspended for non-payment of fees.

By Jason Magder, The Montreal Gazette

ST-JÉRÔME — A Quebec Court judge has ordered the removal of 14 children aged two months to 16 years from the ultra-orthodox sect Lev Tahor, to be placed in foster homes.

Judge Pierre Hamel issued the ruling Wednesday night, ordering the children be removed from the community and placed in foster homes immediately, for at least 30 days.

The ruling comes after about 200 members of the sect fled to Chatham Nov. 18 to avoid a youth court hearing.

Hamel ordered members of the Lev Tahor community to refrain from contacting the children in any way, except for their parents, whose contact will be supervised by youth protection officials.

Among the children ordered removed are a 16-year-old girl and her two-month-old baby.

Each child will be given a full examination by a doctor, and their psychological needs will be assessed. Youth protection officials have alleged extreme neglect and malnutrition, as well as isolation, and a refusal by sect members to adhere to the Quebec curriculum. They claim the children, who are home schooled, are unable to do basic math, and don’t understand English or French.

On Wednesday evening the judge ordered a sweeping publication ban on details pertaining to the hearing.

• Jewish sect members told to return to Quebec after fleeing here during child protection probe (With video)
• Quebec urging action from Ontario on Lev Tahor group that fled province
• Jewish sect labelled radical, extreme, ‘utter neglect of children’ cited
• Radical Jewish group settles in Chatham, Windsor (With Video)

On Tuesday, a committee in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, heard gruesome details about the conditions in the sect from several former members.

The website Behadrey Haredim reported that the hearing was told that children were hit with iron bars, denied food and forced to take psychiatric pills.

The committee also heard that the sect achieved compliance by inflicting constant pain, by forcing members to wear shoes smaller than their shoe size. Members also spoke of forced divorce and marriage from the age of 14 to age gaps, including a 15 -year-old boy marrying a 40-year-old woman, and vice versa. The minimum legal age of marriage in Canada is 16.

Wednesday’s ruling followed a petition from Quebec’s youth protection officials for an emergency ruling by the court after about 200 of the 240 members of the sect moved to from Ste-Agathe-des-Monts to Chatham in the early hours of Nov. 18. The three families were ordered to appear in court on Wednesday morning, but they defied that order.

Speaking from Chatham, Uriel Goldman, a director of the group Lev Tahor, said members would defy the order because the Quebec court has no jurisdiction in this matter, since the order to appear was issued after the group members moved to Ontario.

“It’s a legal argument and they don’t have to go there,” Goldman said. “When the court papers were filed, it was when these families were already residents of Ontario.”

Another member of the sect told The Gazette Tuesday from Ste-Agathe the community members left Quebec because the province’s home-schooling regulations are too strict. He denied that there was any neglect suffered by the children. He said the whole ordeal has been orchestrated by authorities in Israel who persecute the group, because it denounces the formation of the State of Israel.

“(The youth protection director) was under tremendous pressure to find something in our houses because he got hundreds of phone calls and faxes from those people who persecute us for nothing,” he said.

Denis Baraby, the director of youth protection services for the Laurentians, said extricating the children from Ontario may be tricky, but it’s something the agency deals with often.

“Ontario authorities can take this decision now and get an order from a court,” Baraby said. “We think there is a high possibility they will return them here.”

Baraby said several families from the Jewish community have come forward to offer their homes for the children. The children have specific needs, since most only speak Yiddish and Hebrew.

- With files from The Windsor Star

Violent convict Scott McLaughlin brought down two jail guards with his allegations of drug smuggling and sexual misconduct, Superior Court heard Wednesday.

An external investigation failed to substantiate McLaughlin’s claims, but it uncovered other misconduct for which the two guards lost their jobs, court was told.

Lisa Kitchen, an investigator with the Correctional Investigation and Security Unit, testified Wednesday at McLaughlin’s sentencing hearing. The Crown is seeking to have McLaughlin declared a dangerous offender, a designation that could keep him behind bars indefinitely.

Convicted rapist Scott McLaughlin. (Windsor Star files)

McLaughlin, 45, has more than 60 criminal convictions to his name, the latest involving the kidnapping and rape of a 71-year-old woman.

Kitchen said she interviewed McLaughlin in January 2012. In an audio recording played in court Wednesday, McLaughlin said he befriended guards Chris Walker and Marc Heath, but was now turning on them after hearing that “his girl” was having an affair with Heath.

“Obviously I’m pissed,” McLaughlin told Kitchen.

Kitchen said her investigation turned up no proof that Heath and McLaughlin’s girlfriend were having a sexual relationship. But she found there was clearly a “personal relationship” between the two.

Between July and December 2011, the two had talked on the phone 280 times, Heath using the jail line for a total of 52 hours while on duty, Kitchen testified.

Kitchen’s investigation concluded Heath broke policy by not reporting his relationship with the woman. The woman visited McLaughlin in jail during that period and “a great deal of personal information was shared between the parties.”

Heath was also found to have violated policy by not disclosing that he attended an optometrist appointment with Dr. Jack Klundert, a former inmate who had spent time in Windsor Jail for tax evasion.

McLaughlin alleged he had hooked up Heath and Walker with a steroid dealer on the outside, and would pass the men oxycontin and Percocet from the constantly replenished supply he kept in his cell.

Kitchen’s findings made no mention of McLaughlin’s professed drug operation behind bars or that the two guards were ever among his customers. It specified there was no evidence of any steroid purchases by Heath or Walker outside the facility.

The findings against Walker involved the relationship he had with an ex-inmate named Tammy Edwards, who court heard was a stripper at a local club.

In February 2011, Edwards crashed Walker’s car then fled the scene. Kitchen’s investigation found that Walker refused to co-operate with police in the matter, losing credibility as a corrections officer and hurting the reputation the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services.

Further, Kitchen’s investigation found that Walker used a corrections database called the Offender Tracking Information System to look up information about Edwards.

It further found that Walker would also bring his cellphone into the jail and let inmates look at pictures he had stored there. This violated policy about sharing information with inmates that could compromise officer safety.

Walker’s employment at the jail was terminated, court heard. Heath took a leave of absence and subsequently resigned.

McLaughlin claimed he knew intimate details about Walker and Heath through their many conversations together. A skeptical Kitchen said McLaughlin could have gleaned those details by eavesdropping on conversations between guards.

McLaughlin told Kitchen she was wrong.

“We became friends from different sides of the bars. I was in orange, they were in blue.”

ssacheli@windsorstar.com

A Windsor law firm has launched a $240-million class-action lawsuit against the federal government alleging Health Canada violated the privacy of medical marijuana users.

Earlier this month, the federal agency sent a letter to 40,000 users with a return address containing the words Marijuana Medical Access Program in bold print on the front.

“These people did nothing wrong and they are entitled to have the government keeping this information private,” said lawyer Sharon Strosberg of the firm Sutts Strosberg, which has filed the lawsuit in Ontario Superior Court.

Strosberg is so far representing two clients — a man in his 50s who resides in Essex County and a young professional woman in her late 20s who lives in Ottawa. The court filing identifies them as John Doe and Jane Doe.

The man’s letter was delivered by a family member who had no idea he was a user, Strosberg said.

“A person who works with (the mail carrier) is also a neighbour,” she said. “Everybody who works at the post office where mail is sorted also knows him.

“He is mortified by what’s going on here.”

The female is a young professional who is concerned her employer will frown upon her or think differently in regards to her reputation should they learn of her medical marijuana use, Strosberg said.

“She has worked so hard to get where she is and is now very worried about anybody else knowing about this.”

The privacy violation is also a security concern because it publicly reveals that there is marijuana inside the residence.

“They sent out a letter to the world advertising who has marijuana inside their home,” Strosberg said. “These people through no fault of their own are now at a greater risk of a home invasion.”

The government has issued an apology and described it as an administrative error.

“But there are far-reaching implications of the letter that went out,” Strosberg said. “Our clients are saying to the government ‘this isn’t right, this can’t happen’ and they are entitled to some compensation.

“These people feel stigmatized, ashamed, violated and concerned for their personal security.”

Health Canada declined comment Wednesday.

The letter indicated to medical marijuana users they will no longer be allowed to grow their own supply at home under new legislation. It cites safety risks that include possible home invasion and toxic mould associated with its growth indoors.

As of March 31, users will only be allowed to have their supply provided by licensed growers approved by the government.

The Windsor lawsuit is one of a number that have been filed alleging privacy breach.