Accused Toronto cop beats first round of tow truck corruption charges

A Toronto police officer has been found not guilty on five charges to do with allegations of staging car crashes and profiting off fraudulent insurance payouts -- though two charges remain outstanding in the case at the Ontario Court of Justice and a larger prosecution still looms at Toronto Superior Court.

Const. Ronald Joseph gave a thumbs-up as he left the courthouse on Wednesday, and when asked if he had anything to say, responded, “Merry Christmas.”

That was moments after Justice Kim Crosbie said in her ruling that while she had suspicions that Joseph was involved in a fraudulent scheme, the evidence in the case didn’t meet a high standard necessary in a criminal conviction.

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“I am required to consider whether the lack of certain evidence raises reasonable doubt. I am left with questions I cannot safely consider to have been answered. While I am left with suspicion that Mr. Joseph was involved, I find him not guilty,” she said.

The case is central to an anti-corruption probe called “Project Overhaul,” an investigation by the Toronto Police professional standards and financial crimes unit that resulted in Joseph being arrested alongside employees from multiple tow truck companies.

When he was first arrested, he was charged with breach of trust, with investigators alleging he received kickbacks from a network of tow truck drivers after they were tipped off to accident locations, which can be very profitable.

He was also accused of supplying a police radio to an associate to better track crashes, and taking fees for that while operating his own car rental and tow truck business.

In the case before the Ontario Court of Justice, Joseph was accused of being part of a scheme to defraud certain insurance companies, and the court heard he had thousands of dollars in cheques deposited in his account that could be tied to dubious crashes.

Another officer, Brian Smith, testified that Joseph told him to put in a false claim and in return he would not have to pay over $1,000 to fix a car, Crosbie said.

However Crosbie found she couldn’t accept Smith’s evidence because he admitted to committing a fraud, his testimony contained several inconsistencies, and he believed that he kept his job in exchange for testimony that would incriminate Joseph.

In the case that is still before the Toronto Superior Court, Joseph and an associate, Marcus Dookie, have pleaded not guilty to another sprawling insurance scam to stage car crashes, but with much larger amounts, including $72,000 allegedly defrauded from Royal Sun Insurance over a stolen Ram truck.

In that case, two men have pleaded guilty for their roles in the case, which is ongoing.