Missing video evidence collapses drug case, prompts Toronto detective discipline proceeding

A drug trafficking case has collapsed and a Toronto police detective is facing allegations of deceit and discreditable conduct after he wouldn’t provide surveillance video of a drug bust to prosecutors, CTV News has learned.

Detective Clayton Adams kept giving shifting explanations to Crown prosecutors about where the video was, whether it was connected to the drug case, and why it couldn’t be provided, and stands accused of misleading the Crown — one reason charges in the case were stayed, documents say.

“Your responses to the Crown were evasive and misleading in regards to the seized security video,” the Toronto police allege in a notice of hearing that was written in 2020, but is headed for a hearing next week.

“You provided a will-say statement that was inconsistent with your initial representations. In so doing, you committed misconduct in that you did willfully or negligently make a false, misleading or inaccurate statement pertaining to official duties,” the notice reads.

Adams’ lawyer, Peter Brauti, told CTV News Toronto that he plans to explain that the entire thing was a misunderstanding — and that Detective Adams had simply lost track of the video because officers at 14 Division do not have enough USB sticks to store the various ones they obtain and it was overwritten.

“This was a miscommunication and misunderstanding between the parties. It’s now going to be resolved internally,” he said, adding that eventually a copy of the video was found.

The hearing would be adjourned for now, he said, while Adams and the TPS come to a settlement, though officials witih Toronto police did not confirm that Tuesday.

Detective Adams was supervising the execution of a drug warrant at a tower complex on West Lodge Avenue in 2020. At the time, police found enough fentanyl to lay three charges against a 50-year-old man.

The suspect's lawyer, Jeff Hershberg, wanted to see surveillance video of the bust. He told CTV News Toronto he contacted building management, who told him they had supplied the police with the video. So he tried to get it from the Crown.

“I had suspicions about what had happened,” he said. “Soon after that, (the) Crown contacts me and advises they’re going to stay charges against my client.”

Behind the scenes, Crown lawyers had been trying to get that video from Adams. According to the notice of hearing, Adams first denied the video existed and “had no idea what security was talking about.”

He then said there was a video, but it was for a separate investigation, and then told the Crown the video had been erased.

It’s not clear what is on the video, or whether the hearing where it could be played for the public to see will happen next week.

Lawyer Peter Biro, who was among several involved in a separate serious corruption case against several officers with the Central Field Command drug squad years ago, said the Toronto police should not write this off easily.

“They should want to get to the bottom of it. That’s what they should want to do,” said Biro, who is now a advocate for democracy and civil liberties with Section1.ca. He said he had great reservations about whether the TPS could investigate itself in files like this.

“Something like this could be quite innocent and minor and have no consequence or it could be quite significant. We don’t know at this point,” he said.