The U.S. Department of Justice has charged Deepak Paradkar, centre, with drug trafficking and conspiracy to tamper with a witness and also alleges he was part of a conspiracy to murder an FBI witness in Colombia.Mark Blinch/The Canadian Press
A federal prosecutor has urged an appeal court judge to revoke the house-arrest bail conditions of a Toronto-area criminal lawyer and order him back to jail on U.S. charges that he conspired with Ryan Wedding to commit murder of an informant.
Heather Graham, a lawyer for the federal Justice Department, told court that lawyer Deepak Paradkar faces “heinous” allegations in Los Angeles and that December’s bail ruling was “clearly inappropriate.”
The U.S. Department of Justice has charged Mr. Paradkar with drug trafficking and conspiracy to tamper with a witness and also alleges he was part of a conspiracy to murder an FBI witness in Colombia. Mr. Paradkar faces a potential life sentence for this charge because he is alleged to have told Mr. Wedding that if the witness were eliminated, he could escape criminal charges.
The witness, who was born in Montreal, was gunned down in a Medellin café in January, 2025.
Alleged accomplice in Ryan Wedding case moved to special unit of Toronto jail
“That murder that Mr. Paradkar is accused of having conspired in, that murder was carried out in broad daylight by shooting a victim in the head,” Ms. Graham told Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Katherine van Rensburg on Wednesday.
She said Mr. Paradkar must be returned to jail because the U.S. evidence suggests he is a flight risk and a public danger, and that he engaged in conduct that puts the entire Canadian criminal justice system in disrepute.
“Mr. Paradkar was an officer of the court at the time of the commission of these offences,” Ms. Graham said.
“The court ought to have looked at the status of the victim in this case – a justice system participant, an informant. This is a highly aggravating circumstance and it had a hugely detrimental impact on the rule of law.”
Mr. Paradkar, who once billed himself on Instagram as the “cocaine lawyer,” faces several other U.S. charges, including accusations that he helped Mr. Wedding spy on defendants in drug-dealing cases.
None of the allegations against Mr. Paradkar have been proven in court. He was arrested in November and spent one month jailed before Ontario Superior Court Justice Peter Bawden agreed to release him on bail on a strict house-arrest plan.
Under the arrangement, Mr. Paradkar is restricted to his home where he is subjected to electronic monitoring and periodic checks. His wife is his primary bail surety. He has pledged that his $5-million Toronto-area home would be surrendered if he were to flee.
Long before Ryan Wedding was one of the FBI’s most wanted, he was swept up in a U.S. drug case
Lawyer Ravin Pillay, acting for Mr. Paradkar, argued that Justice Bawden made the right call by granting Mr. Paradkar bail.
“He hasn’t fled,” Mr. Pillay said.
He told Justice van Rensburg that the entire U.S. case against Mr. Paradkar is based on what he described as highly questionable and unchallenged accounts of a co-operating witness who operated within the Wedding gang.
More than 20 years ago, Mr. Wedding was a Canadian Olympic Team snowboarder. He was convicted of drug dealing in the United States after his sports career, and eventually moved to Mexico. He was reputedly sheltered there by the Sinaloa Cartel and had until recently been considered a Top 10 fugitive by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Ryan Wedding is escorted by FBI agents as he is taken off a plane at Ontario International Airport in California on Jan. 23.The Associated Press
In January, Mr. Wedding’s arrest was announced by FBI director Kash Patel after an FBI team operating in Mexico helped apprehend him. He is now jailed in the United States and set to face his own Los Angeles trial on a long list of charges alleging he shipped tonnes of Colombian cocaine and that he enforced loyalty and secrecy by ordering contract killings.
The wider Wedding gang conspiracy case in Los Angeles has grown to involve more than 30 arrested suspects, including about a dozen co-accused still in Canada who are resisting extradition to the U.S.
Extradition hearings rely on summaries of evidence and lower standards of proof than criminal prosecutions but can still take years to play out in Canada.
In Montreal on Wednesday, lawyers representing two other Wedding gang co-accused – Atna Onha and Edwin Basora-Hernandez – appeared in Quebec Superior Court and said they intend to request more evidence disclosure. The Ontario Court of Appeal has not indicated when it will release a ruling in the Crown case to revoke Mr. Paradkar’s bail.
With a report from Maura Forrest in Montreal