{"id":513446,"date":"2026-03-04T09:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T09:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513446\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T09:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T09:22:12","slug":"6-toronto-police-officers-charged-in-corruption-probe-were-supposed-to-appear-in-court-why-didnt-they","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513446\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Toronto police officers charged in corruption probe were supposed to appear in court. Why didn\u2019t they?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Six Toronto police officers arrested and charged in a sweeping corruption probe by York Regional Police last month were scheduled to appear in court Tuesday \u2014 most for the first time \u2014 except the courtroom was largely empty, save for their lawyers and the Crown prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Their absences aren\u2019t actually against the law. But because this is a high-profile case and none of the officers scheduled to appear Tuesday are in custody, questions persist about when they\u2019ll finally make a public appearance.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what you need to know:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Who was scheduled to appear in court?<\/p>\n

Six Toronto police officers, one of whom is retired, and seven civilians had court appearances scheduled for Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The officers scheduled to appear were:<\/p>\n

John Madeley Sr., 55, retired officer.\u00a0Const. John Madeley Jr., 29, son of John Madeley Sr.\u00a0Sgt. Robert Black, 42.\u00a0\u00a0Sgt. Carl Grellette, 49.Sgt. Saurabjit Bedi, 38.Const. Elias Mouawad, 24.<\/p>\n

The officers\u2019 charges range from conspiracy to obstruct justice to drug trafficking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

WATCH | Key breakdown of charges:\"\"<\/p>\n

Toronto police officers face corruption, conspiracy charges in organized-crime probe<\/p>\n

Seven Toronto police officers, one retired officer and 19 civilians are facing charges after an investigation into organized crime. Police say the investigation includes a conspiracy to commit murder, shootings, extortion, robbery, drug trafficking and firearms offences. UPDATE (Feb. 25, 2026): Some content has been blurred to remove potentially identifying information.
\nWhy weren\u2019t they in court?\u00a0<\/p>\n

None of the officers were in court Tuesday because they got their lawyers to file a designation of council for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That designation means they can skip out on a chunk of their court proceedings and have their lawyer \u2014 or sometimes another appointed counsel under them, like a paralegal \u2014 show up for them instead, as outlined<\/a> in the Criminal Code. Anyone accused of a crime can file for a designation, according to the code.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They will eventually need to be present when a jury is being selected, if a witness takes the stand to provide oral evidence and when their sentence gets handed out, among other criteria laid out in the code.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A designation is not unusual and is \u201centirely normal,\u201d said Alison Craig, a Toronto criminal defence lawyer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[In] the first few court appearances of any case, nothing of substance happens,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cReally it\u2019s more of a convenience issue than anything for most people. But certainly I suspect in high-profile cases many accused persons just don\u2019t want their face to be out there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Craig did mention that filing for a designation requires some level of organization and funding and not everyone could have those resources secured in time for their first court appearance, especially if they are relying on legal aid rather than a private lawyer.<\/p>\n

\"AAlison Craig, a Toronto criminal defence lawyer, says it isn’t unusual that the Toronto cops charged in a sweeping corruption probe by York police didn’t publicly appear in court Tuesday. (Turgut Yeter\/CBC)None of the officers scheduled to appear are in custody<\/p>\n

Out of all the officers charged in the investigation, only one is actually in custody. All the others were released on undertakings by police.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This means that when they got arrested and charged, they did not have to remain in custody and try to get bail. Instead, they were released by police with a requirement to obey certain conditions and attend court at a later date, according to the Ontario Court of Justice website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Const. Timothy Barnhardt is the only officer in custody. He was denied bail and faces 17 charges, the most out of all the officers involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Barnhardt is co-accused on many of his charges with Brian Da Costa, 43. Da Costa, a civilian, is alleged to have connections with various criminal networks and is accused of leading a plan to run illegal cannabis dispensaries, according to his charges.<\/p>\n

York police Deputy Chief Ryan Hogan previously called Barnhardt the \u201cgenesis\u201d of the investigation. Police also allege Barnhardt released confidential information to criminals to help facilitate targeted shootings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do have some questions about the fact that they were all released on an undertaking,\u201d said Craig.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although many of the charges for the officers aren\u2019t the most serious, she said, they are part of a very \u201cserious set of allegations that seem to have at least tones of organized crime or conspiracy behind them.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they were all very lucky and perhaps given some special treatment that the public would not ordinarily be given,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

CBC News did ask York Regional Police why the decision was made to release all officers except Barnhardt on undertakings, but they declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When will the officers be seen in court?<\/p>\n

\u201cRealistically, the first time you\u2019re likely to see these guys is either on the day of their guilty plea or on the day of their trial,\u201d said Craig.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It could take months \u2014 if not years \u2014 to get to a trial, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless one of the officers has a burning desire to plead guilty in a fairly prompt fashion, which I suspect is not the case, the public is unlikely to see these guys until their trial.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-513446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}