Tina Fontaine case not built on ‘Mr. Big’ sting: sources

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/11/2016 (3258 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As if by way of foreshadowing, Tom Sophonow reached out to me Sunday in a text.

I don’t know if his reaching out was some sort of coincidental cosmic message, given that Sophonow is Winnipeg’s, and one of the nation’s, most famous faces of the wrongfully convicted; and a victim of the once prevalent tendency of police to have tunnel vision.

This is what I woke up to Monday: a CBC story quoting from an interview with a man awaiting trial for murder in the Brandon Correctional Centre, who is suggesting something constituting not only a narrow investigative focus, but in his mind, a nefarious one.

Raymond Cormier is the 54-year-old career criminal charged with the 2014 slaying of the troubled indigenous teenager Tina Fontaine. He is not only claiming innocence — “I didn’t harm a hair on Tina Fontaine’s head” — he’s  alleging an attempt to entrap him in a so-called Mr. Big sting; a method that typically involves undercover cops posing as criminals who try to gain the confidence and ultimately, a confession from a target.  

Cormier was even more direct with his allegation last July when he filed a complaint with the Law Enforcement Review Agency. It was rejected as beyond the agency’s scope. He is appealing the decision in court. In his complaint, Cormier accuses police of a “clear and malicious act to deliberately manufacture and fabricate false evidence in an attempt to establish a link between me, the murder suspect, with Miss Tina Fontaine.”

Which, as I was suggesting, is a different way of alleging police tunnel vision — and worse.

It was Tina’s disappearance and death in the summer of 2014 that focused public and eventually political support for a national inquiry into the country’s hundreds of missing and murdered indigenous girls and women. 

A month before her body was found in the Red River, the Supreme Court of Canada had ruled on the legal limits of the Mr. Big style of investigation; a practice that isn’t permitted in either the United States or the United Kingdom.  

While not outlawing its use, the country’s highest court ruled that confessions extracted in a Mr. Big operation tend to produce unreliable confessions, are open to abuse and must be presumed inadmissible in court. 

Cormier says the police sting police on him didn’t work anyway.

Cormier claims he didn’t confess to the killing; even when, after months of prepping him, members of the covert operation flew him to Vancouver in December 2015, where he was wined and dined. 

The next day, he was driven to the ski resort community of Whistler, where he was arrested. That was after, according to Cormier, an undercover agent tried to trick him into confessing to killing the teenager he said he drank and did drugs with.

Cormier reportedly recalled the ultimate conversation with one of the undercover cops going this way:

 “He said this: ‘You already admitted about killing Tina,’ I said ‘The hell with you, I never f–king said that to anybody ever. Never. Not once have I ever said that to anybody. What the hell are you talking about?’… Then I knew that it was cops.”

That lack of a confession may explain why, when I spoke with someone well-briefed on the case, the covert operation was downplayed as the most crucial part of the evidence against Cormier.

“This isn’t a Mr. Big case… that’s not how the Crown is making the case,”  the source said.

 Meanwhile, when I asked Winnipeg police chief-designate Danny Smyth about Cormier and his Mr. Big allegation, he answered carefully in an emailed statement. 

“Winnipeg police successfully gathered sufficient evidence to secure criminal charges against Raymond Cormier for the murder of Tina Fontaine,” Smyth said.

“After reviewing the evidence, charges were authorized by the Crown. As indicated earlier, some of the evidence gathered was secured through covert operations. The Winnipeg Police Service is fully aware of the controversy associated to so called ‘Mr. Big’ operations. It is inappropriate to comment further regarding Raymond Cormier’s allegations, and we are unable to confirm more detail or the nature of the evidence gathered. His case will be handled by Crown prosecutors during a criminal proceeding.”

That was it. But that’s about all that can be expected in the way of a public statement from a Canadian police chief while a case is before the court. 

I learned something else Monday. According to the well-placed source, Winnipeg investigators consulted with the Justice Department about their plan to do a Mr. Big operation, undoubtedly with the  Supreme Court decision in mind. That consultation suggests Winnipeg police investigators were well aware of the tricky line they walked and dare not cross in the Cormier sting. As a result of that Supreme Court decision, the onus now is on the Crown to prove the reliability of the evidence gathered in a Mr. Big operation.

If you’re surprised Winnipeg police tried a Mr. Big operation given how controversial and even risky it can be, I’m not, because I happen to trust the judgment of John O’Donovan, the cop who led the investigation.

I like to believe the Winnipeg Police Service has learned from its biggest historic mistakes. And while the pressure to solve Tina’s case was immense, I believe police would have been extra careful in a case that meant so much to the girl’s family and the public. And to the officers involved.

As I sit recalling that welcome but unexpected text on Sunday, I wonder what a still-traumatized victim of the old days thinks about all of that.

But I dare not ask Tom Sophonow.

 

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca