Officer testifies accused cop confessed to stealing weed from crime scene

A Winnipeg Police Service constable, who is accused of ignoring orders to stay out of an apartment suite he and now-imprisoned former constable Elston Bostock had been ordered to guard, later confessed they had stolen marijuana from the scene, a judge was told Tuesday.

Const. Justin Ison said he had been with the police service just a few months when Const. Jonathan Kiazyk made the startling disclosure as they worked a cruiser shift together.

“I was shocked and overwhelmed hearing this from a senior constable,” Ison testified. “It’s not every day another officer tells you they stole from a (crime scene).”

Kiazyk, an 18-year veteran of the WPS at the time of the alleged October 2022 incident, has pleaded not guilty to charges of entering a dwelling with intent to commit theft, obstructing a police officer and breach of trust.

On Monday, Ison’s then-partner, Const. Sean Kirby-Peloquin, testified he and Ison had been called to the Stradbrook Avenue apartment building shortly after 11 p.m. following a report from a resident of an attempted break and enter. Kirby-Peloquin said a man renting a suite had locked himself out and had jumped to the neighbouring balcony in an attempt to get back inside.

Kirby-Peloquin said the man reluctantly provided officers with the entry code to his suite, where they saw bags of what appeared to be fentanyl and a bag of marijuana on a kitchen counter, other drug paraphernalia, and $8,000 cash on a bedroom nightstand.

Kirby-Peloquin said he arrested the man on drug charges and called his street supervisor, then-patrol Sgt. Jonathan Ring, who assigned Kiazyk and Bostock to guard the suite while Kirby-Peloquin and Ison returned to the police station to secure a search warrant.

Both Kirby-Peloquin and Ring testified they told Kiazyk and Bostock not to enter the suite.

Court heard the constables did enter the suite, claiming they needed to use the washroom, and as a joke sent Ring a photo of a gun they had claimed they had found on a bed and another of Bostock sitting in a chair, smiling, and pointing a gun in the air.

Ison said he was typing up his notes at the police station when Ring came into the room “quite angry and yelling, stating something along the lines of: ‘Why are those guys in there? What are they doing?’”

“Patrol Sgt. Ring seemed irate to me,” Ison said. “I had never heard him yell like that before in anger. He seemed really, really mad.”

After securing a search warrant, Kirby-Peloquin and Ison returned to the suite at approximately 3:40 a.m., at which time Ison was tasked with taking pictures of the scene, Ison testified.

Ison said Kirby-Peloquin later alerted him to “discrepancies” between the photo Ison took of the marijuana bag and a photo Kirby-Peloquin had taken of the same bag hours earlier.

“Const. Kirby-Peloquin advised me that (the bag) had definitely been moved,” Ison said. “I observed the photos myself and confirmed that it did appear to have been moved.”

Ison said he believed a comparison of the two photos showed there was less marijuana in the bag in the later photo.

An agreed statement of facts provided to court Tuesday says prosecutors stayed charges against the accused drug trafficker in March 2024 “due to delayed disclosure of the continuity issue in the suite.”

Court has heard Kiazyk later admitted to Ring that he had picked up the bag of marijuana while in the suite.

Ison testified he was partnered with Kiazyk sometime later and they were in a cruiser together when Kiazyk told him he and Bostock had removed marijuana from the bag.

“Const. Kiazyk told me how much he liked the smell of marijuana,” Ison said. “He stated that (he and Bostock) took some weed from that suite… Const. Kiazyk stated that he was happy none of us stayed to talk to them while they were in their cruiser car after the search was completed because the smell was insane and we would definitely have smelt it if we were standing outside the vehicle.

“Then he added: ‘It was some really good weed.’”

Ison said he did not alert a superior to the disclosure because he assumed management was already reviewing Kiazyk and Bostock’s entry into the suite and alleged theft of marijuana.

Court heard Ison was partnered with Bostock on four occasions between Oct. 31, 2022, and Sept. 25, 2023.

Defence lawyer Mike Cook suggested it was Bostock who disclosed stealing the marijuana, not Kiazyk.

“No, it was very memorable to me,” Ison said.

Bostock, 49, was sentenced to seven years in federal prison in January, after pleading guilty to a raft of offences including selling drugs, voiding traffic tickets and providing confidential police information to underworld associates.

Ison described Bostock as “quite the character.”

“He asked me: ‘What do you think would have happened if it was you and me working in a car together and we had that B and E call dispatched to us?’ I told him the same thing, we would have arrested (the accused) for what we had.

“Const. Bostock told me: ‘No, we definitely would not have (him) under arrest. He would have been on a flight back home to Vancouver.’ Const. Bostock said he would deal with the drugs, dispose of it. ‘Can you imagine what you would do with all that money?’ he asked me. He told me that could have been a payment for a mortgage, or buying an engagement ring, giving me examples trying to justify the theft of money.”

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Ison said he was partnered with Bostock on at least one occasion when Bostock met with people he later learned were drug traffickers and money launderers.

Cook accused Ison of accepting drugs from Bostock and implicating Kiazyk in the theft of marijuana to divert suspicion from himself.

“No, that’s not true at all,” Ison said.

The Crown has closed its case. Kiazyk is set to testify when the trial resumes Wednesday.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.

Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.