Marijuana-related charges against a Fort St. James man were dismissed after a Provincial Court judge ruled most of the evidence in the case inadmissible.
Joseph Greco Ricardo Sordini was acquitted after Honourable Judge D.J. O’Byrne found the search the evidence in the case against him was based on was in violation of Sordini’s Charter rights.
Sordini was facing charges of production of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking.
According to court documents, RCMP learned a woman serving a conditional sentence was staying with Sordini at his residence, and was subject to curfew checks.
According to information put forward in the case, an RCMP member had been investigating Sordini’s activities since 2009, suspecting him of cultivating marijuana, but had not found any conclusive evidence by November of 2010.
On Nov. 5, 2010, RCMP entered onto the property to conduct a check on the woman’s curfew for her conditional sentence.
During the visit, the RCMP members received permission to look around at some other aspects of the property, and subsequently discovered some evidence of marijuana cultivation when an RCMP member moved something on the floor with his foot, uncovering “shake” marijuana under some landscaping fabric. The constables then arrested Sordini as well as two women on the property at the time.
The judge ruled, however, the case was based on evidence obtained through a “warrantless search” due to the constable using his foot to uncover the evidence and was therefore a violation of Section Eight of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which provides freedom from unlawful search and seizure.
“In my view, these searches constituted serious state misconduct,” said O’Byrne in his ruling.
The judge also called the arrests of the two women at the residence “egregious.”
“Those arrests are totally without any legal justification and they further demonstrate the absolute flagrant disregard by the police for the Charter rights and freedoms of anybody at the Sordini residence that evening,” he said.
A warrant was later obtained to search the outbuildings, however the address of the search was misspelled, using Pinchie Road instead of Pinchi Lake Road, which the judge saw as further indication of a “lack of care and attention to detail” required for a valid search warrant.