Reputed Mafia boss wants police allegations barred from hearing
A reputed Mafia boss and convicted killer is mounting a constitutional challenge against the use of police allegations by Canada's prison and parole systems, a move that, if successful, would allow inmates to get out of prison earlier and with greater ease.
The challenge comes as Vincenzo DeMaria, known as Jimmy, fights to keep an alarming police report alleging significant underworld activity from reaching the National Parole Board before his parole hearing to decide if he should be re-released from prison.
Likely standing in the way of his liberty is a daunting report from a senior RCMP officer accusing DeMaria of sitting on the Calabrian Mafia's board of control; being an accomplice to the unsolved murder of a Toronto gangster; engaging in drug trafficking; helping a cousin flee justice; and conspiring to hurt an underworld figure.
DeMaria, 55, has given notice to the attorneys general in every province and to the federal government of his constitutional challenge as well as filed twin lawsuits in the Federal Court of Canada against the Correctional Service of Canada and the parole board seeking to suppress the police claims.
Lawyers for DeMaria say using the report is a violation of his Charter right guaranteeing the "right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice."
His lawyers characterize the report as "unsubstantiated or unproven allegations concerning criminal activity."
"None of these allegations has as yet been made the subject of a criminal charge against me," DeMaria said in a sworn statement filed in court. "I would welcome the opportunity to defend myself should such charge or charges be laid. I would plead not guilty and resist all such allegations to the fullest extent of the law."
While his court challenge raises important issues of inmate treatment within the prison and parole systems, the report itself sheds light on police theories on significant developments in Ontario's recent underworld history.
The report confirms that police investigators have "confidential information which they believe to be reliable" that a Mafia "Board of Control" exists in Canada.
Often called by its Italian name - Camera di Controllo - the board allegedly resolves disputes and organizes the competing enterprises of the various clans of the 'Ndrangheta, which is the name of the Mafia that formed in Italy's Calabria region, similar to the better-known Cosa Nostra from Sicily.
"Mr. DeMaria is a member of the 'Ndrangheta and a family leader. [He] holds a position on the 'Ndrangheta Board of Control," says the report, dated June 23, 2009, authored by Superintendent Mark Fleming, commanding officer of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, an anti-organized crime unit in the Greater Toronto Area.
The report further alleges that DeMaria "was an accomplice to the 2000 murder of Gaetano Panepinto."
Panepinto was an important emissary in Ontario for Vito Rizzuto, the boss of the Sicilian Mafia in Montreal. He ran a discount coffin store in Toronto and imported cocaine until he lashed out at two Calabrian mafiosi hiding in Canada from Italian authorities. Police believe he killed them in a dispute over gambling without permission from his boss.
On Oct. 3, 2000, the hulking Panepinto was shot dead in an ambush as he drove his Cadillac from his west-Toronto home. Police believe he was killed on behalf of aggrieved Calabrian gangsters. Losing Panepinto was seen as a significant stumbling block as Montreal mobsters tried to consolidate their hold on Canada's underworld by spreading east.
No charges have been laid in the murder.
In an interview, Supt. Fleming said he stood by the report but declined to discuss its allegations.
"Our mandate is to investigate organized crime. That letter is self-explanatory and it now falls into the jurisdiction of the parole board," he said. He has previously written reports for prison and parole purposes on other inmates, he said.
Information in such reports is typically viewed with concern by the parole board when deciding if it is safe to release an inmate into the community.
DeMaria is asking the courts to intervene to prevent the prison and parole systems from using the allegations to limit his liberty.
He has already suffered its ill effect, he said. The report led to him being removed from a minimum-security placement at Beaver Creek prison to a segregated cell at the medium-security Fenbrook prison where he remained for 18 days.
His case is urgent, his lawyers argued, because DeMaria has a pending parole hearing after he was re-arrested on April 20, 2009, for allegedly violating his parole. He is serving a life sentence for a 1981 murder.
DeMaria suspects the parole board will be unimpressed by the report.
"I fear that the illegal use of allegations rather than fact will influence and bias the National Parole Board," he says in a statement. "It is possible if not probable that my parole will be revoked."
John Hill, one of three lawyers working on the case on behalf of DeMaria, declined to discuss the case because it was set to go before a judge as an emergency matter on October 1.
A lawyer representing the government in the case could not be reached for comment.
DeMaria was arrested in 1981 after he confronted Vincenzo Figliomeni, a 37-year-old father of four, at a Toronto fruit store over a debt of $2,000. He told the jury he acted in self-defence but forensic evidence showed the man had been shot seven times in the back.
He was found guilty of second-degree murder and handed a life sentence. He was released on full parole on Feb. 3, 1992, and has operated a financial services business since.
When he was behind bars the first time he achieved a judicial victory regarding his treatment.
As the chairman of the inmate committee, he was transferred to a maximum-security institution after he telephoned the office of a Liberal MP to complain about conditions in the prison after an inmate riot. He took the prison to court and won a ruling reversing the transfer and drawing a judicial rebuke against the warden.
DeMaria is not alone in having to face police reports containing allegations or information, beyond what was proven in court, when pleading for parole.
The Corrections and Conditional Release Act allows all information used by the prison in dealing with an inmate to be sent to the parole board for its use when considering an inmate's release. The board is typically allowed to weigh the evidence when making a decision, even though it would likely not be admissible in a court of law.
If this procedure was found to be unconstitutional, the parole board could be making decisions on releasing inmates without knowing that police suspect them of continuing criminal activity or associations.
National Post
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