J-Tornado accused faces piling-on by Crown, defence argues
Robert Jones | CBC News | Posted: May 30, 2016 7:50 PM | Last Updated: May 30, 2016
Brian Munro says 3 separate cases against Shane Williams stemming from same drug investigation improper
The lawyer for accused drug dealer Shane Williams complained about prosecutorial piling-on Monday as his client was briefly lifted out of Court of Queen's Bench and moved into provincial court to deal with one of the three simultaneous J-Tornado cases he is facing.
"There has been overcharging in the case," Brian Munro said to provincial court Judge David Walker, who was trying to schedule a preliminary hearing for Williams on improper gun storage charges.
Williams is one of 28 people arrested in September 2014 as part of an interprovincial drug investigation police called Operation J-Tornado. Police claim he led one of two drug rings in the Saint John area and Crown prosecutors eventually launched three separate proceedings against him.
Williams, of Smithtown, is currently on trial with Joshua Kindred, of Saint John, on drug possession, drug trafficking and conspiracy charges. When that trial concludes, Williams is scheduled to be tried on organized crime charges and sometime after that, he faces improper storage of firearms charges.
Police say they seized four guns during Williams's arrest, including a shotgun, a rifle and two handguns. Ten months later, they charged Williams with having stored those firearms "in a careless manner."
We've had constant overlaps, constant conflicts. - Brian Munro, defence lawyer
In court on Monday, Munro said launching three cases at once against Williams from the same investigation was improper and would have made it "impossible" for Williams to defend himself if he was on his own.
"I'm an experienced defence counsel and I'm having a hard enough time as it is," said Munro. "We've had constant overlaps, constant conflicts."
J-Tornado prosecutions have resulted in 13 convictions so far with the more serious cases only now making their way through the court system.
On Tuesday morning, the man police allege led the second Saint John area drug ring, Anthony Edison, has a voir dire hearing scheduled to determine the admissibility of certain evidence in his upcoming trial.
Two weeks later, on June 14, another case involving Claude DiFazio, from Laval, Que., whom police allege helped supply Saint John with cocaine, begins with its own voir dire.
Williams's current trial will resume on Wednesday morning with defence cross-examination of the Crown's star witness in the J-Tornado cases — a former Saint John restaurant owner and friend of Williams, who was paid by police to secretly collect evidence in the case.
For his third case, Williams was ordered by Walker to return to provincial court on June 17 to set a date for a preliminary hearing.