Photo: The Canadian Press

A man busted with 27,500 fentanyl pills during a roadside stop in the Fraser Valley in 2017 is walking away a free man after a Supreme Court judge found his Charter rights had been violated by the search of his vehicle.

Sandor Rigo was pulled over by RCMP for speeding on Highway 1 in Chilliwack, while driving a van from Calgary to Vancouver on April 4, 2017, according to a BC Supreme Court decision posted online this week. 

Cpl. Clayton Catellier, a police dog services officer, approached the vehicle and noticed a strong odour of cologne and several cell phones between the driver and passenger seats, both “red flags” for drug dealing.

The officer noticed Rigo’s right hand and arm was shaking “violently,” something the man explained was due to low blood sugar.

After Cpl. Catellier ran Rigo’s name and noticed he had a criminal record, the officer detained him and brought out his drug dog to search the van for narcotics.

Cpl. Catellier walked the police dog, Doods, around the exterior of the van. The search was caught on camera.

During the search, Doods appeared to be “in odour” and was tracking something. At one point, the dog “attempted to sit” near the front passenger door, but was thwarted by the curb. A sitting drug dog typically indicates narcotics has been detected, but Doods did not stay down after being startled by the curb.

Regardless, Cpl. Catellier arrested Rigo for possession of a controlled substance. A search of the van at a mechanic shop would turn up 27,500 fentanyl pills hidden above a wheel well.

In a voir dire prior to the trial, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Michael Brundrett found the search violated Rigo’s Charter rights, calling the drug dog’s sit confirmation “ambiguous and not sufficiently objectively reliable… so as to justify a search of the vehicle.”

He determined Cpl. Catellier  lawfully detained Rigo and had the right to conduct a search of the vehicle with Doods, but found the drug dog’s “alert” was not strong enough.

“The arrest of the accused and subsequent searches of the accused’s van incident to that arrest therefore violated s. 8 of the Charter,” his decision found. “This was not a situation where the police merely opened the hood or the rear of the vehicle to take a quick peek inside. It was not a minor or technical breach. Rather, the breach was more blatant. The impact of state intrusion was thus relatively high.”

Brundrett ruled the evidence seized in the search could not be used in trial and Rigo was acquitted.