Drugs up butt may pay off

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A suspected drug dealer's strong-willed resistance of a bowel movement may have paid off.

Justice Peter Rogers has “reluctantly” found that Ronjot Dhami can seek an order to exclude the heroin, crack-cocaine and fentanyl he put up his rectum from the trial over the charges against him.

On the morning of June 10, 2014, Const. Evan Diachok of the RCMP was surveilling an apartment on Leon Avenue suspected to be involved in drug trafficking.

He began following a silver Mercedes SUV that left the apartment, with Dhami – someone the officer had seen pictures of and was suspected of being involved in drug trafficking – in the passenger seat. 

After the Mercedes failed to signal for a right turn, Diachok pulled over the car on Kelglen Crescent and noticed what looked like a marijuana joint on the front passenger seat by Dhami.

Diachok arrested the two men for possession of marijuana, and noticed a small glob of lotion on Dhami's chin, along with a jar of “white creamy lotion” in the SUV's glovebox.

Having arrested a man the month prior who was believed to be part of the same drug trafficking ring as Dhami, and finding drugs shoved in his rectum, Diachok believed Dhami had engaged in a similar tactic.

Dhami was brought to a detention cell that had its water shut off.

“The idea was that when Mr. Dhami had a bowel movement he would not be able to flush away the evidence that came out with the movement,” wrote Justice Rogers in his decision.

Dhami spent the night in the cells, and his lawyer Stan Tessmer appeared before Justice Brad Chapman at noon on June 11 for the bail hearing.

While Tessmer was “anxious to proceed,” Justice Chapman adjourned the hearing until after lunch.

At about 1 p.m., Dhami was seen in his cell crouching over a floor drain in his cell, using a plastic utensil to push packages down through the holes.

“Mr. Dhami was found to have feces and little plastic wrapped packages smeared on his feet,” Justice Rogers writes in his decision. “There were feces and more little feces-smeared plastic wrapped packages in and around the toilet and floor of the cell. Several more such packages were found in the water below the floor drain.”

The 53 bags contained 1.24 grams of heroin, 5.86 grams of crack-cocaine and 4.59 grams of fentanyl.

While Justice Rogers found that Dhami's arrest for possession of marijuana was lawful, he found that his arrest for possession of heroin, which was the charge he was being held on when the feces-covered drugs were found, was not lawful.

"The Mercedes ... did nothing more suspicious than fail to signal a lane change and a right turn," writes Justice Rogers. "Const. Diachok saw nothing about the behaviour of the Mercedes that would suggest to a reasonable and objective observer in his position that its occupants were in possession of heroin or cocaine."

Because of this, Justice Rogers says Dhami can “seek an order that the evidence of those drugs be excluded from the trial of the charges against him,” but this will require a separate hearing.