The case of a missing ticket
Michael Di Biase charged with running three red lights

Two infractions withdrawn, one disappears from system


JOHN DUNCANSON AND PHINJO GOMBU
STAFF REPORTERS

Vaughan Mayor Michael Di Biase has been charged with running three red lights in 15 months by York Region police.

Two of the tickets were withdrawn when officers didn't show up in court, records show.

The third, laid after a December, 2002, accident, simply disappeared.

In that case, Di Biase, who has been mayor of Vaughan since April, 2002, was on his way back from a swearing-in ceremony in Newmarket for York Region Police Chief Armand La Barge, when his car suddenly accelerated while stopped at a red light on Bathurst St. and Wellington St. in Aurora. Witnesses said he was on his cellphone. Di Biase said he wasn't.

Di Biase's car, a blue city-owned 2003 Acura, T-boned the passenger side of a BMW driven by Margot Marshall, a former York Region police commissioner and Whitchurch-Stouffville councillor, spinning her car around three times before stopping near a light standard.

York Region police Constable John Elliott, the first officer on the scene, wrote up the mayor for running a red light. A conviction carries a penalty of three demerit points.

Elliott said the next day he put the ticket in a pile of others that were then put in a zippered blue pouch in the police station, so that it could be sent to a local courthouse to be processed.

But something happened.

Nowhere does the provincial offence act ticket issued to Di Biase on Dec. 12, 2002, show up in the Ministry of the Attorney-General's main computer tracking system, called ICON.

The network, which links courthouses across Ontario, is used to track criminal and provincial offence charges, such as traffic tickets.

Brendan Crawley, an attorney-general's spokesperson, said the ICON system is designed to retain the dispositions, or outcomes, of all provincial offence charges for two years — after they're dealt with in court or after a fine is paid.

"That can be a conviction, an acquittal, a stay, a withdrawal," Crawley said. "Any of those things, in our language, is a disposition."

So, what happened to Di Biase's ticket?

Elliott, the police officer who issued the ticket, doesn't know.

Crawley said yesterday that attorney-general staff conducted a thorough search of the ministry's ICON system for the Dec. 12, 2002, accident, by Di Biase's name, driver's licence and ticket number, but found no record of the incident.

"We can't find it (the ticket)," Crawley said, adding that if the charge was entered into the system, it should be on it.

Although ICON is the province's computer, it's the responsibility of the police and each individual municipality to ensure tickets are properly processed.

York Region police spokesperson Kathleen Griffin said yesterday the force is in the process of trying to track down what happened.

For his part, Di Biase says he doesn't recall what happened to the ticket.

He said he personally hired a professional ticket-troubleshooting agency but wouldn't identify the company that took care of it.

Di Biase said he never went to court.

"I went to a private agency and they dealt with it," Di Biase said repeatedly. "It was looked after by them."

The other two times Di Biase was charged with running red lights, they were recorded on the province's ICON computer system.

In one case, Di Biase, then a regional councillor, hit a car driven by an 81-year-old Rosedale resident on Highway 7 near Highway 27.

That September, 2001, charge was withdrawn when police didn't show up in traffic court, provincial records show.

Six months later, and just weeks before he became mayor of Canada's fastest growing community, Di Biase was driving along Highway 7 when he was ticketed again for failing to stop at a red light. This ticket, too, was withdrawn in court, records show, because the officer who wrote up the infraction also didn't show up.

Di Biase says he never went to court for these two tickets as well. Again, he hired a private agency to handle his ticket but doesn't recall the outcome.

In the past, it wasn't uncommon for police to not show up in traffic court, resulting in tickets being thrown out. But recently, many forces have adopted strict policies to ensure officers are in court to handle tickets.

The York Region police service policy is clear.

"All officers are required to attend court for every single ticket they issue," said Griffin, adding the only time they are excused is if they have permission from their supervisor or are called out on a more serious matter.

Even if the next court day lands on a day off, they are supposed to apply for an adjournment, Griffin said.

Margot Marshall was looking forward to her annual Christmas get-together with "the gals" in King City.

She remembers it vividly because it always takes place the same date every year — Dec. 12.

It was a beautiful, clear, crisp, sunny, winter morning with the roads free of snow.

Marshall says she was westbound on Wellington St. west of Aurora, heading through a green light at the intersection of Bathurst St., when suddenly everything began to move in slow motion.

"I saw the car coming, that's why I blew the horn," recalled Marshall, saying she still gets the shakes thinking about getting hit, though she wasn't physically hurt.

"I could see the driver. He was on the phone," Marshall said, adding she only found out after the accident that Di Biase was the mayor.

"I saw the whole thing and there was nothing I could do ... knew he wasn't going to stop."

An independent witness travelling in the lane beside Marshall's 2001 BMW told the Star he gave police a statement describing what he had seen but never heard back from them again.

"I couldn't believe my eyes," recalled the witness who did not wish to be identified.

The witness said he narrowly missed — by seconds — being hit himself with Di Biase's car. "He pulled out right in front of me ... I could see the whites of his eyes."

Neither Marshall nor the witness said they were informed of any court appearances. In fact, Marshall said she never knew Di Biase had been charged.

A crowd soon gathered at the accident scene, including Tony Thompson, the city's bylaw manager, as well as a staff member from the mayor's office.

Marshall said Di Biase apologized profusely as police conducted the crash scene investigation.

It was left up to Constable Elliott to decide if Di Biase should be charged.

According to the patrol officer, who works out of a Newmarket station, he did just that. In fact, the crash was reviewed by other traffic officers on the instruction of police chief La Barge.

Someone had complained the mayor should have been charged with the more serious offence of dangerous driving, Elliott said.

"I didn't see any evidence to support dangerous driving," Elliott said.

Elliott said he was not aware at the time that the mayor had previously been twice charged with running a red light. He sent the ticket to be processed.

As for his recollection of what happened after, Elliott said he thought the mayor had paid his fine and that he had been registered as being convicted of the offence.

Elliott also filed an official accident report within 10 days, as required by the Ministry of Transportation, in which he stated that the car driven by Di Biase had "entered the intersection on a red light, striking" Marshall's car.

In his report, he said Di Biase had been charged under Section 144-18 of the Highway Traffic Act.

The Star was unable to locate that ticket on the ICON network, even though the previous two charges of running a red light that had been withdrawn were still listed on the attorney-general's computer system in Richmond Hill and Newmarket courthouses.

Additional searches done by York Region court staff, based on Di Biase's name and driver's licence number, also failed to produce the ticket issued by Elliott.

Meanwhile, Marshall's BMW, costing more than $60,000, had to have its frame straightened and doors replaced, costing $20,000.

The car wasn't written off because the engine was not damaged in the crash, she said.

The mayor's Acura, paid for by the city, was more severely damaged.

While Marshall waited for a flatbed to take her car to a BMW certified garage, the mayor's car was picked up by a Hometown Towing truck and taken to the city of Vaughan's joint operations centre on Rutherford Rd. near Jane St., where an official told another city employee to put the wrecked car under a tarp.

"They didn't want any city employees to see the mayor's car," a source familiar with the accident said.

Di Biase said he doesn't know what happened to the car he was driving because the matter was turned over to an insurance company.


Sergeant Cam Woolley, of the Ontario Provincial Police Traffic Support Unit, arguably the most recognizable police officer in the province because of his colourful accounts of long weekend highway blitzes, says the provincial ticket system is supposed to be foolproof.

Woolley said the system has been designed in such a way that tickets cannot just disappear.

"It's a myth that a ticket can be fixed, because fixing a ticket implies that you can make it go away," Woolley said.

Woolley said police take the ticket business very seriously and it is considered a criminal offence for anybody to try to get a break or make a ticket disappear.

The cornerstone of the system is based on a charge being dealt with in open court, Woolley said.

The only exception is a first offence court, where someone charged with a traffic violation can meet with a crown attorney to plead the case before a court appearance.

But even then, the charge and its disposition is tracked and kept on the ICON system for two years from the date the charge was last dealt with by the justice system.

Woolley said the law requires that once an officer writes up a ticket, he or she must send the ticket to the local courthouse within seven days to be inputted into the ICON computer system.

That marks the entry of the ticket into the court system.

Although the regulations give an officer seven days, most do it right away at the end of their shifts or the next day, Woolley said.

The only ways a ticket won't show up in court, Woolley explained, is through an egregious clerical error or if the officer fails to place the ticket in the pouch or the locked box.

In the latter case, if someone charged with an offence tries to pay a fine by mail, there would be no record of it and the court system would reject the payment effort.

If that happens, no conviction is registered.

Woolley said an officer who fails to submit a ticket within seven days usually has to have a pretty good explanation for why that occurred — with officers being handed serial numbered pads of offence notices to facilitate the tracking of what happened to a charge.

If an honest mistake is made and an officer fails to process the ticket within seven days, the law allows a crown attorney to lay the charge again within a six-month period.

Di Biase traffic tickets spark probe
Vaughan mayor had three charges
Police chief acts after Star story


JOHN DUNCANSON AND PHINJO GOMBU
STAFF REPORTERS

York Region Police Chief Armand La Barge has launched an internal investigation into how his officers handled three tickets charging Vaughan Mayor Michael Di Biase with running red lights, including one ticket that disappeared.

La Barge also has ordered an audit of the process of how all charges (including traffic offences) are laid by his force to ensure his officers are sticking to the mandatory practice of always showing up in court for their cases.

The probe follows a story in yesterday's Saturday Star detailing three cases over a 15-month period where Di Biase was charged by police with running a red light. Two of the tickets were withdrawn after police didn't show up in court. A third, issued Dec. 12, 2002, never made it to the province's main court computer for processing.

"We are diligently trying to find out what the circumstances are surrounding all three tickets," said La Barge, adding he believes that missing ticket will be found and that no one purposely tried to interfere with it.

"I'm still holding out a hope and belief that it is probably somewhere in that (court) system and the system just didn't spit it out properly. If that's not the case, then we will have to deal with whatever the outcome is."

One of La Barge's superintendents is heading up the probe and already the three officers who wrote the Highway Traffic Act offence notices have been contacted and asked to explain what happened to the tickets once they were issued to Di Biase.

La Barge confirmed that two of the red-light charges against Di Biase were withdrawn because his officers weren't in court.

"It's an unfortunate situation," La Barge said. "I would have liked to have had the opportunity for these officers to testify in court, but something happened."

After discussions with the officers, La Barge said they appear to have had good reasons to miss court when Di Biase's tickets were dealt with.

"I can tell you in my mind at this point in time it wasn't something inappropriate, but if it was we'll deal with that," he said. He did not elaborate on the details of why the officers missed the court dates.

Still, with more than 100,000 tickets issued each year, La Barge said they want to make sure that his officers and their supervisors are doing everything they can to make court for every charge.

"If we are not adhering to procedures for attending court, or if we can make some improvements to ensure that this can be better dealt with, then we'll look at that as well," La Barge said.

He said that in about 80 per cent of cases, drivers plead guilty prior to a trial, leaving about 20,000 tickets to be processed through the courts each year in York Region.

He said that police try to have court dates fit into an officer's schedule, but there are times when officers can't make court because they are tied up with a current assignment or emergency call.

A red-light ticket like the ones issued to Di Biase carries a fine of $190 and a loss of three demerit points upon conviction.

The first ticket issued Di Biase was in September, 2001 when he was still a regional councillor. In that case, Di Biase's car collided with another vehicle driven by an 81-year-old Rosedale resident on Highway 7 near Highway 27.

The charge was withdrawn in February of last year.

Just weeks before he became mayor of Vaughan, in March, 2002, Di Biase was again charged with running a red light — section 144-18 of the Highway Traffic Act — on Highway 7. It was withdrawn in July of last year.

The ticket that police and the ministry of the attorney-general can't find was laid Dec. 12, 2002, after Di Biase's vehicle struck the passenger side of a BMW driven by Margot Marshall, former York Region police commissioner and Whitchurch-Stouffville councillor.

According to Marshall, the impact sent her car spinning around three times before it came to rest near a light standard. Witnesses said Di Biase, who was driving a city-owned blue Acura, was on a cell phone when his car entered the intersection at Bathurst St. and Wellington St. in Aurora, hitting the BMW. Di Biase says he wasn't using the phone.

Marshall wasn't injured and Di Biase was handed a ticket for running a red light by Constable John Elliott, who said he processed the ticket properly and thought it was sent along to court.

But that ticket can't be found on the attorney-general's main tracking computer, called ICON.

The network, which is in courthouses across Ontario, is used to track criminal and provincial offence charges, including tickets.

The system is designed to retain the dispositions, or outcomes, of charges for two years following the resolution of the case. Even if the charge is withdrawn, it's supposed to be kept on the system.

Di Biase said he hired a traffic ticket agency to represent him in court for the ticket issued by Elliott. Di Biase said he doesn't remember what happened to the ticket, but said he never went to court for it.

He refused to identify the agency he hired to fight the ticket, but said he had used similar services when he was issued the other two tickets that eventually were withdrawn in court.

La Barge also has ordered an audit of the process of how all charges (including traffic offences) are laid by his force to ensure his officers are sticking to the mandatory practice of always showing up in court for their cases.

Still, with more than 100,000 tickets issued each year, La Barge said they want to make sure that his officers and their supervisors are doing everything they can to make court for every charge.

"If we are not adhering to procedures for attending court, or if we can make some improvements to ensure that this can be better dealt with, then we'll look at that as well," La Barge said.

He said that in about 80 per cent of cases, drivers plead guilty prior to a trial, leaving about 20,000 tickets to be processed through the courts each year in York Region.

He said that police try to have court dates fit into an officer's schedule, but there are times when officers can't make court because they are tied up with a current assignment or emergency call.

A red-light ticket like the ones issued to Di Biase carries a fine of $190 and a loss of three demerit points upon conviction.

But that ticket can't be found on the attorney-general's main tracking computer, called ICON.

The network, which is in courthouses across Ontario, is used to track criminal and provincial offence charges, including tickets.

The system is designed to retain the dispositions, or outcomes, of charges for two years following the resolution of the case. Even if the charge is withdrawn, it's supposed to be kept on the system.

Di Biase said he hired a traffic ticket agency to represent him in court for the ticket issued by Elliott. Di Biase said he doesn't remember what happened to the ticket, but said he never went to court for it.

He refused to identify the agency he hired to fight the ticket, but said he had used similar services when he was issued the other two tickets that eventually were withdrawn in court.