Quebec Court of Appeal confirms exclusion of evidence in Leonardo Rizzuto case

In 2019, Quebec court judge Julie Riendeau ruled that a search warrant used to search Rizzuto’s home in Laval was illegal.

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The Quebec Court of Appeal rejected the Crown’s appeal of a lower court decision to exclude evidence seized from the home of alleged Montreal mob boss Leonardo Rizzuto six years ago, which resulted in his acquittal of charges. related to cocaine and firearms.

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The decision was delivered Tuesday afternoon.

On February 25, 2019, Quebec court judge Julie Riendeau ruled that a search warrant used to search Rizzuto’s home in Laval was illegal and therefore the two guns and five grams of cocaine found there in November 2015 could not be used as evidence against him.

The search was carried out as part of the Magot-Mastiff Project, an investigation led by the Sûreté du Québec into how the Montreal mob, Hells Angels and certain street gang leaders had come together to distribute drugs in Montreal and elsewhere in Quebec.

When the arrests were made in 2015, the SQ identified Rizzuto, who is a lawyer, and Stefano Sollecito as the leaders of the Montreal mob, and they faced gangster charges as a result of Magot-Mastiff. But they were acquitted of those charges because police investigators violated attorney-client privilege by secretly recording conversations Rizzuto had in his law office.

Riendeau ruled that since the warrant to search Rizzuto’s home was based on the same evidence, it was also illegal.

This article will be updated.

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