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This article was published 24/3/2010 (3843 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG - Two Winnipeg police officers have been ordered to stand trial on perjury charges stemming from an allegedly improper search of a downtown hotel room and the seizure of two pounds of cocaine.

A provincial court judge ruled Wednesday there was sufficient evidence to proceed with the case against Const. Peter O’Kane and Const. Jess Zebrun, who is the stepson of retired police chief Jack Ewatski.

A court-ordered ban prevents specific details of the preliminary hearing from being published. No trial dates have been set.

O’Kane, 39, and Zebrun, 32, were arrested in January 2008 after they allegedly took an illegal shortcut to arrest a known drug dealer.

The internal investigation against the officers started in November 2006, after the Crown stayed drug-trafficking charges against the suspect and an accomplice after questions were raised during a preliminary hearing over the validity of a police search warrant.

O’Kane and Zebrun are alleged to have lied under oath as to how they obtained the search warrant, which was used to enter a room at the Fairmont hotel and seize the cocaine and $30,000 cash.

When they testified at the preliminary hearing, O’Kane and Zebrun claimed their suspicions about the hotel room weren’t based on an illegal "sneak-and- peek" but rather on the information of a mysterious informant. The pair told a judge they did not enter Room 1707 at the Fairmont until after they had obtained a search warrant, which they based on a tip from the unknown source.

They also gave different accounts in court of when they first went to the hotel the day of the July 2005 arrests.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca