TORONTO

Rob Ford's staffers told Toronto Police shocking details about booze, drugs and even a suspected prostitute in the mayor's City Hall office, according to censored documents which have just been unsealed.

The bombshell information is contained in previously redacted police interviews contained in the information to obtain a search warrant into the affairs of Ford's friend Alexander Lisi. Justice Ian Nordheimer agreed with a media request to release some of the previously blacked-out pages in the 474-page ITO on Wednesday.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

Among the newly released information are interviews with former Ford staffers Mark Towhey, David Price, George Christopoulos and Isaac Ransom. The mayor's staff said they witnessed Ford's abuse of alcohol, suspected drug use and incidents of drunk driving.

Some of the most startling allegations concern the night of March 17, 2012.

Ransom, Ford's former special assistant of communications, said he was summoned to City Hall about 9 p.m. on St. Patrick's Day in 2012 and found Ford there with a few people including Alana, a woman he believed may be an escort.

She was described in the document as a young, attractive, blue-eyed blonde. "Alana may have been an escort or prostitute," the document says. "There have been rumours that Mayor Ford has used escorts or prostitutes. Alana has also been seen with Mayor Ford at a stag party."

Ransom told police Ford was drinking from a 40-oz bottle of Smirnoff vodka and had consumed half of it by the time the staffer had arrived at City Hall. "Mayor Ford was trying to get the staff members to drink as well. Mayor Ford would talk about getting hammered, going out then getting laid," the document said.

His staff tried unsuccessfully to convince him not to go to Bier Markt, according to Ransom. He said he saw Alana with pot but managed to stop Ford from smoking the drugs in his office before he left.

According to the documents, Ransom told police Ford took a cab to the bar and "started calling the taxi driver a (racial slur), threw business cards at him and made mocking fake language sounds."

A waiter at the Bier Markt told investigators Ford arrived about 11:30 p.m. and he and his entourage were seated in a private room where he believes he snorted cocaine.

"He noticed the mayor and a female turned in towards each other with their heads down and back from the table and he heard 2 'sniffs' from both of them. It appeared that they were hiding what they were doing," the documents report.

It was after staffer Brooks Barnett told him, "Don't tell anyone about what you saw here tonight," that the waiter said he became convinced Ford must have just done coke.

According to the documents, there were four or five people in the private room including some women who didn't appear to be staffers. About an hour and a half later, the waiter heard that Ford went to the dance floor and pushed people out of the way. The waiter said he later got in trouble from management for telling people Ford did cocaine in the bar's private room.

Bier Markt's manager told police a different story: That he didn't see Ford doing drugs that night and the mayor wasn't kicked out of the bar as some media later reported. A bartender told police he saw the mayor very intoxicated and witnessed him charging the dance floor. He was told by the waiter that Ford had done cocaine that night and the DJ had photos of the mayor "really f---ed up."

Ransom told police Ford sexually harassed a former staff member and a female guard at City Hall.

When Ford returned to City Hall following his intoxicated evening at the bar, Ransom said Ford pushed staffer Earl Provost into a wall and charged at Barnett because he was agitated they were telling him to go home. "The mayor pushed Provost down and raised his hand like he was going to punch him," the court documents said.

"The mayor then charged Barnett and pushed him against the wall and pulled his hand back like he was going to strike him."

Provost took him home in a taxi and when they got there, the inebriated Ford then got into his car and drove off. "The mayor was upset with Provost and when they arrived at the mayor's house he jumped out of the taxi, jumped into his own car, reversed it very quickly almost hitting the taxi and Provost and left the area."

Ford's staff told police that some women came to the mayor's office saying Ford had told them they could have a job after they smoked joints with him outside of bars, the documents say.

Chris Fickel, former executive assistant to Ford's chief of staff, told police he often bought alcohol for the mayor. In December 2012, he said he asked Payman Aboodowleh, who helped coach the Don Bosco football team, why he had stopped talking to Ford. He said he was told Aboodowleh was worried the mayor was doing a lot of cocaine.

Fickel told police he believes Ford is an alcoholic and in the fall of 2012, he saw the mayor drinking a mickey of vodka, chased down by Gatorade, while driving him home from a Don Bosco football practice. Fickel insisted on getting out of Ford's Escalade and took a bus.

While acknowledging that some of the redacted information may bring "possible harm to innocent persons," Nordheimer said that is trumped by the public's right to know. He noted that much of the redacted sections refer to police interviews with "persons connected to the mayor."

But Nordheimer made an exception and will continue to seal references in the ITO to events involving the mayor's wife, "who apparently had some personal issues during the course of the time covered by the ITO."

"I do not see any reason at this stage why her personal circumstances need to be made public," he wrote in his decision.

Dates of birth, licence plate numbers and telephone numbers will also be blacked out as well as any portions that directly related to Lisi's fair trial rights.

Project Brazen ITO Released Nov. 13, 2013

Photographs in Project Brazen ITO Released Nov. 13, 2013 by cynthia_mcleod213