Mayor Rob Ford behaved in a manner “indicative” of drug trafficking last year and was a frequent visitor to an Etobicoke crackhouse where gang members hung out and where the infamous video was filmed just over a year ago, according to police documents released by a judge Wednesday.

Just after the video was made, Mohamed Siad, who is now facing drug trafficking charges, boasted in a “selfie” video that he had just captured the mayor of Toronto doing drugs. That is how you catch a person “slipping” or “catch a mayor smoking crack,” Siad explains in the short video, filmed in a car, which is described in the police documents.

The documents also reveal that while police have the crack video, they are missing a potentially key recording — Video # 13 on Siad’s phone — that may shed light on what else happened at the crackhouse, at 15 Windsor Rd., last February.

These details have emerged from portions of a recent search warrant document that police used on Jan. 14 to get telephone records for numerous people, including Ford; his former “logistics” man and occasional driver, David Price; former Ford assistant Thomas Beyer; Siad and several others connected to the case. Justice Ian Nordheimer ordered the release of these new documents, while certain portions remain subject to a publication ban until a hearing next week.

A more recent search warrant , approved and sealed on March 7, is the subject of a further application by the Toronto Star and other media to have its contents released. At least some of that document could be released next week. The Star believes that particular warrant was filed in an attempt to obtain video and audio recordings in the iCloud account controlled by Ford friend Alexander “Sandro” Lisi.

Detectives with the Project Brazen 2 investigation are continuing to probe allegations related to Ford, Lisi and others. Lisi has been charged with extortion in connection with attempts to retrieve the crack video from Siad and another man.

In the newly released document, detectives state that their surveillance of Ford and Lisi last year, including multiple meetings and phone calls, led them to believe that Ford and Lisi’s actions were “indicative to that of drug trafficking.” Lisi was charged with drug trafficking in the fall. Ford has not been charged.

Ford did not comment at City Hall on Wednesday when asked about the new documents. His brother and campaign manager, Councillor Doug Ford, told a reporter at one media outlet, the Toronto Sun, that the court release was “political,” suggesting it was timed to the official announcement of John Tory’s candidacy for mayor.

What follows is an account of the night the crack video was filmed, according to the police documents, which have not been tested in court.

One year ago, on Feb. 17, just after the dinner hour, Ford was at the home of his friends Fabio and Elena Basso in Etobicoke. The house is just north of the Dixon Rd. community that at the time was the epicentre for gangs that trafficked in guns and drugs. One man who was with Ford that night was Mohamed Siad, who was later charged, as part of the June 21 Project Traveller raids, with gun trafficking and drug offences. Siad is the man who later tried to sell the video to the Toronto Star and Gawker.com.

According to a recent police interview with Fabio, Ford was often at the Windsor Rd. house. He either called to say he was coming or just showed up. Fabio and Ford went to high school together. Elena is a few years older. Elena has told the Star previously that Ford is “the best mayor Toronto has ever had.” According to the police document, Enzo Basso, their brother, works at the Ford family company, Deco Labels.

Details provided in the police document indicate that Siad may have planned to videotape Ford in the bungalow’s basement. Off-camera that night, according to the police documents, was Elena, making comments the Star (which has seen the video) has previously described as an “attempt to goad” Ford into making comments. As the Star has previously reported, Ford made homophobic and racially charged comments in response to the goading remarks by Elena.

In the video Siad later recorded of himself (at 7:57 p.m. that night), he explains that the best way to surreptitiously film someone is to hold your phone casually as if you are looking at it and “they won’t know what you’re doing as you’re just playing with your phone.”

The video was recorded on Siad’s phone in February.

A description by police detectives contained in the document is consistent with the video described by the Star in earlier stories. Police describe Ford “consuming what appears to be a narcotic while inside a residence” and describe a glass cylinder and Ford applying a flame from a lighter to the cylinder.

No transcript of Ford or Elena’s comments is provided in the document.

The Star was approached about six weeks later, on April 1, by a friend of Siad, Mohamed Farah, who said he had a video for sale. No deal was done and the Star and Gawker reported on the video’s existence on May 17.

Police allege it is around this time that Lisi made attempts to retrieve the video and made several “threatening/extorting phone calls” to people in an attempt to get the video back. People were warned of “consequences” if the video was not returned. Further information related to this is subject to a court ban.

The trail to the video went cold until a “Detective Menard” from the Toronto Police was assigned the task on Oct. 29 of trying to retrieve deleted information from the Siad laptop seized on June 13 in the Project Traveller guns and drugs raids.

Menard found the crack video, and the Traveller detectives passed it on to the Project Brazen 2 detectives. In a news conference shortly after, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair said he was “disappointed” by the video. That remark led to a war of words between Blair and the Ford brothers that culminated with Blair recently handing over control of the Ford probe to the Ontario Provincial Police.

Also found on the Siad laptop was a series of photos of a “firearm.” The document does not make a link between the crack video and the gun photos.

The document says Ford refused the police request to view the video. It describes the frustration detectives had in getting the mayor to talk, or to get others, including Elena Basso, to speak. Elena, according to the police documents, said her father was a master mason who built most of the buildings downtown. She said she did not want to talk about Mayor Ford.

“E. Basso is not angry with Ford, she isn’t trying to protect him, she wasn’t threatened to talk about him, and she didn’t receive legal advice not to talk about him,” the police documents state after they spoke with Elena in November.

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