A woman charged with drunk driving in cottage country has been linked to Mayor Rob Ford after she was reportedly pulled over in his SUV.

Ford’s black Escalade — which in Toronto was tailed by police for months last year during an investigation into the mayor — has been impounded in the Muskoka Lakes region, according to several unconfirmed reports.

LeeAnne McRobb, a 36-year-old woman from Muskoka Lakes Township, has been charged with impaired driving and driving over the legal limit after she was pulled over by Bracebridge OPP near Muskoka Road 169 and Butterfly Rd. around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Toronto’s mayor is known to be in the area while believed to be in rehab at the GreeneStone treatment centre.

The rehab facility is less than four kilometres from where police pulled McRobb over.

When reached by the Star, McRobb’s sister, Lindsay Sarrasin, confirmed it is her sister who appears in two videos shot by Moose FM reporters talking about being at GreeneStone with Ford.





The Escalade is not her sister’s, Sarrasin said, but she doesn’t know who owns it.

When asked whether her sister was at GreeneStone and if she met Ford there, Sarrasin said she was not ready to answer those questions.

“I really can’t say much about anything,” Sarrasin said. “She’s never been in trouble before.”

Ford’s criminal lawyer, Dennis Morris, said he knew nothing about the incident or of the woman charged.

“I haven’t heard of any female by that name,” Morris told the Star.

He could also not say whether Ford’s vehicle was with him at the treatment facility. Councillor Doug Ford could not be reached for comment.

In the first of two YouTube videos posted Wednesday by Moose FM, McRobb is seen entering Northland Towing and Recovery in Gravenhurst. She tells an employee behind the counter: “Nice watch, very nice. I don’t know where mine is. I can’t find it. It’s driving me crazy. Not having a watch is just not good. I’ve got a really nice one too. I think I left it at GreeneStone. I think it’s in Rob Ford’s room.”

The woman tells the employee she was arrested for drinking and driving a day earlier and wanted to get her personal belongings out of the car. “It’s not my vehicle, but all my stuff is in it.”

When Matt Sitler, Moose FM’s regional cluster news director for cottage country, asks about Ford, McRobb at first brushes it off. When he asks why she was driving Ford’s car, the woman replies: “Who said I was driving his car?”

Asked whether she was in rehab with Ford, McRobb says: “I was, but I’m out of there.”

In the second video, which continues after the first, McRobb says Ford is doing “top notch” in rehab.

When asked again how she ended up in Ford’s car, McRobb says: “It doesn’t matter. . . . That’s for me to know.”

McRobb’s Muskoka Lakes homes, located near a firehall, was dark Tuesday night. Next-door neighbour Sherri Taylor said she hadn’t seen McRobb for the last three weeks, since she asked Taylor if she would check in on the house while she was gone on a weeks-long alcohol detox.

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Though McRobb was “happy and bubbly” when she met her last summer — frequently outside playing with her young son, who Taylor believes is 6 or 7. But by winter, McRobb was “going through rough times.”

Though she hasn’t seen the woman for weeks, she said noticed a black escalade parked in the driveway of McRobb’s house on two different occasions in the last few days.

“Twice this week. That’s very interesting. I didn’t catch the licence plate because I try not to be a nosy neighbour,” she said. “I’m sure it was one day on the weekend. I distinctly remember it.”

She said she did not see anybody coming or going from the car.

A Northland Towing representative confirmed his company received a black Escalade and that it is in their impound lot. He said the vehicle will remain there until the OPP chooses to release it.

The employee told the Star the woman showed him ID confirming she was LeeAnne McRobb. After verifying the ID, the employee allowed McRobb to collect her personal belongings from the SUV.

Sitler, who was at the lot with reporter Carly Verhoeven, said the woman showed up around 3 p.m. Wednesday and collected a bunch of belongings from the back of the SUV, which had no licence plates.

Sitler said Bracebridge OPP told him they did not remove the plates, nor is it standard procedure. The Northland employee also denied removing the plates, he said.

The Star could not reach local OPP officers for comment Wednesday.

Ford and his SUV were spotted in Bracebridge and Gravenhurst last week when he stopped to pose for pictures with several locals.

Debbie Lisle, who took a picture of her son posing with the mayor outside a Bank of Montreal in Bracebridge, said Wednesday that Ford had been in good spirits.

Lisle (who works for Metroland Media Group, a division of Torstar) said Ford spent 20 to 30 minutes at the bank, going in and out and speaking to a woman with light-coloured hair in her 40s or 50s parked in a blue Chevrolet Blazer.

“I didn’t see him leave in a vehicle,” Lisle said. “He seemed happy.”