A “domestic assault” call to Mayor Rob Ford’s house in August disrupted a nearby police sting involving alleged drug dealer and Ford friend Alexander “Sandro” Lisi, court documents released by a judge reveal.

The trouble at the Ford house prompted Lisi to make a rapid flurry of calls to Ford and city hall staffer Dave Price, and apparently stopped him from driving into the sting. The domestic call also sent uniformed officers to Ford’s house and caused the undercover detectives to break off surveillance that August evening.

After the domestic assault call, Ford left his home and checked in to the Grand Hotel on Jarvis St. for three nights, attending the Stephen Harper Conservative barbecue at Sunnybrook Park on one of those evenings. Lisi also paid a visit to the hotel on the first night, according to police documents.

A teacher who happened to ride by on a bicycle on the day before the barbecue says he observed the mayor parked in his Cadillac Escalade on a back street behind the Grand Hotel, accepting something from a man on foot.

The area behind the hotel is known as “crack central” by locals. The Star does not know what Ford was handed by the man on foot.

The late August call to investigate an allegation of domestic assault at Ford’s house is one of many contacts — more than two dozen — that uniformed officers have had with members of the Ford family over the past eight years. The Star’s sources have said these “interactions” include domestic violence calls.

Ford was charged in 2008 with assaulting and threatening to kill his wife. The charges were withdrawn by a Crown attorney, who cited “inconsistencies” in his wife, Renata’s, statements. Ford has not been charged in connection with any of the other police interactions with him.

Ford has not responded to questions about these matters.

The Star has also learned of other trouble calls to the mayor’s house, including one in 2012 in which local officers arrived to find Ford outside his house in the early morning hours yelling into his phone, while a stretch limousine idled on the road and its driver and a scantily clad woman stood in Ford’s driveway, arguing. An emergency official with knowledge of the incident described it to the Star.

Toronto Police spokesperson Mark Pugash will not answer any questions about calls to Ford’s house. The senior police officer in Etobicoke, Supt. Ron Taverner, was given a series of questions about incidents involving the mayor last Thursday but has yet to respond.

The Star has confirmed through police sources that the reason Project Brazen 2 was set up using officers from homicide and other areas separate from the Etobicoke policing network is that Chief Bill Blair wanted to limit interaction with local officers. For that reason, Brazen 2 detectives worked out of a secret office, outside of the normal police detachments.

Little is known about police contact with the mayor. Recently, the Star’s Rosie Dimanno reported on a Dec. 23, 2012, domestic assault investigation relating to the mayor and his wife after the Star obtained a document describing that trouble call. No charges were laid.

The most recent incident known to the Star occurred on Aug. 27 of this year, during the Project Brazen 2 investigation into Ford and others in Etobicoke.

Here’s what happened, according to documents filed in court in support of a search warrant application to enter Lisi’s parents’ home and car. None of these allegations have been tested in court.

An undercover detective posing as someone trying to buy drugs had several meetings with the owner of a dry-cleaning shop at the Richview Plaza, Jamshid Bahrami, who was suspected of having drug connections. The dry cleaner had told the undercover officer he had two connections: a man named Dan, and another named Sandro, whom the dry cleaner described as “the mayor’s bodyguard.”

In the hope of doing a drug deal with Lisi, police set up surveillance on the dry-cleaner’s store on Tuesday, Aug. 27. They were “anticipating Lisi to attend” at the store. A tracking device on Lisi’s Range Rover told detectives that Lisi was south of them, at a house police suspected was somehow connected to an alleged drug business.

Over the police scanners at 6:51 p.m. came a report of a domestic issue at Ford’s home, an address well known to detectives. Immediately, police surveillance reported that Lisi’s Range Rover, which was south of Ford’s home, was on the move and Lisi was headed north, while “staying in back and forth cellular contact with Mayor Ford and/or David Price.”

Much of the police document remains blacked out, but there are two clues to what lies beneath two blacked-out pages. In one section, police note “August 27, 2013, Police Attend Mayor Ford’s residence.” In another section, police write “the call was characterized as a domestic assault.”

Following the two blacked-out pages, detectives note that, following the trouble call to Ford’s house, the first call between Lisi and Ford occurred seven minutes later. A rapid series of at least 18 calls ensued between Ford, Lisi and Price.

Then, police note, Lisi was tracked downtown, where he made a stop at the Grand Hotel on Jarvis St.

Lisi has faced multiple accusations of threatening women and was recently convicted of threatening to kill a young woman — a conviction he is appealing.

The Star has interviewed hotel staff and other sources and determined that Ford checked in and stayed from that Tuesday, Aug. 27, evening to Friday, Aug. 30. The Grand Hotel is in the Moss Park neighbourhood, one of the city’s poorest. The area is home to several homeless shelters and, according to police statistics, was the neighbourhood with the highest rate of drug charges laid in 2011.

On Wednesday, Aug. 28, at 5 p.m., Toronto teacher Walter Azzalini was cycling on his way to play tennis when he saw Ford in his black Escalade in an area immediately east of the Grand Hotel. Azzalini told the Star that he saw Ford motion to someone on the street and the man came up to him, accepted something from Ford, then left. Ford backed onto a parking pad adjacent to Gabrielle Roy school and the man reappeared and passed something to Ford through the open window of the Escalade. Azzalini said he found the interaction odd.

Azzalini said “it was very clearly the mayor, and it was an unusual thing to see at that time of day.”

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The Star does not know what changed hands between the man, described as being in his early 20s, and the mayor.

The next day, Thursday, Aug. 29, the Stephen Harper barbecue, a Conservative party event, was held at Sunnybrook Park.

Earlier that day, Ford told reporters he planned to pitch his Scarborough subway proposal to the prime minister “over a hamburger.” But the meeting, which the Prime Minister’s Office says was never scheduled, did not take place. A federal source with knowledge of the event said local organizers kept the mayor from meeting the prime minister because they were concerned he was intoxicated.

Ford showed up at the beginning of the event and posed for photos with many of the attendees. At some point during the evening, the mayor left without ever approaching the prime minister, according to other sources with knowledge of the evening. The sources say that because there were concerns that the mayor left the event impaired and drove back to the Grand Hotel, police visited him later that evening.

As to what happened to the domestic assault investigation at Ford’s house, the only other uncensored information in the police documents describes how Duty Insp. Tim Crone was dispatched to the domestic call. The Star has previously learned that a senior officer is always dispatched to the Ford’s house when there is a trouble call. Crone could not be reached for comment.

Mayor Ford and his staff did not respond to detailed questions about the matters in this story.

The Star also requested an interview with Chief Bill Blair, but Pugash said Blair was not available.

The sting operation eventually led to drug trafficking charges against Lisi in October. Three other men also face drug charges linked to the ongoing investigation. Lisi has also been charged with extortion, in connection with an alleged attempt to retrieve the crack video that shows Ford smoking what appears to be crack cocaine and making homophobic and racial slurs.

Other police interactions with Ford include:

Dec. 23, 2012: Police officers from 22 Division in Etobicoke were called to the home of Renata Ford’s parents. According to a police report, Renata, Ford’s wife, had a “fare dispute with a taxi cab driver.”

“Upon speaking with Mrs. Ford, officers observed numerous physical injuries including scrapes, bruising and cuts about Mrs. Ford’s face and body. The injuries appeared to be several days old and investigation revealed Mrs. Ford had attended” at hospital to receive treatment, the report states. “Mrs. Ford alleged a domestic incident had taken place earlier this evening, but that the injuries were not related to that event.”

Police state in the report that Renata Ford had been drinking and would not cooperate in the investigation. Police took her to hospital and passed the report on to detectives for further investigation. Police have said no charges were laid.

In March 2008, police were called to the mayor’s home, where Ford was arrested and charged with assaulting and uttering a death threat to his wife. But the Crown withdrew the charges because of inconsistencies in Renata Ford’s allegations.

According to the Star’s report on the court hearing, the charges stemmed from a series of events that began on the evening of March 25, 2008, when Ford said he came home to “verbal abuse” from his wife, after which a 911 call was made from the house.

Ford then took his two kids to his mother’s house for the night. In the morning, Ford returned home to take a shower and change his clothes, after which Renata Ford called 911. Police then laid the charges against Ford.