A federal Crown attorney was accused Thursday of misleading a judge in order to cover up for a dirty cop and trap thorn-in-the-side Toronto defence lawyer Leora Shemesh into committing perjury.

Shemesh is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly telling various lawyers that she had seen a “nanny cam” video of a Peel police drug officer stealing money from a safe in her client’s home, and then allegedly committing perjury by lying about it under oath.

The officer, Const. Ian Dann, initially denied stealing any money but later claimed he had taken some cash to convert Shemesh’s client into a confidential informant.

Her lawyer, Marie Henein, is arguing in pretrial motions that Shemesh’s constitutional rights against self-incrimination were violated when she was forced into the witness box under subpoena.

She is asking Superior Court Justice Gerald Taylor to stay the charges before the trial begins in September.

On Thursday, Henein, for a second day, grilled Lois McKenzie, a Brampton-based Crown working for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. McKenzie conducted the cross-examination of Shemesh that led to the perjury charge after persuading Justice Bruce Durno her testimony was needed to clear the air about the nanny cam video.

Henein is alleging prosecutors orchestrated a coverup to protect Dann while trying to “catch” out the troublesome defence lawyer, who, in an earlier case involving Dann, had already exposed the police as courtroom liars.

“I’m going to suggest to you Ms. McKenzie that you deliberately misled the court into thinking that Ms. Shemesh may have simply made all of this up, this allegation of theft,” Henein said to McKenzie.

“I did not do that,” replied the prosecutor.

“You never tell the court, ‘she’s right he did take money’ ... she’s not pulling this out of thin air, it is true, he took money,’” Henein said.