TORONTO

Mayor Rob Ford is expected to be served a subpoena compelling him to testify at the preliminary hearing for friend and occasional driver Sandro Lisi on extortion charges.

Sources told the Toronto Sun that Project Brazen 2 investigators are planning to serve the mayor with a subpoena this week.

Lisi is accused of threatening violence against those who were trying to sell the infamous Rob Ford crack video in an effort to try to retrieve it.

Dennis Morris, Ford's criminal lawyer, said Thursday he was not surprised investigators were going to subpoena the mayor. Morris called it a move to bolster a "weak and skeletal case" against Lisi.

Ford may or may not be mayor be the time he would have to testify as the hearing won't take place until after the Oct. 27 municipal election.

If he ends up taking the stand next year, it will likely be the first time Ford will have had to answer questions about Lisi, his interactions with the Dixon City Bloods and his involvement, if any, in trying to recover the crack video.

The mayor has repeatedly refused to answer questions about Lisi.

When Lisi was first arrested on drug charges last October, Ford called him a "good guy."

“And I don’t throw my friends under the bus," he said at the time.

Police documents from Project Brazen 2, released in April, chronicle how intercepts -- in place for the separate Project Traveller police investigation -- find Lisi allegedly placing "several threatening/extorting phone calls” to Liban Siyad and Mohamed Siad, the two men thought to be in possession of the crack video.

“Lisi threatened Siyad that Dixon will get heated up all summer until the phone (video) gets back,” the document states.

Ford has refused to say directly whether he is still friends with Lisi.

When Ford returned from rehab on June 30, he claimed he had broken ties with unspecified individuals.

“I now realize that I was blind to the dangers of some of the company I kept. And those associations have ended," Ford said in the speech he delivered on the day he resumed his duties as mayor.

Days later, Councillor Doug Ford said the mayor "doesn't talk to Lisi."

"He’s ended relationships with Lisi absolutely 100%, that’s what he said, OK, that’s what he told me ... I am 100% confident," said the mayor's brother and campaign manager.

Amin Massoudi, the mayor's press secretary, said Ford was spending the morning making "constituent visits."

He wouldn't say if Ford is meeting with Toronto Police Friday.

"I can't comment on that," Massoudi said.

He referred all questions about the subpoena to Ford's lawyer.

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