Article content

Former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, thought to be an important witness in the upcoming extortion trial of his one-time driver Sandro Lisi, was never interviewed by police or deposed by the Crown in the case before his death last month from cancer.

According to multiple sources, Ford refused to give a voluntary interview to police in the case and the Crown never compelled his testimony under a little used provision of the criminal code that allows such interviews in cases where a witness is gravely ill.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Rob Ford was never questioned by police in Sandro Lisi extortion case Back to video

That means, effectively, that the public will never hear Ford speak under oath about the most sensational of the many legal sagas that bedeviled his mayoralty.

Lisi, who worked for a time as Ford’s unofficial driver, was charged in 2013 with extortion for allegedly threatening a known gang member in an effort to retrieve a recording of the then-mayor smoking crack cocaine.

The extortion charge was the most serious to emerge from a sprawling police investigation, known as Brazen Two, into the actions of Ford and his associates.