TORONTO

Mayor Rob Ford insists he has no connection to the Anthony Smith killing and is growing "tired" of innuendos suggesting otherwise.

Same goes for media questions sent to the mayor's office asking whether he was involved in having former football players he coached assault his sister's ex-boyfriend inside the Toronto West Detention Centre.

"It pisses me off," Ford said of tweets, questions and gossip.

And, he said, it's not true. With reporters asking such questions, Ford said he felt he needed to set the record straight so that there's no further ambiguity.

There was also a media report Tuesday quoting a defence lawyer saying the disclosure in the case in which his client was cleared in the slaying of Smith was happening because of an "ongoing investigation" by Toronto Police.

Police didn't comment on the lawyer's conjecture.

But Ford still wanted to clear the air.

"I had nothing to do with it," he said of Smith's death.

Smith was one of the men in the infamous photo with Ford outside an Etobicoke residence.

Another man in the photo, Muhammad Khattak, was wounded.

Ford's comments came just hours after a second person implicated in Smith's slaying had his charges stayed.

Hanad Mohamed, 23, was originally one of two men charged with first-degree murder in Smith's death outside of a club.

His charges were later reduced to being an accessory after the fact to manslaughter.

"I don't know anything about it," said the mayor, adding that he thinks it comes down to it being "a coincidence" that they were all in the picture together.

Ford says suggestions he was involved have to stop and he will consider suing if they persist.

"It takes a lot for me to take legal action, but if it continues, I may have to," he said, adding he has been patient, but "people should be careful what they write."

The same goes for suggestions contained in an e-mail from a Toronto newspaper reporter, which Ford says paints a "fictional" picture.

He says it asks questions about whether Aedan Petros, a former football player from his Don Bosco Eagles, could have been involved in an alleged jail-house assault on his sister's former boyfriend, Scott MacIntyre.

Toronto Police have said Petros and fellow former Don Bosco football player Rexford Williams were charged in August 2011 with armed robbery, threatening death, aggravated assault and weapons charges after an alleged home invasion.

Ford said the reporter asked whether Petros was involved in the attck on the man, who allegedly barged into Ford's house and threatened him.

Last November, the Sun's Sam Pazzano reported that a former common-law spouse of Kathy Ford who vowed to expose the Ford family to the media was savagely beaten in jail because he was a "bother" to the Toronto mayor.

Justice Paul French said MacIntyre "was viciously attacked and severely beaten" by inmates on March 12, 2012, in an act of "jail-house justice" after he sent two letters.

French concluded MacIntyre was beaten because of his being a bother to Ford.

The mayor said Tuesday suggestions he was involved is "so far fetched."

He also said being asked by media whether he "directed" the alleged assault is something that's "way out there" and wouldn't dignify with a response.

Ford, who repeated that he's working on his own personal failures, said he's proud of his coaching accomplishments and the success of many of his players.

"I have coached thousands of kids in 22 years," he said. "Many have gone on to great things, including receiving scholarships. Some haven't.Many have told me they would have ended up dead or in jail, and that has happened in (some cases). I can't control what they do after their football career or what they do at 3 a.m. All I know is when I had them they were in control and were doing fine."