The five transit enforcement officers on trial for allegedly writing fraudulent tickets were under pressure from TTC management to meet a monthly target, one of their lawyers argued on Tuesday.

Toronto police charged the officers in January 2013, months after the TTC fired them for writing falsified tickets to people of no fixed address from late 2012 to early 2013.

Michael Schmidt, Tony Catic, John Posthumus, Jamie Greenbank and Neil Malik each face at least one count of attempting to obstruct justice and fabricating evidence.

Schmidt's lawyer, Leora Shemesh, told CBC News all of the tickets written by her client were legitimate and authentic.

"The allegation that they were fraudulent is just simply wrong," she said outside the College Park court.

However, Shemesh said, the special constables were "anxiety-filled" and may have been writing more tickets because they were under pressure from TTC management.

Meeting notes revealed in court

In court, Mark Russell, the head of the TTC's special investigations unit who led the probe into the five accused, was cross-examined on Tuesday.

Russell, who testified yesterday that he discovered the fake tickets by tracking the officers using GPS and finding inconsistencies between their paperwork and real whereabouts, was presented with notes from a 2010 meeting that Schmidt attended.

The meeting notes say the police chief — then Bill Blair — had recommended terminating the special constable program and that enforcement officers had fallen "considerably short" of the TTC's own performance targets for criminal code arrests and the number of tickets or cautions handed out.

Manager Fergie Reynolds, who led the meeting, said the enforcement figures may make it difficult to justify the cost of the special constable program.

"Our members need to get back to work," Reynolds said in the meeting, according to the document presented in court.

Reynolds then said it's "not unreasonable" to expect each transit enforcement officer to file 25 Provincial Offences Act or bylaw charges per month, or about two tickets (called "pieces of paper" in the document) for every 1.5 hours of patrol time.

Accused 'swept up' in conflict

Shemesh said her client was "swept up" in that political struggle between the TTC and police.

"People were trying to show they were policing the system," she said.

However, Russell testified he never heard of anyone who was disciplined for not fulfilling the quota.

He did, however, acknowledge that 2010 was a rocky time for TTC special constables. Russell said morale was low, something he said was reflected in some officers' productivity when it came to writing tickets and laying criminal charges.

Russell also said he never met anybody who received one of the allegedly fraudulent tickets, such as Hugh Beach, whose name came up repeatedly. Russell said he has no confirmation that anyone ever received the ticket.

After the accused employees were fired, the TTC alleged the tickets were never served to anybody and that no fines were ever paid as a result.