In 2010, a judge ruled that Nosakhare Ohenhen’s version of events detailing his arrest, including the allegation that Toronto police planted drugs on him, to be a “fabrication” and “totally implausible.”

He was convicted on a number of drug and firearm offences, as well as for resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. He was sentenced to nine years in prison, with credit for time spent in custody since his 2008 arrest.

After having completed his sentence, the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered a new trial in 2015, finding the judge made errors in assessing Ohenhen’s credibility.

And then last month, following the conclusion of that second trial, a different judge ruled that he largely accepted Ohenhen’s evidence, that the police officers’ testimony at the retrial was “troubling,” and that Ohenhen’s rights to not be arbitrarily detained and unreasonably searched, as well as his right to a lawyer, were “totally and shockingly ignored by the police.”

Three years after he was released from prison, Ohenhen was acquitted of all charges — the very same charges for which he spent nearly six years behind bars.

“I actually shed a tear in the courtroom, I didn’t think anything like this was possible,” Ohenhen, 36, told the Star. “After the first trial, I was destroyed, because I was expecting I was going to go home.”

Most importantly for Ohenhen, Superior Court Justice Michael Quigley found that the case also raises the “serious prospect” that police planted drugs on him.

“Despite the evidential factors that point in that direction, I remain uncertain of whether that actually occurred, though it certainly remains distinctly possible and arguably probable on the evidence,” Quigley said.

In prison, Ohenhen said he was subjected to fights, riots and lockdowns. He was stabbed several times, and has a scar on his left hand to prove it.

“I’ll never get those years back,” he said.

Ohenhen was finally released from prison to a halfway house in December 2013. He now lives with his girlfriend, and wants to get on with his life by starting a family and a record label.

A big reason for the delay in getting his appeal heard was the fact that the court reporter from his first trial had retired and the recording could not be located.

“I kept calling from prison, wondering when the appeal would happen. I waited a whole year,” Ohenhen said. “Then two years. Gone. Three years. Gone.”

His appeal lawyer, Anthony Moustacalis, explained that under the previous system for court recording, the court reporter who worked on the trial was the only person who could certify the transcript for the appeal. He said it took years to track down the reporter and the recording. (Under the new system, any certified transcriptionist can access a court recording at the courthouse and certify the transcript.)

Even though he had already served his sentence when the appeal was finally ready to be heard in 2015, Ohenhen said he wanted to go ahead with it, to clear his name.

“I just can’t forget about it,” he said.

Toronto police’s professional standards unit is now investigating the matter, said police spokesman Mark Pugash.

“We are pleased with the decision of the court,” said Ohenhen’s lawyer for the second trial, Luc Leclair. “At the end of the day, justice and the rule of law prevailed.”

Ohenhen, then 28, was arrested near Parkdale Collegiate Institute on Aug. 21, 2008, according to Quigley’s ruling from the retrial. Two officers had varying stories over why he was pulled over — one said because he didn’t have his seatbelt on, the other because of loud music.

But the judge said Ohenhen’s version was “much more likely,” that he had parked his green Jaguar in a parking lot and was walking toward a friend’s house when he encountered the police at the entrance to the lot, asking for his identification.

“The officers’ evidence about carding practices in Toronto and the plain and legitimate concerns about racial stereotyping raises the concern that Mr. Ohenhen was pulled over at least in part because he was a black man driving an expensive car,” Quigley wrote.

Const. Kyle Mildenberger testified he saw a bulge at Ohenhen’s waist and lifted up his jersey, believing it was a firearm, but it turned out to just be Ohenhen’s belt buckle. He claimed that he only touched the belt area, but the judge noted that the booking video from the police station “plainly shows that the jersey worn by Mr. Ohenhen has been grabbed and stretched and torn in the upper chest area.”

In the process, Const. Adam Landry had radioed for information on the owner of the Jaguar. Ohenhen, who did own the vehicle, testified that he knew the broadcast would have also identified him as an individual with a criminal past and to be approached cautiously.

According to Quigley’s ruling, Ohenhen had an “extensive and varied” criminal record that involves drug trafficking offenses and firearms possession. He “plainly admitted” to dealing drugs, Quigley said.

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“I didn’t pull the wool over anyone’s eyes,” he told the Star. “I wanted the system to know I was being honest here. It happened. Growing up in Parkdale, when I was younger, I had problems. I’m not an angel.”

As he heard the radio broadcast to Landry, Ohenhen ran.

“Mr. Ohenhen said he ran because he knew the officer was not going to let him go after hearing that broadcast,” Quigley wrote. “The officer was aggressive and had pulled his shirt when he told him he could not leave until permitted to do so. The officer gave him no reason why he was being detained or why he had been stopped.”

He was soon apprehended and brought face first to the ground. He testified he heard an officer say “We’ll think of something.”

About a half hour prior to Ohenhen’s arrest, Const. Scott Tait and Const. Craig Westell had stopped a young man nearby and confiscated crack cocaine and marijuana from him. Westell testified that he put the drugs in his left breast pocket.

They arrived at the scene of Ohenhen’s arrest to find three officers trying to subdue him. Police said they conducted a pat-down search and said they found a baggy of drugs and a wad of money. Ohenhen’s car was also searched, even though it was admitted in court that police didn’t have a warrant.

Inside the car — which the judge found had been illegally searched — police said they discovered a fully loaded handgun.

Ohenhen was placed in the back of a squad car, but officers waited about 25 minutes to transport him to the station.

“All of them claimed to have no idea why they waited 25 minutes to transport or what they were talking about during that hiatus,” Quigley wrote. “I find the more likely explanation was to start to get their stories straight before the accused was paraded before the sergeant and booked.”

At the police division, Ohenhen was subjected to a strip search. Afterward, the officers brought Ohenhen before the sergeant and said they had found cocaine and marijuana. On the booking video, Westell can be seen pulling a baggy from his breast pocket, which he said were the drugs found on Ohenhen.

The judge noted that it was the same pocket in which Westell had placed the drugs he confiscated from the young person prior to Ohenhen’s arrest.

“As such, it is very troubling and raises the serious prospect that the drugs allegedly seized during that search (of Ohenhen) were actually the drugs previously seized by P.C.’s Tait and Westell from the young person, less than an hour before the arrest and alleged finding of drugs on Mr. Ohenhen’s person,” Quigley wrote.

Criminal defence lawyer Daniel Brown, who was not involved in the case, said Quigley’s ruling touches on serious problems that have been connected to Toronto police in the past.

Four other Toronto police officers were charged this year with perjury and obstruction of justice after a judge found they planted heroin in a man’s car to justify a search and then “colluded” in their testimony.

“We have constitutional protections that prevent all of us from being stopped and searched and we have those protections because it disproportionately affects the most vulnerable members of our society, and this is one clear example of a person, from a racial minority group, who was being targeted for no apparent reason,” said Brown.

“It harms our confidence in the Toronto Police Service when officers get away with this type of egregious conduct, and it will continue to undermine our confidence in the police moving forward if nothing is done about it.”