Back in May, the folks at Gawker raised quite a few million eyebrows when they announced that they had been offered a video of Toronto’s conservative mayor, Rob Ford, allegedly smoking crack. Gawker, of course, started a very successful Indiegogo fundraiser to get the $200,000 that a young man named was asking for in exchange for the video, which Gawker’s John Cook watched and confirmed was legitimate.
Except a funny thing happened on the way to make the exchange – the seller got cold feet and all contact with Gawker apparently stopped. But we now know that the seller’s name was Mohamed Siad, because he was arrested on June 13 during the Project Traveller raids by Toronto police. Whether or not they also found the video is still a mystery, but Ford has denied all along that the video even exists.
Now, Mohamed Siad, 27, an alleged drug and gun dealer, sits in segregation after being stabbed in jail just days following the massive police operation.
Siad faces a slew of charges, including participating in a criminal organization, conspiracy and the trafficking of guns and cocaine.
An ongoing Star investigation reveals that Siad was the man who sat in the back seat of a car on May 3 and showed two Star reporters a cellphone video of the mayor appearing to smoke crack cocaine and making homophobic and racist remarks.
When police arrested Siad early in the morning of June 13 his home was searched, but the Star does not know if police recovered the video. (Via the Toronto Star)
Like Gawker, the Toronto Star also had two reporters attracted by the possibility of the existence of a video that actually showed the freaking mayor of Toronto smoking crack, and they confirmed in Friday’s report of this news that Siad was the man that they met with. As for those charges? Hoo boy.
He is charged with trafficking in firearms, unauthorized possession of a firearm, possession of a firearm obtained by the commission of an offence, four counts of trafficking in cocaine, fourteen counts of conspiracy to commit an indictable offence and three counts of participating in a criminal organization.
And chances are the video has gone the way of the dodo, which is a shame for people who like watching videos of mayors smoking crack. Keep your hopes up, friends. There are plenty of other scumbag politicians out there.