Lawyer gave information that led to killings: Crown
GREEKS GANG: Suspected informant, his girlfriend murdered
Vernon lawyer William Mastop provided the Greeks gang with a document that within two weeks led to the murders of two people, a prosecutor said Monday.
The submission was made by Crown counsel David Jardine during the first day of what’s expected to be a five-day sentencing hearing for Mastop.
Jardine told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan that he would be seeking a 2½- to three-year jail term for Mastop, who in December pleaded guilty to participating in the activities of the Greeks.
In November, five members or associates of the gang were convicted in connection with three drug-related slayings.
Jardine said Mastop in 2005 obtained a document related to the police search of the home of John Thom, a drug dealer associated to the gang. Mastop handed over in a manila envelope the information-to-obtain (ITO) for the search warrant to gang leader Peter Manolakos at Manolakos’s home.
The ITO contained information about police informants, and the existence of police informants was “bad news” for a drug-trafficking gang like the Greeks, said Jardine.
The Greeks mistakenly believed that Thom’s brother, Ron Thom, was an informant, said Jardine.
And within two weeks of the document being handed to the Greeks, Ron Thom was dead, the victim of a fatal shooting at the hands of the gang. Manolakos was convicted of firstdegree murder in Thom’s death.
Also dead was Belinda Scott, Thom’s girlfriend. The Greeks are suspected of being involved in Scott’s murder, but no charges have been laid.
“Providing of the ITO was the beginning of the chain of events that led to two deaths,” Jardine told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Mark McEwan. Jardine told the judge that he wanted to emphasize that there was no evidence to suggest that apart from providing the ITO, Mastop had any knowledge of or involvement in the deaths.
Mastop is the first lawyer in Canada convicted of taking part in the activities of a gang. Following his conviction, he was released on bail. As a condition of his release he was suspended from practising law.