RCMP Watch

Peter Small (Toronto Star) - A retired RCMP officer who provided guns for a self-described mobster has been convicted of 10 firearms offences, including illegally removing serial numbers.

David Kift, 50, who served for the RCMP for 18 years and wrote a self-published book, The Naked Mountie, was found guilty by Superior Court Justice Paul Rivard today.

Convictions, which covered the months of March and April of 2003, included possession of a handgun for the purpose of illegally transferring it; illegal possession of a firearm; removing serial numbers; illegally transferring a firearm; and possession of a prohibited firearm – a Sten Machine Gun – together with ammunition, and an over-capacity cartridge in his home.
His co-accused, Leon Kruger, 38, former co-owner of United Sports Shooting Range in Whitchurch-Stouffville, was acquitted on all counts. Both men originally faced a 53-count indictment.

After the verdict, Kruger hugged supporters and told The Star, he felt “very good. We knew all along I was 100 per cent innocent.”

. “He can get on with his life,” said Kruger’s lawyer Lou Strezos. He has faced the charges for 4  1/2 years “at great toll to my client and his family.”

At the centre of the case was Charles “Chuck” Yanover, a self-described “con man extraordinaire” and mobster, who illegally purchased guns, ammunition and imported prohibited firearms.

Yanover told an undercover officer that he and his accomplices placed the guns on the firearms registry, then de-registered them after falsely claiming they had been deactivated, and therefore harmless, court heard.

Yanover has already been convicted of several weapons offences.

Rivard found that Kift bought three handguns from United Sports, Kruger’s gun club, and went to Yanover’s house with them for the purpose of illegally transferring them.

The judge also found that Kift picked up a handgun from United Sports and took it to Yanover’s house, during which he removed its serial number.

Rivard renewed Kift’s bail pending sentencing on Jan. 28.

Kift told reporters he was shocked by the verdict and maintained his innocence. He said he only gave Yanover deactivated guns and that Yanover was quite capable of removing the serial numbers himself.

Kift said he would appeal, citing Charter of Rights infringements and the fact that it had not been proven that the guns he gave Yanover were active. They were “all deactivated by me,” he said.

Kift who represented himself, said his chances of beating the charges were hampered because couldn’t afford the $300,000 a lawyer would have cost.

“I’d rather go to jail and do a few years than spend a few hundred thousand dollars on a lawyer and have nothing.”

Toronto police Det. Sgt Myron Demkiw, a lead officer on the case, said he is disappointed that a former police officer would be found guilty of such offences. Guns with serial numbers removed have one purpose “and that’s for crime,” he said.

The two accused were among 13 people arrested in Greater Toronto on April 10, 2003 after a 14-month undercover operation called Project PUN, directed by the multi-force Provincial Weapons Enforcement Unit. More than 100 officers from various units, including Toronto, Hamilton, York, Halton, Peel, Durham, the OPP and the RCMP took part, using wiretaps and undercover agents.