RCMP called him a sex-trafficking 'ringleader.' He wants an apology and $100M
CBC
Daegun Chun, accused by Quebec RCMP of being the mastermind of a Canada-wide human-smuggling network, is now suing the force and Quebec's attorney general for $100 million after all charges against him were stayed.
Chun was arrested in Toronto in 2015, then flown to Montreal and paraded in front of TV cameras before a press conference alleging he was the head of a trafficking ring that forced as many as 500 women into prostitution in various Canadian cities.
The Quebec Crown prosecutor who brought the charges said at the time there was "overwhelming evidence" in the case.
But as The National Post first reported over the weekend, Chun's case never went to trial.
After all the fanfare over Chun's arrest, Crown prosecutors quietly stayed all charges against him in 2018.
"When they arrested me they have some big show. And when they finished the case, nobody said anything," Chun told CBC News in an interview Tuesday.
"They wanted to save face. They don't want to admit their mistake," Chun said.
When he was arrested, Chun was running a private career college in Toronto. He and eight other co-defendants were said to be running the prostitution operation in Toronto and Montreal.
Chun has always denied the allegations. He has no previous criminal record. He admitted he knew two of the co-accused, but only as tenants in condos he was subletting.
He believes the RCMP mistakenly concluded the school he was running was a front for human smuggling.
Chun's lawsuit alleges RCMP officers made many errors, including mistranslating statements from Korean witnesses, relying on questionable information from co-accused and extrapolating innocuous aspects of running a school in order to fashion him into a criminal mastermind.
Chun spent 32 months in detention in Montreal before being released on bail in 2017, a few months before his scheduled trial.
It was only when he showed up for the trial in Montreal in March 2018 — fully prepared to argue the case — that he learned Crown prosecutors had stayed all charges against him a few weeks earlier without informing him and without further explanation.
"To protect its own interests and those of the RCMP, the Crown did the only thing it could in the circumstance, order a stay of charges, thereby denying Mr. Chun his day in court and the opportunity to have a court make a finding of not guilty," Chun's lawsuit alleges.
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