Winnipeg police officer pleads guilty to offences including voiding tickets, stealing cannabis from scene
CBC
WARNING: This story contains graphic comments made about the body of a dead woman.
A veteran Winnipeg officer is expected to go to prison after admitting on Friday to a long list of allegations involving corruption, along with other inappropriate and illegal actions, stretching back years.
Const. Elston Bostock, who has worked with the Winnipeg Police Service for more than two decades, admitted to offences including getting traffic tickets voided in exchange for liquor and gift cards, stealing cannabis from a police scene, sharing confidential police information and sending lewd texts about a photo he took of the nearly naked body of a woman who had fatally overdosed.
He was charged after a lengthy investigation, dubbed Project Fibre, that began in April 2024. The charges he pleaded guilty to include breach of trust, attempting to obstruct justice, theft under $5,000 and offering an indignity to human remains.
The investigation, which discovered offences ranging back to 2016, began after police received "reports from multiple confidential sources that the accused had been associating with and providing police information to non-police actors involved in illicit activity," Crown attorney Ari Millo read from a 20-page agreed statement of facts Friday at Court of King's Bench in Winnipeg.
While some of those allegations came to light early on, others were not discovered until Bostock's personal cellphone was analyzed following his arrest.
Bostock, who sat in the prisoner's box wearing a grey crewneck sweatshirt, looked down at the floor and at times put his head in his hands as details of the allegations he was pleading guilty to were read out.
"You are pleading guilty this morning to a number of charges, because you admit guilt on those charges?" Richard Wolson, Bostock's lawyer, asked him during a plea inquiry.
"Yes," Bostock said.
The guilty pleas were entered before Justice Kenneth Champagne as part of a deal that will see Bostock’s lawyers ask for nothing less than a penitentiary sentence and provincial Crown attorneys cap their request at six years.
Bostock still faces and is expected to plead guilty to other federal drug charges, for which prosecutors are expected to ask for a consecutive sentence of a year, court heard.
In a news release, Winnipeg Police Service Chief Gene Bowers said Bostock remains suspended without pay.
"There is no place for individuals like this within our organization and we [are] taking appropriate actions" through regulations, he said.
Bostock is scheduled to be sentenced in January, after a psychological report requested by his defence is completed.
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