Sorbara a step closer to clearing name in police investigation Sorbara resigned from cabinet last October when the warrant's existence came to light, but insisted he'd done nothing improper and vowed to clear his name. On Thursday, Justice Ian Nordheimer found that Royal Canadian Mounted Police acted too quickly and did not have adequate information when they added Sorbara's name to the warrants. "I am left with the nagging concern that the application for a search warrant, at least as it related to [Sorbara], was very much premature," Nordheimer wrote in his ruling. "There were a great many questions that were unanswered in the investigation, many of which needed to be answered before a decision could properly be reached that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the applicant had committed a criminal offence such as to validate the application for a search warrant." Sorbara expressed relief at Thursday's ruling, telling the Canadian Press he was "thrilled" and felt "pretty damn good." RCMP charged in an affidavit that Sorbara should have informed the board that he was connected with the company selling the properties to Royal Group because he was a member Royal Group's board and audit committee at the time of the land deals. The deals, made in 1996 and 1997, were valued at $2.55 million. Sorbara claims he only learned about the land deals in November 2004. No charges have been laid in the case. Royal Group Technologies, based in Woodbridge, north of Toronto, is
a plastics maker with sales of $2 billion worldwide. However, the firm
has been plagued by recent scandals and financial loses, and is currently
up for sale. |