The  Rise  and Fall  of  Police  Staff  Inspector  Steve  Izzett  (Part 2)

This is a very long article but it gives you some idea of how complaints against a senior police officer by fellow police officers should have been handled and weren’t and what happened to the senior police officer after the complaints were finally dealt with during a disciplinary hearing.

Part 1 was published on Monday, August 23. 2016.

Staff Inspector Izzett’s lawyer had previously made it clear that his client had expected to vigorously defend himself against the charges. Defending yourself vigorously when facing evidence that is insurmountable is akin to trying to defend yourself vigorously when you are halfway down the throat of a four-metre white shark when you and the shark are a hundred metres below the surface of the sea. That’s the time to make your peace with God and accept the inevitable. I suppose however, a hopeful person can believe that his fate is no different than that of Jonah who somehow escaped from the belly of the whale. Izzett didn’t escape. He was completely devoured.

Of course, I can appreciate why Izzett’s lawyer would be pleased that his client was going to vigorously fight the allegations. If Izzett had decided to give up the fight right from the beginning, his case and his lawyer’s fee would also have come to an abrupt end. Of course, it is possible that his lawyer really believed in his client’s innocence. Thousands wouldn’t but if he wished to believe his client, that was his right and since he was exercising his right, he then had an obligation to fight vigorously for his client which in fact he had really been doing.

I would be less than honest however if I didn’t mention that I learned indirectly from a police source who is familiar with this case and who shall remain un-named, that Izzett originally offered to plead guilty to all of the nine charges on the condition that he would be demoted in rank and be required to seek psychiatric help. His request was denied and subsequently, he ended up facing all nine charges.

Izzett was forced to face his inevitable fate in the hearing knowing that his $134,306 yearly salary and his fringe benefits such as dental, medical, car etc., would eventually come to an abrupt end as would his career.

He was suspended then from active service with pay in September 2008 and ordered to report to police headquarters twice daily, sign in and then he was free to leave the building after each sign-in and go home. His home was out of town so it was a long drive both to police headquarters and from police headquarters considering he had to make the drive twice a day. Excuse me while I wipe away one of my crocodile tears.

Now if he hadn’t been the abusive man that he was, it is conceivable that it wouldn’t have been long before he was made a superintendent. In the Toronto Police Service, you don’t have to be bright to get promoted.  In fact, you can be outright stupid and still be promoted especially if you have persons higher in rank that are just as stupid and they are your friends. Of course, there are exceptions. Many police officers in Toronto are worthy of their ranks.

At Izzett’s hearing, Staff Supt. Rick Gauthier testified that he became so impressed with Izzett’s “work ethic and management track record” that he recommended he be bumped up in rank from staff inspector to superintendent.

A police source told me about Izzett; “He was always boasting he'd be chief someday.” However as we all know, it is not unusual for the high and mighty to fall and obviously, the higher the rank, the greater is the fall.

On March 3^rd, 2009, sources within the Unit stated that with Izzett no longer being with the Unit, morale at the Toronto Police Intelligence Unit had greatly improved since he was removed from the Unit. The Intelligence Unit has since been run by Staff-Inspector Tom Fitzgerald who was a supervisor of the Fraud Squad detectives and is greatly respected by the men he now supervises.

On October 1^st, 2008, the province's Special Investigations Unit launched a probe after several officers brought complaints against Izzett, including allegations that he bullied his staff. The case was later turned over to the Toronto Police Service for disposition.

After 25 years with the police service, almost half of them in leadership roles, Izzett was now facing nine charges under the Police Services Act which included oppressive and tyrannical behavior, deceit and destroying evidence along with the charge respecting the female detective sergeant whom he appeared to have a crush on.

The police investigators in that Unit are some of the toughest cops in the Toronto Police Service, with decades of experience on the job. They work on this city’s most covert crimes: gangs, guns and terrorist threats. Yet according to an investigator with Internal Affairs, many of these officers broke down in tears when interviewed about the “poisoned work environment” they endured in the Intelligence Unit under the command of Staff Inspector, Steve Izzett.  Those tears were from utter frustration. A sense of helplessness can bring tears to the strongest of us.

He was also accused of discreditable conduct related to alleged sexual harassment and sexual abuse of a highly-respected female detective-sergeant in the unit while under his command. Incidentally, there is no charge of sexual harassment under the Police Act but such behavior could come under the heading of discreditable conduct. Those two charges must be extremely embarrassing for Izzett’s wife who is a well-respected employee of the Toronto Police Service.

In addition to the harassment-related charges, Izzett was accused of bullying his subordinates, trying to block them from transferring or obtaining promotions and refusing to grant approvals for necessary purchases. 

On one occasion, he is alleged to have pressured an officer to violate national security protocols by giving him confidential information from another police force. He was also accused of using special software to erase files from a police service laptop after he learned he was under investigation.

This number of charges against him is believed to be unprecedented for an officer of his rank which is just four ranks below that of the chief of police.

Permitting police officers to be paid while under suspension from their duties has always been a sore spot to the taxpayers. Since Izzett’s suspension began in September 17, 2008, he is still receiving his pay, According to the province’s so-called sunshine list; Izzett was paid $134,306 (which is $16,116.72 a month) in 2010 and could declare $5,857 as a taxable benefit for his continued use of his unmarked police vehicle under the terms of his compensation package.

Ontario Police Act charges, which do not result in criminal sanctions, can however lead to dismissal from the force.

Toronto Police Services Board and Police Chief Bill Blair were lobbying Queen's Park two years ago to amend the Act so that an officer charged with a criminal offence could be suspended without pay. The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police maintains that chiefs should have discretion to suspend without pay and has asked the province to revise the Police Act to grant them that power. Ontario is the only province in Canada that doesn't give chiefs such authority. In my opinion, Ontario's police chiefs should have the option of suspending without pay police officers who are charged with criminal offences or charged with serious offences under the Ontario Police Act.

The Toronto Police Association has clearly stated that it is opposed to any such amendment to the Act.

I can appreciate the Association’s position because if the court finds the officer innocent of any wrongdoing and his pay had been suspended for two years prior to having his day in court, the officer and his family would have suffered a terrible financial hardship on the officer and his family.

Perhaps the way to solve this problem is for the city to claw back half of the salary while the police officer is waiting for the final disposition of his case. If he won his case, the other half of his salary could have  been given to him along with the accrued interest.

The intelligence unit seemed to have been a dysfunctional workplace mired in political infighting and plunging morale under the command of Staff Insp. Steve Izzett according to the testimony of Staff Supt. Richard Gauthier who took the stand on May 3, at Izzett’s police disciplinary hearing. (Gauthier oversees the intelligence division as well as eight other detective units) He said at the hearing that in 2008 Izzett and Inspector Gordon Sneddon, (a 31-year-veteran who was appointed second officer in charge of the secret intelligence-gathering bureau in December 2007) were at war with one another or engaged in what Gauthier called “a clash of personalities.” A high-ranking Toronto police officer admitted that he had concerns that Steve Izzett’s ‘abrasive’ personality would make him less than ideal to run the force’s secretive Intelligence Division.

That conflicts with Gauthier’s testimony when he said, “Steve did a lot to improve accountability of the unit.” It was that reputation, Kinahan (Izzett’s lawyer) said, that led former police chief, Julian Fantino to turn to Izzett when allegations of police corruption surfaced a decade ago.

Izzett became head of the newly created ‘Inspections Unit,’ a job that sent him looking for internal messes that made him few friends within the rank and file. “It solidified Izzett’s reputation as a hard-driven taskmaster not afraid to ‘tear the place apart,’ Kinahan said parroting Gauthier’s earlier statement. Unfortunately, going into any police unit with the purpose in mind of tearing it apart like a pit bull is what made Izzett appear as a despot to those working under him.  There are ways in which administrative changes can be made without making the Unit look like the ruins of Berlin after the Allied bombings.

Izzett’s lawyer said to Gauthier at the hearing, “And again it was Izzett to whom Canada’s largest municipal force turned in 2005 to act as the new sheriff in town of the Intelligence Unit, then dysfunctional and plagued with personnel issues.” If it had all those problems before the new sheriff sauntered into town, those problems paled after he became the town’s new sheriff.

Gauthier, however, disagreed with Kinahan’s characterization of Intelligence as being a mess, but acknowledged there were some difficulties in the Unit which incidentally has the largest budget of any investigatory bureau under his command.

Sneddon was also Gauthier’s former homicide partner and when they were driving together to a bi-monthly meeting at intelligence headquarters on August 19, 2008, he began confiding to him about morale problems under Izzett. Sneddon testified at the hearing on a later day that he wasn’t there long before detective sergeants began complaining to him about Izzett, about his management style. Sneddon said he warned Staff Supt. Rick Gauthier that a “good group” of officers, frustrated by Izzett’s loud, direct and challenging workplace demeanor, was a “house of cards ready to topple.”

Gauthier said at Izzett’s hearing that Sneddon told him that Det.-Sgt. Peacock, head of the mobile support squad, was so upset by Izzett’s “management style” that he was planning on leaving the Intelligence Unit if his boss (Izzett) was staying on.

Gauthier also said at the tribunal, “He said some of the other detective sergeants were not happy and I knew Staff Insp. Sneddon was having his difficulties as well.” Asked by prosecutor Brian Gover what he meant by “difficulties”, Gauthier said there were personality differences between the two. “They just weren’t functioning well together.”

Yet previously in the hearing, Smith (the detective who investigated Izzett’s wrongdoings) insisted he wasn’t aware of any “animus” between the two. If that is so, I am forced to wonder why he didn’t know about the animosity between those two senior officers especially when one considers Izzett later wrote a letter to the chief demanding an inquiry into Sneddon’s disloyalty for leading the “mutiny” against him. A copy of that letter should have been given to Smith. I should add at this juncture of this article that the Toronto Police Service has a rather stupid policy in which it doesn’t give its investigators their notes that have been turned in until about a day prior to them testifying in court or at a hearing. This may explain why Smith wasn’t sure of some of what he had previously written in his notes that had previously been turned in. Because of this inane policy, investigators should make copies of their notes before they turn them in.

At the hearing, Toronto Police Insp. Gordon Sneddon denied that he sabotaged Steve Izzett’s career or orchestrated a “manager mutiny” against staff inspector Izzett. He said at the hearing; “There was no mutiny, let’s get that clear right now.”

Izzett told investigators he had been directed by Deputy Chief Tony Warr to “clean up intelligence” when he was brought in to take charge in 2005. And that soon put him at loggerheads with Sneddon. Sending someone like Izzett into the Intelligence Unit to clean it up was a mistake on Deputy Chief’s Warr’s part. Sending a person with the fineness of a coarse rasp to clean up a unit or department is not unlike sending a wolf through the back door of a hen house to chase the fox out the front door. Of course, Warr wasn’t the brightest light in the room evidenced by his previous behavior in the past. More on him later.

Gauthier told the hearing that he would often get an earful from Izzett complaining about his second-in-command. There were a number of recurring themes—Sneddon was “lazy and not pulling his weight and not doing enough for the unit,” and unlike Izzett, Sneddon wasn’t working beyond his shift hours; he was taking a police car home which he was not allowed to do; and he was rebuffing Izzett’s invitations to have breakfast together and then he’d see him eating with the detective sergeants.

Three weeks after Sneddon told him about morale problems in the unit, Gauthier said he received a call from Sneddon, with a much more serious allegation: a female officer was claiming Izzett was being “disrespectful and oppressive” because she’d refused his sexual advances. Sneddon said the female officer was alleging something “the service takes very seriously,” leaving him no choice but to file the formal complaint on her behalf. He said that he was uncomfortable doing so as Izzett was his immediate supervisor. Had Sneddon not filed the formal complaint, he would have been subjected to a disciplinary hearing himself.

Now surely Izzett must have been fully aware that his dismissal from the police service was going to come about so one is forced to ask the rhetorical question, “Why was he still fighting these charges. Lawyers generally charge a fee of at least a thousand dollars a day when they are in court and his current lawyer told me on April 26, 2011 that he expected the hearing to last at least six weeks. Now if it lasted that long, then his lawyer’s bill would have been many thousands of dollars. This doesn’t take into consideration the money he has already paid his two lawyers prior to the hearing. The answer why he has chosen to hang on is easy to understand.

First of all, there is an Association for senior officers from the rank of inspector to the chief of police. It is conceivable that that Association paid his lawyer’s fees and if that is so, it wouldn’t really matter to him that the lawyer’s fees would be high. However, he may have had to pay his lawyer's fees on his own and that would really hurt him financially.

If the staff inspector retires at the age of 50, he gets a pension of 70% of what he earned in the previous five years that he worked as a police officer.  But if is fired before that age or quits before that age, his pension will be far less. If Izzett could have managed to hang in there by fighting the charges until he reached the retirement eligibility date in his career, he would get his full pension. Was that the reason that he fired his first lawyer? This would mean that his second lawyer would need more time to prepare for the defence. I could be wrong of course but it seems to me that that might have been what Izzett was up to. As it turned out, the case was finally concluded in the year he would be eligible for his pension. It took four and a half years to finally conclude his trial with respect to the adjudicator hearing the evidence.  That is gross. What a waste of the taxpayer’s money while paying him full salary all those years—while he sat on his ass and wasn’t required to do anything to earn his pay.  

Whisper it in my ear. “His willingness to fight to the end even if it took a long time to come about has nothing to do with his salary and benefits.” If you believe that, then you must be a subscriber to the monthly publication of the pamphlet put out by the Flat Earth Society.

Evidence was then heard that when Izzett was suspended with pay from the Toronto Police Service in September 2008, he was required to surrender any police equipment that was still in his possession. He turned over his BlackBerry but retained his cell phone which was disabled so he could only communicate with senior officers. Of course this doesn't mean that he couldn't have another cell phone  of his own.

Det. Smith told prosecutor Brian Gover that he interviewed about 55 officers and civilian staff members during his internal affairs probe. One former intelligence cop told him that working under Izzett was “one of the worst times in his entire police career.” Another transferred to Durham Regional Police but not before wearing a body pack to secretly record his exit from the Toronto Police Service interview with Izzett.

Even as an emotional parade of his underlings were describing months of hellish treatment, Izzett was still blaming others for the “mutiny within my unit.” During Izzett’s initial meeting with Smith, he handed him a copy of a letter written by Izzett addressed to Police Chief Bill Blair. In it, he demanded an investigation of Sneddon, accusing his second-in-command of “manifest betrayal” in not bringing morale issues to his attention. It’s not uncommon to blame others for one’s own failings. He was defending his errors as if he was defending his inheritance and who better to attack than his second in command whom his staff respected more than Der Fuehrer of their unit.

When Smith requested Izzett’s notes from his tenure as intelligence commander, he said he was eventually handed incomplete notes with the excuse that someone had spilled coffee on his notebook. I suppose he could have said that his dog ate them but that excuse has been used too many times to be believable as an excuse anymore.

During the hearing, Izzett’s lawyer when questioning Smith; suggested that Smith had an axe to grind with Izzett. By making that kind of remark in that hearing is in fact stating that Smith conducted his investigation improperly. In my opinion, making that kind of allegation is a sign that the lawyer’s case is weak and he is grasping at a straw while he and his client are about to be swept over the falls.

When I attended the tribunal hearing on May 2^nd, (2013) there were discussions between Izzett’s lawyer and Smith about the men in Izzett’s unit complaining that Izzett was denying their requests for additional sums for investigations but Smith admitted that Izzett was keeping to the same standards as his predecessors had. Was he doing this to look good to his superiors? Even though Izzett had to stay within the budget; he could have given the detectives some of the money, especially if it was needed immediately.       

One of the things that came out of the hearing was that a Mr. Butt who was a lawyer hired by the police association representing the complainants in the Unit had given Smith signed statements as per protocol. 

Smith testified that he had spoken to a Detective Watson, a female member of the police service who while working in 14 Division was sexually harassed by Izzett when he was working there also. She later told Smith that she didn’t know who Izzett was and didn’t have an issue with him. I find that rather strange. Was she lying because she was under pressure?  

                                                                      

Smith said that there was another complaint by a female civilian in the police service who was teary-eyed when she spoke about Izzett. She complained to Tony Warr, the deputy chief who chastised her for complaining about Izzett. Keep in mind that Warr and Izzett were good friends.

You may remember that in a previous blog, I wrote about Warr as being the dummy who arrested a nurse of murdering six babies simply because when Warr was questioning her, she said that she thought she should have a lawyer with her while being questioned. He concluded at that time that anyone who says he wants a lawyer next to him while being questioned by the police is guilty of the crime he or she is being questioned about. She was later acquitted at the preliminary hearing of the murders and Warr’s decision to charge her based on his supposition that only guilty people request lawyers present while being interviewed by police; was severely denounced at a later public hearing dealing with her arrest. Incidentally, Nelles was accused of murdering one of the babies despite the fact that she was thousands of miles away when the baby died. His fiasco cost the Ontario government and taxpayers millions upon millions of dollars. 

With orders from Deputy Chief Tony Warr to “take back the streets," was to blame for the more than 1,100 illegal arrests during the 2010 G20 summit, according to the province's top civilian police watchdog. He said, “What occurred over the course of the weekend resulted in the largest mass arrests in Canadian history.” 

The arrogance of Warr in defending the brutality displayed by the Toronto police during the G20 summit is probably indicative of why the police force behaved in the manner it did. The 1,100 arrested protesters were placed in detention and were given no food. Almost all of them were released days later with no charges being laid against them. The purpose of the arrests was to prevent the protesters from protesting—which was their constitutional right to do. This heavy handed response during the G20 by the police under Warr’s control will go down in history as a reminder that the rights of citizens were disregarded by the very police service where its members were sworn to serve and protect them.

And as is often the practice in police forces, the dummies are promoted as was Warr. Fortunately, the board of the Toronto Police Service had finally decided in its wisdom that they didn’t want the likes of Deputy Chief Warr in their police service so his contract with the police service was not renewed in September 2011 and he is gone from that service forever.

Now back to Izzett’s case.

Gauthier said he was told that the complainant, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, was considering filing criminal charges but was worried about the problem of confidentiality. 

Gauthier told the tribunal that he called the complainant himself to offer his support and she told him Izzett had kissed her and when she refused him, the bullying began. “She was worried about career retaliation because of his power,” Gauthier recalled. “She claimed to be intimidated by him.”

The next day, September 9^th, 2008, Sneddon sent Gauthier an internal formal complaint outlining the allegations of misconduct against his nemesis. Izzett was suspended with pay a short time later and an investigation was launched.

Three months after his suspension in September, 2008, Izzett wrote Police Chief Bill Blair an eight-page letter alleging Sneddon had behaved in an “abhorrent” manner and that he had created a poison work environment. Among the litany of complaints, Izzett accused Sneddon of snubbing his invitations for breakfast, yet would “hold court” with other Intelligence officers. Is Izzett’s complaint any different than a skunk that claims it can’t smell its own scent?

At the hearing, Prosecutor Brendan van Niejenhuis asked Sneddon about his breakfast meetings. Sneddon quickly replied with respect to Izzett’s allegation, “I don’t recall ever being invited for breakfast or coffee.” Van Niejenhuis then asked Sneddon why he was dining with subordinate officers. Sneddon replied,” Probably because we were hungry. It gave us an opportunity to sit and talk in a casual environment.”  Talk about a lawyer reaching. I didn’t think anyone’s arm could reach that far.

Izzett also alleged that Sneddon did not complete assigned tasks and left at 3 p.m. every day. “Not true,” Sneddon said. “I’m not a clock watcher. I go when the work is done.”

Sneddon, who is now in charge of the Organized Crime Unit, admitted that he got off on the wrong foot with Izzett. He recalled, after he first arrived at the Intelligence Unit, he sent out an email inviting managers to meet and discuss their roles with him and what could be done to improve things. “He (Izzett) didn’t like the email,” Sneddon recalled. “He said it lessened his position.” Sneddon said he remembers wondering if Izzett was insecure.

It seems to me that a person who is second in command should be able to meet as a group with his immediate subordinates soon after he arrives in a unit so that he can get a feel of how the unit is functioning. I can also see how a person who is superior to those in that group meeting and who is also paranoid and feels insecure and as such, he would interpret such a group meeting going on without him in attendance as being a sinister plot being planned against him right from the get-go.

By January 2008, Sneddon said he was so concerned about Izzett; he took the unprecedented step of keeping an anecdotal record of “significant events [involving Izzett].”

As an aside, despite Izzett’s letter to the chief, nothing happened with respect to his complaint against Sneddon.

The decision of retired Superior Court Justice, Keith Hoilett with respect to the harassment of a female police officer.

In a 49-page ruling, Justice Hoilett wrote that he accepted the complainant’s “core complaint” and rejected former Izzett’s version of events. He said that while her evidence was not without infirmities; after several days on the witness stand, there was no sense of an intent on her part to mislead. He said in his finding; “On the core issues, I have no doubt concerning the sincerity and the reliability of the complainant’s evidence, it has the ring of truth [that is] fortified by unexaggerated details. Equally compelling are those bits of evidence which tends to corroborate her allegations. Izzett’s claim that the officer “could not be left in a room alone with him because she would not be able to keep her hands off him” are lines worthy of a Harlequin Romance. He added that the defence counsel’s omission of questioning the officer (complainant) about the alleged comment and inviting her response; “renders the claim fictional, in my view.”

He also wrote in his finding, “Moreover, Izzett’s testimony that the woman came on to him “like a femme fatale,” was belied by his own pen.” He was referring to the so-called Nature-Nuture document that Izzett compiled and sent to the complainant. In it, he wrote: “I sensed yesterday in your voice a

 circumspect and annoyed disposition.”

Hoilett also found Izzett guilty of misconduct related to installing unauthorized software on a service-issued laptop which resulted in the destruction of computer files. In his finding, he wrote; “The collective capability of the wiping software purchased and employed by Izzett betrays, in my view, a sinister purpose.”

Izzett originally faced nine misconduct charges, in which some were related to inappropriate or tyrannical management style. In May 2011, prosecutors Brian Gover and Brendan Van Niejenhuis announced they would call no further evidence to support those charges, leaving six of the remaining ones  to be dealt with.

Hoilett dismissed one charge relating to whether Izzett misled a superior about possessing two laptop computers that were the property of the Toronto Police Service.

A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled. His penalty could range from dismissal to demotion or a reprimand. Under the Police Services Act, Izzett can appeal the judge’s finding and sentence to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission.

The social aspects in a case such as this one involve four elements. They are: 

Truth— what is it in a case such as this one? Truth is either absolute or what the persons who have sworn under oath actually believe is the truth. Sometimes it is hard to determine, especially when people from opposite sides of an issue testify under oath their own interpretation of the events they saw, heard or did. In determining what is the truth of an issue is like looking at a scrambled puzzle of the events discussed and trying to put the puzzle back together again so that when you look at the puzzle in its pristine state, you see what is for real and not what everyone wants you to believe is real.

Leadership—It is what are the good deeds of a leader that should exist irrespective of his faults however if his faults as a leader obscures his good deeds as if they are in a fog, then his role as a leader should be terminated. It is no different than removing the lead horse of a team of horses when the lead horse continually falters.

Respect of a leader of a team may be despised because of his lack of social skills and yet, his ability to give direction should be respected not only by the members of his team but also by those who are his superiors and those to whom he must serve.

Trusting everyone you meet or have dealings with can be fraught with risks but trusting those who are worthy of your trust is prudent. It is easy to trust those whom we don’t know until our trust is shown to have been shattered like a crystal goblet.

One being wary of someone who praises another is like a connoisseur of rare paintings making a quick judgment on the authenticity of a rare painting. The prospective buyer should seek another interpretation of what the human eye sees.  Gautheir saw Izzett as a pristine crystal glass goblet. Had he looked closer, he would have seen the myriad of cracks throughout the goblet he was examining.

Inspector Rivieria got into similar trouble as Inspector Izzett did but his penalty was only 10 days loss of pay but worse yet, they then promoted him to the position of Staff Inspector. Remember what I said about dummies rising in rank.

Previously I said that Izzett’s lawyer originally made an offer, the offer being that Izzett would remain in the Police Service but with a reduction in rank. His lawyer might bring to the attention of the police board as to what was done for Inspector Rivieria and ask that the same should be done for Izzett. Whatever  Riviera received as punishment would have hardly beeen likely to be given to Izzett.

The taxpayers have paid him $604,377 as his salary between September 17, 2008 until March 5, 2012. And for that money, all he had to do was report to police headquarters twice a day and then he could go home if he wished. The money lost could have been put to better use than paying this scalawag who spent less than an hour at headquarters each day for four and a half years. 

Izzett should have been turfed from the Toronto Police Service back in 2008 or at least by 2010 but because of delays, many of them months apart, the case dragged on for four and a half years and even then we have to wait until the Toronto Police Service decided whether or not he would be dismissed for bad conduct or permitted to simply resign. If it was the former, his pension would be greatly reduced but if it was the latter, he would still not receive his full pension if he hasn't served enough years in the Toronto Police Service. Either way, the taxpayers have been cheated out of their money since they certainly didn’t get the kind of police officer they paid for nor did they get the service he was suppose to give them during those years while he and the rest of us waited for the final outcome of his hearing.  Further, the taxpayers continued to pay him that large sum of money so he could sit on his ass and do nothing for four and a half years.

The board of the Toronto Police Service has an obligation to clean house and throw this piece of garbage out with the rest of the trash. But even when they do this, the stench and stain this piece of garbage will have left behind him will linger in the halls of the Toronto Police Service for a very long time.

All that is left of Steve Izzett’s career and reputation as a police officer is what can be euphemistically referred to as excrement. 

Martin Marpelate who read my previous articles in 2013 about this man, said;

A very good and informative article touching on material that the local media hasn't. Mr. Bachelor wrote about this from the start and I remember in response to his foreshadowing all of this that we had idiots like "Ivan" who said that Izzett was "intelligent and a principled individual" I wonder what "Ivan" is saying now? Perhaps "Ivan" was actually Izzett. There are a lot of unanswered questions here, who were the senior officers that promoted him on up the line? Who paid for the days and days of his lawyer? Who is paying to defend him in the woman's civil action?  Okay, I want to know about those high ranking police officers that helped get this guy get above the rank of patrolman as they are just as guilty as he is. Whomever is responsible for promoting this individual on up the line should have to pay a portion, if not all the costs involved here. Also, what about the health care involved here. Also what about the health care costs of those individuals he traumatized and that poor woman? Who paid for the days of his lawyer? Are they paying another lawyer to defend him in the woman’s suit? There are a lot of unanswered questions here that the public has a right to know.