A Ontario Superior Court judge has sentenced former RCMP intelligence officer Cameron Ortis to 14 years in jail.
Assistant crown attorney Judy Kleiwer said Ortis’s conduct was a “betrayal” of the RCMP and Canada’s Five Eyes partners that “jeopardized the safety of Canadians.”
He’s only going to serve 7, what a surprise.
Arguing it’s a fitting punishment for someone who betrayed his country, the Crown today called for Cameron Ortis — the former RCMP intelligence official found guilty late last year of leaking secret information to police targets — to be sentenced to nearly 30 years behind bars.
Crown prosecutor Judy Kliewer told an Ottawa courtroom Thursday morning that two consecutive sentences totalling 28 years in prison is “not only an appropriate but a necessary sentence.”
“His conduct betrayed the RCMP. It betrayed the Five Eyes,” she said, referring to Canada’s international intelligence partners.
When the FBI swooped in and arrested Canadian businessman Vincent Ramos in 2018, it was supposed to be a good-news story for the RCMP.
The Phantom Secure CEO’s ability to sell encrypted phones to criminals had been a lingering source of embarrassment for Canadian law enforcement on the world stage.
But any joy in the moment quickly drained away when former RCMP staff sergeant Guy Belley logged on to Ramos’s computer and found confidential RCMP documents.
When jurors convicted former RCMP official Cameron Ortis of leaking secret information to police targets earlier this week, they didn’t just seal his fate — they made history.
Ortis’s trial was the first to test charges under the 20-year-old Security of Information Act in court.
“We learned that offences can be contested and successfully prosecuted, which we did not know before, which is great. We also learned that it takes a lot of creativity and flexibility,” said Leah West, who teaches national security law at Carleton University.
Cameron Ortis, convicted by a jury Wednesday of violating Canada’s secrets act, was arrested when he was “on the cusp” of passing state secrets to a foreign entity, a Crown prosecutor alleged during the former RCMP official’s bail hearing in 2019.
When RCMP officers raided Cameron Ortis’s condo in late August 2019, they were hunting for clues related to leaks of internal police documents to criminal groups.
Their investigation took a quick turn into the murky world of international espionage when they analyzed electronic equipment and documents seized at the residence of the national police force’s top intelligence analyst.
A jury has found Cameron Ortis, the former RCMP intelligence official accused of leaking secret information to police targets, guilty of six charges against him.
Was former RCMP director general of intelligence Cameron Ortis acting as a patriot against “grave” threats to Canada when he leaked classified information to suspected lawbreakers, or is he a reckless criminal who put international investigations and undercover agents’ lives at risk by sharing top secret documents without legal authority?
Cameron Ortis, the former high-ranking RCMP intelligence official accused of leaking top-secret intelligence to police targets, told court recently that while he has some regrets, his actions were “not wrong.”
The Crown alleges Ortis used his position as the head of a highly secret unit within the RCMP to attempt to sell intelligence gathered by Canada and its Five Eyes allies to individuals linked to the criminal underworld.
The federal government urgently needs to change how the RCMP’s federal policing wing functions or risk seeing national security files fall through the cracks, says a special intelligence and security committee.
“National security is at risk. The security of Canadians is at risk.” said Liberal MP David McGuinty, chair of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.
“What’s at risk is missing something.”
Crown prosecutors have spent the past five weeks laying out their case against Cameron Ortis in an unprecedented trial.
They allege he used his position as director of a highly-sensitive unit within the RCMP to attempt to sell intelligence gathered by Canada and its Five Eyes allies to police targets.
Ortis, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him, has also started to tell the jury his side of the story.
His defence team says he was acting with authority.
OTTAWA — A former RCMP Assistant Commissioner says alleged leaks of classified intelligence by his ex-employee Cameron Ortis were “so criminal,” caused “irreparable harm” to the national police force, betrayed its “every” intelligence partner and could have “signed someone’s death warrant.”
A former RCMP investigator who worked on a money laundering probe says he was unaware at the time that someone had sent secret information to people who were of interest to authorities.
Retired staff sergeant Patrick Martin testified today in the trial of Cameron Jay Ortis, a former RCMP intelligence official charged with breaching Canada’s secrets law.
Newly released documents show Canadian involvement in an international investigation of an alleged money laundering ring in the Greater Toronto Area that authorities believe is linked to a man accused of laundering money for terrorists.
Altaf Khanani, a Pakistani national, has been on the radar of international law enforcement since at least 2008, when he was arrested in his home country for allegedly transferring money illegally.
The U.S. State Department accused Khanani, once described in a media report as “one of the world’s most wanted fraudsters,” of laundering billions of dollars for organized crime and terrorist outfits, including al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Diversity something something ….
OTTAWA — Court records show former RCMP intelligence director Cameron Ortis allegedly promised to continue leaking sensitive information to a B.C. businessman under international investigation if he agreed to pay $20,000 for a first trove of classified documents, prosecutors say.
The offer is described in a 507-page packet of documents that both the Crown and defence have agreed are factual and submitted in the trial of Ortis, who is charged with breaching Canada’s national secrets law.
OTTAWA – Former RCMP intelligence director Cameron Ortis allegedly sent an email demanding $20,000 to a B.C man under international criminal investigation in exchange for secret police information that contained the name of at least one undercover agent.
That’s just one of the shocking allegations revealed by Crown prosecutor Judy Kliewer during her opening statement of Ortis’ trial Tuesday.
But his lawyer says he had permission to do that sort of thing and given the Trudeau government I bet that’s true.
