Ansari verdict delayed until next year, tenant pleads guilty
Judge was to release verdict in record-setting carfentanil seizure Friday
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The man who owned the Pickering home where a haul of deadly carfentanil was seized won’t learn his fate until next year.
And the man accused of being the basement tenant in Maisum Ansari’s Liatris Dr. home where the 42 kilograms of carfentanil was found won’t be going to trial later this month after pleading guilty to gun and drug charges.
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Ontario Superior Court Justice Hugh O’Connell was to read his verdict in Ansari’s judge-only trial Friday, but just one hour before court was to convene the Toronto Sun learned he would instead announce his verdict in late January.
The reasons for the delay are unknown.
The Sun also learned Ansari’s co-accused — who can’t be named under a still-in-effect court order forbidding his identification as Ansari’s tenant — pleaded guilty earlier this week to possession of carfentanil for the purpose of trafficking and 33 firearms offences.
He’s expected to be sentenced in February.
Ansari and his co-accused were charged after fire crews responding to a Sept. 20 2017 carbon monoxide alarm discovered totes full of coloured powders — later determined to be carfentanil cut with anhydrous caffeine.
A subsequent search of the basement apartment found baking trays of the deadly narcotic drying in the kitchen, and a closet containing duffel bags stuffed with shrink-wrapped firearms.
Court heard Ansari was introduced to the basement tenant by Fahad Hussain — a mutual friend and brother of deceased Danforth Ave. gunman Faisal Hussain.
Ansari served as Hussain’s surety after a 2017 arrest for failing to comply with bail conditions imposed in a 2015 drug arrest in Saskatoon.
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Hussain has been in a persistent vegetative after a 2017 overdose.
Carfentanil is about 100 times more potent than its more common analog fentanyl — a therapeutic painkiller notorious for triggering deadly overdoses in those who use it illicitly.
Commonly used to anesthetize large animals, as little as 20 micrograms — less than a single grain of salt — is enough to kill an average adult human.
bpassifiume@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @bryanpassifiume
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