Seven Toronto police officers facing criminal charges in one of the country’s largest corruption investigations have been suspended without pay.
Six of the police officers are currently not receiving pay; a seventh, Constable Derek McCormick, was given notice in early March, and will lose his pay at the beginning of May, according to Nadine Ramadan, senior communications officer with the Toronto Police Service.
Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw announced in February that he would seek unpaid suspensions for at least some of the officers accused in the Project South probe, which involved payoffs and information leaks to organized-crime figures.
As of spring 2024, Ontario’s Community Safety and Policing Act allows police chiefs to suspend officers without pay when they are charged with serious, indictable offences unrelated to the performance of their jobs. In cases where bail conditions mean the officers are unable to perform their jobs, the pay stops immediately. In other situations, a 60-day notice is required.
The other Toronto officers charged include Constable Timothy Barnhardt, Sergeant Robert Black, Sergeant Carl Grellette, Constable Saurabjit Bedi, Constable Elias Mouawad and Constable John Madeley Jr., whose father, John Madeley Sr., a retired constable, also faces charges.
The police officers are among 27 people now accused with crimes in connection with the Project South probe, which began after an alleged plot to kill an Ontario corrections officer was discovered in June, 2025.
The corrections officer’s personal information was allegedly shared with hit men, who were arrested after crashing their car into a police cruiser in the man’s driveway.
The Toronto police officers are accused of leaking information to organized-crime figures, accepting payoffs and protecting drug-trafficking networks, according to details released at a February press conference.
York Regional Police investigators said some of the unlawfully accessed data were shared with gang members, who used them for extortion and shootings around Southern Ontario as part of turf wars in the tow-truck industry.
Another five officers, two with the Toronto Police and three with the Peel Regional Police, have also been suspended but are not facing charges.
The allegations have not been proven in court.