UPDATE: No sign of Trial for Bike Thief

Is a deal in the making?

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  Stolen-bike case close to ending in deal, court told

  Lawyers in the Igor Kenk stolen-bicycles saga are discussing a possible deal to resolve the massive criminal case and head off a trial for the 50-year-old bike repairman, a Toronto court heard yesterday.

  Mr. Kenk, 50, was charged with more than 80 counts involving 2,865 used bicycles and a large quantity of illegal drugs seized in police raids in the summer of 2008, and has been awaiting trial in the Don Jail for almost a year since his bail was revoked last December.

  Mr. Kenk appeared yesterday at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, where he was to make a bid to have bail restored. Instead, his lawyer, Lon Rose, told Mr. Justice John Hamilton that “a proposed resolution to most if not all” of Mr. Kenk’s charges is in the works as a result of pre-trial talks with Crown officials and lower-court Justice Kathleen Caldwell.

  …

  The sheer size of the case, which involved raids on 12 properties, about 100 police officers and more than 80 charges, created a mountain of evidence to be gathered, sorted, assessed and disclosed to Mr. Kenk’s defence before any trial could proceed.

  Court filings obtained by The Globe and Mail, including Mr. Rose’s Nov. 12 notice of application for yesterday’s bail review, suggest that disclosure has been slow and sporadic. Mr. Rose only recently received, for example, statements from 70 police officers who worked on the case. Dozens more pieces of evidence have also been slow to materialize.

  …

  Regardless of any deal in the offing, Mr. Kenk still faces a lawsuit brought by the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney-General to seize his bike shop, two pickup trucks and 2,292 bicycles as proceeds of crime. Even though Mr. Kenk has not been convicted criminally, the province can use the Civil Remedies Act to seize and sell off his property if it can prove that it was used for a criminal purpose or obtained by crime.

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