Jeff Nagel

Black Press

More doubt is being cast on police use of elaborate “Mr. Big” stings to trick criminals into confessing.

An SFU study of 63 such cases has concluded there’s a significant risk the wrong suspects may be lured into confessing or making false claims.

In such scenarios, undercover officers pose as powerful and wealthy gangsters. They ply their targets with liquor, money and gifts, scare them with staged beatings, kidnappings or murders and ultimately extract confessions from them using intimidation, threats or promises of wealth and membership.

The RCMP say their use of the technique is backstopped by various procedures and safeguards to screen out people who make might make false claims.

In particular, they hold back critical evidence that isn’t made public and known only to investigators that they try to elicit from the suspect.

SFU criminology student Kouri Keenan, the study’s author, said murderers have on many occasions given up key evidence to phoney police mobsters, sometimes leading them to their victims’ bodies.

But he said in 27 cases he studied the confession was the linchpin of the Crown’s case, with no additional DNA or other evidence connecting the suspect to the crime.

“This is disconcerting,” Keenan said. “Confession evidence has a significant biasing effect on the decision-making of jurors.”

Despite safeguards, he said, the method by which police tempt or coerce suspects into confessions “calls into question their voluntariness and reliability.”

Keenan’s review of cases show cops posing as gangsters often claim they’ll help destroy evidence, arrange an alibi or fake documentation to help avoid prosecution, assist in beating a lie detector test, use corrupt police contacts or arrange a fall guy to take the blame.

The suspect must disclose details of the crime so the phoney crime boss can “make the problem go away” or to gain his trust and prove worth as a prospective associate.

Mr. Big operations conducted in B.C. led to the conviction of Robert Bonisteel in 2005 for murdering two teenage girls in Richmond in 1975 who he had picked up hitchhiking in Burnaby.

Bonisteel recounted details of the killings to an undercover officer posing as crime boss “Buck”, who had told him police had strong evidence against him but that an associate dying in prison who owed a favour would confess – provided Bonisteel gave him information that could convince police.

William Wade Bicknell, of Chiliwack, confessed to the 2001 murder of Angela Steer at her Maple Ridge home after being drawn into involvement with police posing as underworld figures, who pledged they could get him an alibi by sending him to a casino they controlled and doctoring the date stamp on the recording.

Patrick Fischer, of Abbotsford, likewise gave up details of the 1999 murder of 16-year-old Darci Drefko in Merritt to a Mr. Big at a Surrey hotel. The boss vowed to bring in an expert to help Fischer, the prime suspect in the case, beat a polygraph test. Undercover officers also showed him a fake police report implicating Fischer and promised him a $20,000 payoff from a staged drug deal he had conducted with them.

Keenan argues the role-playing scenarios cross professional, ethical or moral boundaries.

He said innocent suspects – particularly the drug-addicted – could fabricate stories about crimes they didn’t commit to win the money and lifestyle that comes with gang membership.

RCMP claim Mr. Big operations typically cost $100,000 to $300,000 but Keenan found several exceeded $2 million.

Of the 63 Mr. Big cases Keenan studied, 48 of them, or 76 per cent, took place in B.C.

Those accused were convicted in 86 per cent of cases that were prosecuted.

The practice has been overwhelmingly successful, so Keenan predicts it will continue to be used – until someone is wrongfully convicted due to a Mr. Big sting.

He said that could happen in the case of Kyle Wayne Unger, jailed 14 years for a 1990 murder in Manitoba. He was released last March after DNA evidence cast doubt on his conviction based on a Mr. Big confession, and the federal justice minister is reviewing the case.