Hector San Hueza's $4 million quest for justice

Careless Canadian cops put him in in jail last year, charged with crimes he did not commit. Now, Hector San Hueza has slapped police and Crown attorneys with a lawsuit

Hector San Hueza says he had just finished his morning coffee and was getting ready for work when heavily armed officers of Toronto's Emergency Task Force burst through the front door of his family's home. "They were yelling and shouting, `Do you guys have any guns in the house?' and asking for me, for: `Hector, Hector, who's Hector?''' recalls the soft-spoken man, who was in the house that day with his mother, stepfather and brother.

San Hueza says when he called out, "It's me," he found a shotgun pointed "very close" to his face. That June 4, 2008 morning, San Hueza was arrested along with 16 other alleged members of the violent MS-13 gang as part of a massive GTA-wide police operation. He was charged with participating in a criminal organization, conspiracy to commit murder and uttering a death threat.

San Hueza, now 33, was shocked and bewildered. "I've never had a criminal record, I've never done anything to give any motive or any reason ... for the ETF to come into my house." It turns out San Hueza wasn't in a gang – he has no tattoos common to MS-13 members – and had committed no crimes.

On Sept. 23, 2008, the Crown stayed his charges after he had spent 10 weeks in custody, according to a $4 million lawsuit filed in Ontario Superior Court last month. The 18-page statement of claim alleges San Hueza was negligently linked to MS-13, wrongly "charged with crimes of which wholly innocent," and maliciously prosecuted despite a "paucity of evidence."

The lawsuit notes that on two different occasions, Superior Court judges involved in bail hearings questioned the strength of the Crown's case. "I just don't see where the case is here against this accused," Justice Robert Clark said on Aug. 15, 2008.

The case against the alleged MS-13, which stands for Mara Salvatrucha-13, involved three other men charged with the alleged murder plot against a jail guard. The case collapsed, save for a few drug convictions and firearms offences.

The Toronto Police Services Board, Chief Bill Blair and two TPS officers, the Halton Regional Police Services Board and Chief Gary Crowell, along with two Crown attorneys are named as defendants. Neither police force would comment on the case. In a statement of defence filed July 20, counsel for the Ministry of the Attorney General called the action "frivolous and vexatious, and/or brought for an improper purpose."

So how did an aspiring cartoonist with no criminal record wind up at the end of a shotgun? Born on May 21, 1976 in Chile, San Hueza immigrated to Canada in 1989 with his mother, Sonia San Hueza, brother and two sisters. When San Hueza attended Dante Alighieri High School in North York, he and a classmate played pick-up soccer with a group of boys that included Jorge Salas.

San Hueza lost touch with Salas after finishing high school in 1996. In 2002, they crossed paths again while dating women who were friends. Salas asked San Hueza to be a witness when he married in a civil service, although they were more acquaintances than friends, according to the statement of claim.

In July 2007, the lawsuit says, Salas was charged with armed robbery and jailed at Maplehurst Detention Centre, near a car parts factory where San Hueza worked. San Hueza, aware that Salas had had few visitors, went to see him once, on Feb. 29, 2008.

In mid-March, an inmate advised guards that his cellmate, Salas, told him he felt disrespected after a correctional officer photographed his tattoos and that he had hatched a plot to have the officer killed. "If he could not get the officer, his wife and children," according to the statement of defence, the inmate said Salas's brother "or Hector would do the hit." "Hector" was a "Spanish guy who worked at a place called Karmax," in a car parts factory in Milton, the informant said. Police found that no one named Hector worked at Karmax and that "two other Hectors were identified as possibly associated to Salas, but no further connection was found."

The Crown opposed San Hueza's release on bail, but on Sept. 2, Justice Gary Trotter released him under stringent conditions, including house arrest. In his written endorsement, Trotter called the link between San Hueza and Salas "tenuous," adding he believed he was a "peripheral person" in San Hueza's life. He referred to his "unblemished history." Three weeks later the Crown withdrew the charges.

But the stain of being associated with a violent street gang remains. "It got into the media, the charges, my name, it hurt my reputation," says San Hueza. Neighbours look at his family differently. San Hueza now sees a therapist to deal with "a lot of anxiety, guilt and a lot of stress." The San Hueza family retained lawyers Richard Goldman, Adam Boni and Joseph Giuliana after pledging equity in the family home and other property.

Original report here



(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today)