‘Magic wand’ fails to save cocaine case against Mississauga man

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The judge issued a moratorium in Mississauga, Ontario, with male police officers allegedly arrested in his apartment for more than $70,000 in cash, 400 oxycodone pills, digital scales and other drug paraphernalia as one of the members who completed the trial would take more than 29 months.

The man allegedly took the keys to a storage locker in the same building that contained more than 8 kilograms of cocaine and another $14,000 in cash.

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Christopher Vaughan, facing charges of drug trafficking, filed for a stay in the Ontario Superior Court, successfully convicted that his right to trial without violating unreasonable right to delay. In a precedent known as Jordanian rule, the Supreme Court of Canada sets a presumptive ceiling of 18 months for provincial court trials and 30 months for high court trials, after which it is considered unreasonable unless exceptional circumstances are proven.

“This case is another example of the official failure to be significantly disclosed in a chronic agency delay and must be corrected immediately or faced in consequences,” Judge Deena F. Baltman wrote in a recent ruling.

More than 400 challenges in Canadian cases ended the case between January 2023 and November 2024, according to figures obtained by Canadian press late last year.

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Police arrested Vaughn on March 2, 2023. His spouse, Maria Lopez, was also charged with possession of property for trafficking purposes.

“His trial before the jury is scheduled to begin 7-10 days on July 28, 2025. The trial is expected to be completed 29 months and 8 days after the oath of office,” Baltmann said in a March 26 ruling.

Even if Vaughn’s “trial will be completed at a 30-month cap of 25 days under High Court affairs,” he still succeeded in saying that the delay was unreasonable.

Much of the dispute centered on four documents delaying the Crown disclosure, which the RCMP used to convince the judge to issue a search warrant in the case.

Six months after police accused Vaughan of his lawyers still waiting for the royal family to hand over “several” documents, i.e., information for acquisition or ITOS.

“This is a search and seizure case, without these ITOs, especially the first one still outstanding, the lawyers cannot advise Mr. Vaughan on the election or any potential guilty plea,” Vaughan said at the time. “And the lawyers believe that he is currently unable to continue their judicial trials.”

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Seven months after the charges were charged, the royal family finally handed over the documents.

Vaughan chose to hold trial in Ontario court on November 15, 2023.

But his trial is scheduled to take place in February this year, which will be held for five months in Jordan’s freedom, Baltman said.

Officials tried to obtain an earlier trial date in the so-called “Jordanian Compliance Court”, but that did not resolve.

So, on the contrary, on March 11, 2024, the official filed a direct prosecution against Vaughn and sent his case to the High Court. The court heard that Vaughn’s will moved the “thing upstairs” away.

But even in the High Court, Vaughn’s trial ended in August, 29 months and 8 days after he was formally indicted.

The decision said Vaughn was not responsible for any delays.

It noted that the royal family chose to favor the indictment, bypassing the preliminary investigation phase and going directly to the trial, “actually resulting in a six-month delay.”

Baltman said the delay in the Vaughan case was “very close to the (30-month) Jordan ceiling.”

She said that allowing Crown to take the case directly to “turn an already unreasonable delay into a reasonable delay will turn the superior court into a ‘dumping ground’ of cases that should be resolved within 18 months in the provincial court in Ontario.”

Such a move “can’t be an unreasonable delay into a reasonable wand,” the judge said.

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