$55M drug-bust money laundering charge should be stayed because of delay, says lawyer

A Calgary man who pleaded guilty to money laundering in connection with a $55-million drug trafficking investigation will ask a judge to stay his charges because of the delay in the case.

Talal Fouani, 48, was charged in June 2022 and pleaded guilty in March 2023.

The case never made it to sentencing.

Between March and November 2023, Fouani's defence lawyer,Yoav Niv,made a number of requests of the court.

'A lot of delay'

During that eight-month period, Niv made applications to:

• Order a publication ban.
• Withdrawthe guilty plea.
• Remove the prosecutors from the case.
• Have the judge recuse himself.
• Determine what evidence should be considered as part of the sentencing process.
• Order a mistrial.
• Access third-party records.

In November, Niv told Justice Greg Stirling that he would be "withdrawing from the record" if the judge did not recuse himself.

"It's become such a mess," said Niv. "I'm at the end of my rope on this file."

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Stirling refused to recuse himself and Niv got off record on the case.

When that happened, Fouani tearfully told the judge he'd paid Niv $500,000 in legal fees over the past 17 months and was broke.

Defence lawyer Greg Dunn then took over Fouani's case and the lawyers, judge and accused met in court on Feb.5 for a progress report.

"There's been a lot of applications, there's been a lot of delay," Dunn told the court that day.

Down to 2 applications

Dunn said his first order of business was to determine which, if any, of Niv's applications to proceed with.

At a case management meeting in March, Dunn told the court he was abandoning all applications but two.

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The first is a disclosure application for access to Fouani's computer that was seized by police and returned with corrupted data that the defence believes "would be relevant in rebutting some of the facts," said Dunn.

The second is a Jordan application.

Fouani's lawyer says he'll be making that application in September meaning he will ask Stirling to rule that Fouani's Charter rights were violated by delays in concluding the case.

The Supreme Court of Canada put hard timelines on how long cases can take from charge to sentencing. It put an 18-month deadline on trials in provincial courts.

In calculating delay, the judge will have to determine how much to attribute to the defence.

If successful, Fouani could see his charges stayed.

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Two months after he was charged, Fouani and his spouse were shot as they sat in their vehicle outside their Calgary home.

Nakita Baron died, Fouani survived.

Police charged a man with first-degree murder but have not said if it's connected to Fouani's alleged crimes.

Michael Tyrel Arnold was charged with first-degree murder. He's set to go on trial next year.