Ex-staffers say Ford consorted with suspected prostitutes: documents

Former staffers of Rob Ford told police they were concerned about the mayor’s use of drugs, his drunk driving and at least on one occasion his association with women they suspected were prostitutes, court documents show.

The new revelations came hours after Ford admitted for the first time to buying illegal drugs while in office.

“I really effed up,” Ford said, as council voted overwhelmingly to have the mayor take a leave of absence.

But despite the mounting pressure for him to resign or step aside, Ford repeated that he is not going anywhere.

The previously redacted information came from police interviews with people close to the embattled Toronto mayor and detailed in a document that contains allegations not proven in court.

The document also revealed that Toronto police were looking into the possibility that a video apparently showing Ford smoking crack cocaine was on the cellphone of a man who was shot and killed.

Anthony Smith was photographed with Ford and two alleged gang members outside a home police allege is a “crack house.”

He was killed outside a club in late March and the police allegations reveal his cellphone “was stolen at the time of his murder.”

One former Ford staffer told police the mayor had told him he knew Smith, the police document shows. Another staffer told police Ford did not know Smith.

During a city council debate over a motion urging Ford to take a leave of absence Wednesday, Ford denied the home is a “crack house” and said of the photo that it was a “one-off.”

Several of the staffers’ allegations centre around the night of St. Patrick’s Day last year, where a former staffer told police he saw Ford with another staffer, a friend and a young, blond woman named Alana who he thought was “an escort or a prostitute.”

The same woman had been seen with Ford at a stag party, ex-staffer Isaac Ransom told police.

Ransom told police Ford was drinking from a 40-ounce bottle of Smirnoff vodka and by the time he arrived at the mayor’s office that night around 9 p.m. half of it was gone.

“Mayor Ford was totally out of it and had obviously been drinking,” the police document quotes Ransom as saying. Ford wanted to “smoke narcotics” with Alana and his friend but his staffers stopped him, Ransom told police.

Ford went to a bar that night and a friend of Alana’s showed up, Ransom said.

“When he got up to leave he decided he wanted to go to the dance floor, so he went over, stumbled around the dance floor and fell down,” the police quote Ransom as saying.

Another staffer, Chris Fickel, told police he was not with the mayor that night, but heard that the mayor went back to city hall with three staffers, a friend and “two females that may have been prostitutes.”

The mayor then started “crying uncontrollably,” assaulted one staffer, pushed another and drove himself home, the documents say.

Ford’s former chief of staff Mark Towhey told police that Fickel confided in him that one time the mayor had stopped and drank a “mickey” of vodka while driving. After hearing this Towhey implemented a new rule that if a staff member was with the mayor they would be the one to drive, he told police.