Gawker editor says Ford video is ‘gone’

The Gawker editor who first broke the story of a video being shopped around allegedly showing Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack, now says he’s been told it is “gone.”

John Cook said he was dealing with an intermediary in direct contact with the alleged drug dealers said to be in possession of the video.

But in a story posted on Gawker Tuesday night, Cook said the middle man called him on Friday with a message from the owners: “It’s gone. Leave me alone.”

Those words broke a long silence from the video’s owners, who Cook said “went to ground” after the story drew worldwide media attention.

Gawker, an American gossip site, was the first to report seeing the tape. Two Toronto Star reporters also said in a published report that they’d seen it.

The Star reporters said the tape appeared to show Ford smoking from a crack pipe and making racial and homophobic slurs.

When asked about this latest development, The Star reporter Robyn Doolittle told CityNews she “can’t comment on anything with Gawker.”

CityNews has not been able to verify allegations made by Gawker and the Star.

Cook originally said the tape was being shopped around for 6-figures, sparking a Gawker-led crowd-sourcing campaign to raise the money to buy and post it online.

The campaign eclipsed its $200,000 goal, but by then Cook said the owners couldn’t be tracked down and that any money raised would be donated to a local charity if the video could not be obtained.

He also said Tuesday he’s not sure what “gone” actually means when it comes to the alleged video.

It might have been “handed over to Ford or his allies,” he wrote. “It might mean that the Toronto Police Department has seized it and plans to use it as evidence in a criminal investigation. It might mean that it has been transferred to the custody of Somali community leaders for safekeeping.”

“It might be a lie. The intermediary doesn’t know. Neither do I.”

But Cook wasn’t ready to concede that the video would never be made public.

“The intermediary has claimed that a copy of the video was made and taken outside Toronto for safekeeping. We don’t know if that’s true, or if it is, whether that copy is also “gone.” We can still imagine any number of scenarios in which this video comes to light,” he wrote.

Ford first dismissed the allegations as “ridiculous” on May 17 and then broke a week-long silence last Friday denying that he uses crack cocaine.

“I do not use crack cocaine nor am I an addict of crack cocaine,” Ford said during a news conference at city hall. “As for a video, I can’t comment on a video that I’ve not seen or does not exist.”

He echoed those comments a few days later during his weekly radio show.

The scandal, meanwhile, has rocked city hall. Several Ford staffers have resigned following the allegations and the Mayor fired his chief-of-staff, Mark Towhey.

Towhey, who held the position since August 2012, didn’t say why he lost his job, but several media reports suggested he was fired for urging Ford to enter rehab.