A jury of 12 men and women are now deliberating on the future of Craig Ruthowsky; a Hamilton police officer on trial for bribery, trafficking and conspiracy to traffic illegal drugs, obstruction of justice and breach of trust. Now that the jury is sequestered, we can share information the jury wasn’t told.

The end of this trial doesn’t mean the end of Ruthowsky’s legal troubles. The jury doesn’t know it, but 16 more charges were laid against the officer last year.

Sources say that when Toronto police investigators involved in Project Pharaoh caught the conversation between Ruthowsky and a drug dealer on wire tap, they were concerned enough they had to arrest him right away. But Ruthowsky was already, secretly, under investigation. The new charges are similar but come from the earlier ongoing police probe.

Bribery, robbery, public mischief, fraud under $5,000, perjury, weapons trafficking x2, trafficking marijuana, trafficking cocaine x2, conspiracy to commit an indictable offence x2, obstruct justice x2 & breach trust x2.

These charges mean a third criminal proceeding against Ruthowsky, his first trial in 2013 was stayed to protect the identity of a police informant. Ruthowsky also still faces police act charges pending since 2012 based on very similar accusations.

The jury saw a videotaped police interview with Ruthowsky’s former friend and guns and gangs colleague, Robert Hansen. What they didn’t hear is that Hansen is behind bars, convicted in 2016 of conspiring with a drug dealer to plant a gun at a suspect’s home and then lying to get a search warrant. Like Ruthowsky, Hansen argued he was just trying to get a gun off the streets and had made innocent mistakes. Hansen’s appeal was dismissed by the courts last year. The judges said that police officers are duty-bound to uphold the justice system.