Suspended Hamilton cop faces new charges

A suspended Hamilton police officer is facing 16 new criminal charges that allegedly took place between 2009 and 2012, from bribery to weapon and drug trafficking. According to Hamilton police, 43 year old Craig Ruthowsky, a former guns and gangs cop was arrested today and released on bail.

If we include the arrest today, Ruthowsky has found himself in handcuffs three times in the past five years. It was back in 2012 that the officer was arrested for alleged misconduct in Hamilton’s gangs and guns enforcement unit. Hamilton police say further information into that investigation has led to these new charges today. The charges include bribery, breach of trust, obstructing justice, perjury, public mischief, weapon, marijuana, and cocaine trafficking, fraud under five thousand dollars and robbery.

Ruthowsky, a member of Hamilton police for nearly two decades, was first charged in 2012 for alleged misconduct within Hamilton’s gangs and weapons enforcement unit. Those charges were later stayed because prosecutors feared that if they had gone to trial the identity of a police informant would be revealed. But two years later Ruthowsky found himself in trouble again, he was arrested and charged following a Toronto police gang bust in 2015 called project pharaoh and he will stand trial next year. The criminal charges from that investigation range from conspiracy to traffic cocaine to participating in a criminal organization.

In 2016 his former partner Robert Hansen was sentenced to five years in prison after he was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice when he had an informant plant a gun at a suspected drug trafficker’s home back in 2012. Police won’t confirm reports that at least one of the new charges Ruthowsky faces is in relation to that gun planting incident five years ago.

According to the Sunshine list, Ruthowsky earned $107,000 last year.