Sentencing hearing for Niagara police officer

The sentencing hearing for Dean Rudge began Monday morning at the Welland Courthouse. He’s the Niagara police officer found guilty of leaking intelligence documents to the Hells Angels. The crown attorney says Rudge should be sentenced to four years in prison for a crime that put people’s lives in jeopardy.

Dean Rudge was found guilty of breach of trust last August after ten police intelligence documents with Rudge’s fingerprints on them were found in the possession of the Hells Angels. One of those memos had the name of a confidential informant. Crown Attorney Flumerfelt says given how violent the Hells Angels can be, Rudge was exposing that informant to grave danger. Crown Robin Flumerfelt says the leak was so serious that if that confidential informant had been killed, Rudge would have been found guilty of murder.”

Flumerfelt says Rudge also released the addresses of the rival Outlaws gang members who were moving back into the Niagara region. He says Rudge served up the Outlaws on a silver platter. Flumerfelt says once the leak was known informants stopped coming forward.

Flumerfelt says Rudge wouldn’t have been caught if it weren’t for a printer monitor and the “project tandem” raid on the Hells Angels.

The crown says a police officer who risks people’s lives demands a sentence at the high end of the spectrum.

Dean Rudge’s lawyer Mark Evans is asking for a conditional sentence; what amounts to house arrest. Evans says no one was harmed and Rudge shouldn’t be sentenced on
what might have happened. Evans asked the judge to consider that Rudge loses his career a year and a half short of full retirement. The nature of the information leaked was not earth shattering. Time behind bars for a police officer would be extremely difficult. And that the stigma of being identified as a dirty cop has been magnified by all the media attention. The judge will deliver his decision on Wednesday.