[URBAN NOTE] On the latest Rob Ford scandals (drugs, Stintz)

[rfmcdonald]

Via Gawker.



Via The Globe and Mail.

A second video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking what has been described as crack-cocaine by a self-professed drug dealer was secretly filmed in his sister’s basement early Saturday morning.

The clip, which was viewed by two Globe and Mail reporters, shows Mr. Ford taking a drag from a long copper-coloured pipe, exhaling a cloud of smoke, his right arm convulsing. The footage is part of a package of three videos the dealer said was surreptitiously filmed around 1:15 a.m., and which he says he is now selling for “at least six figures.”

Mr. Ford declined to answer questions from The Globe and Mail. Less than an hour after The Globe asked the mayor for comment, his lawyer, Dennis Morris, said Mr. Ford is planning to “take a break” from the mayoral election.

In one of the clips shown to The Globe and Mail on Wednesday, the mayor rapidly shifts his weight back and forth on the spot, talking into his cellphone and his right arm swinging at his side. When the camera pans around the room, a man that looks like Alessandro “Sandro” Lisi, the mayor’s former driver and an accused drug-dealing extortionist, can be seen in the background. Mr. Ford’s sister, Kathy, who has admitted in media interviews to being a drug addict, is sitting in front of her brother. In the last of three clips, Mr. Ford is holding the pipe and speaking to his sister.

Via CBC.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford will take a leave of absence to seek help for substance abuse, CBC News has confirmed.

Ford's lawyer Dennis Morris said Wednesday night Ford will take a leave and “seek assistance for his substance abuse problem" but will not drop out of the municipal election.

Ford "thinks this is an opportunity to step back, take a breath and get help," Morris told CBC News.

The news comes amid reports that one or more new recordings of Ford have surfaced and are about to be released. The Toronto Sun reported late Wednesday it has obtained a new and “raunchy” audio recording of Ford “ranting and swearing” in a Toronto-area bar.

The news comes amid a rocky re-election campaign in which Ford has repeatedly described himself as a changed man who has learned from the mistakes of his first term as mayor.

And, via the Toronto Sun, another scandal.

"The decision to immediately step away from the campaign — while staying on the ballot — came after the Toronto Sun exclusively obtained a new raunchy audio recording of Ford ranting and swearing in an Etobicoke bar.

[. . .]

The audio recording, covertly taped by a patron of Sullie Gorman’s Monday night, captures the mayor being unruly as he’s ordering booze at the Royal York Rd. bar, complaining about his wife Renata and making lewd comments about mayoral contender Karen Stintz.

“I’d like to f-----g jam her (Stintz), but she doesn’t want ... I can’t talk like this...I’m so sorry,” Ford is heard saying on the recording. “I forgot there’s a woman in the house.”

According to one witness, Ford was seen buying shooters and tequila and trying to fight with patrons Monday.

“He was really wasted,” said the witness. “And he was acting like a real ass.”"