Pedro's Case — An Unwanted Man on the Lam

Client:  Pedro, Living Underground in Toronto
Complainant:  Toronto Police Service
Charges:  dangerous driving and/or attempted murder

Background:  Fifteen years ago, the police stopped Pedro for speeding. At that time, Pedro had been living illegally in Canada for two years with his wife, a Canadian citizen, and their two children. Fearing the police would discover his lack of immigration status and deport him, Pedro panicked. He hit the gas, and sped away. The police made chase, but were unable to catch him. Having spotted his plate number, the police attended Pedro's home, and frightened the bejesus out of his wife. The officer who had stopped Pedro told his wife that Pedro had tried to "run her over." "When we find him," she chastised, "we'll charge him with dangerous driving and maybe even attempted murder." Pedro had been living under the radar ever since, doing his best to unofficially raise a family in Toronto.

Goals:  "I can't take it anymore," Pedro complained. "I'm 17 years in this country without status, and, for the last 15, I'm a wanted man. My kids are big. My wife is frustrated. I can't go on like this. If I have to go to jail, be deported, and come back later, so be it." Pedro already had an immigration lawyer. My job was to tackle his criminal-law problem.

Strategy:  My first step was to get informed. I needed to conduct a criminal records search with the Court Clerk and the police. Was there an arrest warrant? If so, what was the charge, what police division was involved, and what Crown's office was prosecuting? Only upon understanding the problem could I come up with a solution.

Results:  I made phone call after phone call to the police and the Courts. Pedro's name was nowhere to be found. I even had a warrants officer with the Toronto Police Service search for Pedro's name in their computer system (manix). Again, nothing was found. After our exhaustive search, the warrants officer told me to tell Pedro to treat it as a "sentence served and lesson learned."

READ PEDRO'S TESTIMONIAL