From todays London Free Press. Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.
Ex-cop gets house arrest
Shamed and disgraced, the nine-year veteran is given a 12-month conditional sentence.
By JANE SIMS, FREE PRESS JUSTICE REPORTER
He sold confidential police information knowing it could land in the hands of the Hells Angels motorcycle club.
He sold anabolic steroids while wearing a London police uniform. He hid marijuana in an in-line skate in his basement.
And yesterday, shamed and disgraced, Frank Boros was allowed to go home.
Boros, 36, a nine-year veteran of the London force, pleaded guilty in January to three charges -- criminal breach of trust, trafficking in a controlled substance and possession of marijuana.
Yesterday, in the courthouse where his lawyer said Boros "used to walk with his head high," he was given a 12-month conditional sentence and a $250 fine.
"You have disgraced yourself and you alone will have to live in the shadow of that shame," Ontario Court Justice Deborah Livingstone said.
During his sentence, Boros will be required to perform 150 hours of community service in the first 10 months.
Boros must be in his home each day from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., unless he is travelling to and from work.
Outside of court, Boros's lawyer, Glenn Donald, declined comment.
Prosecutor David Foulds, director of Crown operations for the West region, said in an interview he didn't see Boros's sentence as soft.
It reflects the former police officer's efforts to pull together "his devastating personal losses" since his arrest, said Foulds, who argued Boros should serve six to 12 months in jail.
Boros did not exit the courthouse through the only public entrance and avoided reporters.
During the sentencing hearing, he said he took full responsibility for his actions and described the toll on him.
"I lost almost everything," he said to Livingstone. "My career, relationship and especially my own self-worth."
Livingstone said the breach of trust was "very serious," but she took into account Boros's efforts to change his life and move forward as a productive member of society.
Donald, who asked for a conditional sentence, stressed to Livingstone the shame and disgrace Boros has lived with since his arrest in 2004.
Boros was charged in a police sting operation after an RCMP officer working with the biker enforcement unit told London police "Frank the cop" was passing on confidential information to a woman who knew a police informant.
A police agent gained Boros's trust when he agreed to sell him a special chainsaw for his sideline tree-cutting business for $300 -- a fraction of the actual cost.
The agent began asking for planted information that Boros found while on duty through the police computer system.
He was paid for the information and anabolic steroids.
Donald told Livingstone Boros grew up in London and was a high school athlete and air cadet. Through his summer jobs, he developed a love for nature and trees.
He studied to be a parks technician but drifted to policing because of few job opportunities in his field.
He began with Brantford police and eventually moved to London. His marriage failed and he has joint custody of a nine-year-old son.
His police performance reviews were positive and he received a certificate of valour for saving a man who wanted to jump from an 11th-floor balcony.
Boros also started Frank's Tree Service, a business he has since poured himself into since his arrest. It has three full-time employees and three part-time workers.
He was engaged to Natalia Gomez, 30, and the two of them purchased and furnished a home. The day before the couple was to travel to St. Lucia to get married, police conducted a search of his house and he was charged.
The marriage never happened and within weeks, the home was for sale.
At the time of his arrest, Donald said, Boros was under financial pressure. He resigned from the police force last October.
A custodial sentence, he said, would "put the nail in the coffin" of the business.
Foulds said Livingstone needed to reflect society's condemnation of the former police officer's actions.
"The victim here is the reputation of the London police service, the erosion of public confidence in the performance of police duties," he said.
Foulds said police investigations and officers' lives were put at risk by Boros's actions because of greed.
He was "the author of his own misfortune," Foulds said.
He reminded Livingstone the London police motto is proud of our past, prepared for the future.
"Mr. Boros' actions is a black mark on that past," Foulds said.
Livingstone said the black mark extended to Boros's "own reputation and the police force he represented."
She relied heavily on a Supreme Court decision that determined conditional sentences carry a heavy stigma and should not be underestimated as appropriate punishment.
Livingstone recommended Boros's community service be done in amateur athletics or in forestry and parks.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has vowed to do away with conditional sentences -- known as house arrest -- for violent offences.
