A Hamilton cop tried to plant a gun at his house; now he's speaking up

Hamilton cop Robert Hansen thought Darren Mork could use some jail time.

Mork didn't know Hansen, but to the guns and gangs unit officer, Mork was a suspected drug trafficker.

In May 2012, Hansen got to work trying to make that jail time happen and tried to frame Mork by planting a gun at his home.

Now, Hansen is facing jail time after being convicted criminally for actions a judge called a form of "vigilante justice."

And Mork, telling the story from his perspective for the first time, filed a civil suit for $1.5 million Monday against Hansen, the Hamilton Police Services Board and the service's former chief, Glenn De Caire. 

The suit alleges "Hansen deliberately and maliciously violated the law in order to further his own personal vindictive agenda." And it claims as a result of the whole situation Mork suffered "nervous shock," and other psychological damage. 

The allegations raised in the civil suit have not yet been heard in court.

Mork, who left the city in the wake of the police attention, admits he fell under bad influences as a teenager, but says he's learned from his past and hopes to help others avoid going down the wrong path.

Mork has found some solace learning that Hansen was convicted in criminal court for the attempted framing.

"It was very liberating," he said. "It was good to know that the justice system does not choose sides, and that they go by what is right."

Hansen is appealing both his conviction and five-year sentence.

'This man had a vendetta for me'

The first time Mork met Hansen was the day Hansen raided his house and Mork was arrested, Mork said.

"This man had a vendetta for me for some reason, and that's the day we met," Mork told CBC news. "Prior to that, we knew nothing of – he may have (known) things of me. I knew nothing of him."

Hansen's trial earlier this year revealed that Mork was the person being talked about in a text message Hansen sent to a source in Hamilton's drug scene in May 2012:

"He could use some jail time. Do u have any ideas how to get him?"

As it happened, the source did have some ideas. And Hansen "encouraged" the source to plant a gun at Mork's house, a judge found in January.

Cop found guilty

Hansen was found guilty on three charges stemming from the 2012 incident, one count of perjury and two counts of obstruction of justice.

He lied on the application to search Mork's house, making a false statement about a gun, and left other material things out, such as that the gun hadn't just been in Mork's house but had actually been planted there to be used as evidence, on Hansen's urging.

Then he made a false statement under oath to secure the warrant. 

The civil suit alleges as a result of the raid and Hansen's actions, Mork now has trouble sleeping, is estranged from his family and has developed a deep distrust of people in uniform.

"He has lost enjoyment of life," the suit says. 

Hamilton police declined to comment on the suit.

'I was in the wrong place at the wrong time'

Mork's parents moved to Canada from wartime Cambodia shortly before Mork was born in Vancouver, B.C., in 1986. They moved to Hamilton when he was just a few years old, settling in Riverdale West in the city's east end.

"It wasn't easy growing up in that neighbourhood," Mork said. "We were predominantly ran by violence surrounding our area."

He fell in with a bad crowd at Glendale Secondary, he said, "experimenting" with drugs. During the time Mork was in high school, police were dealing with an increased level of violence and street gang activity in the east end.

"They were my role models, they were my parents at the end of the day," he said, referring to the people he knew who were involved in crime and drugs.

"So me being around them and them doing criminal activities and having a history with the police where they were investigated at times, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Mork admits to being drawn into that scene but won't discuss specifics.

He acknowledges being caught up at least once in a drug raid, charges from which he said didn't stick.

After that, he said, he "got more involved" in the drug scene.

"I didn't make the smartest decisions in my life," he said.

'Hansen took the goal of keeping the streets safe into his own hands'

But his connections to the scene are how Mork, who also went by Dee or D-Block, thinks he came to be known to Hamilton police. The court documents in Hansen's case identify Mork as a "suspected drug trafficker" who was known to Hamilton police.

Judge Catrina Braid concluded in sentencing Hansen that he'd gone too far:

"Rather than investigating crime and putting legitimate evidence before the courts to determine a just outcome, Hansen took the goal of keeping the streets safe into his own hands," she said.

"His conduct was a form of vigilante justice."

Court documents from the criminal trial also said police found three baggies of cocaine on Mork's person the same day Hansen searched his house. 

The civil suit, filed by Nick Cake of Millars Law out of London, Ont., alleges that was false arrest. The suit claims he was arrested for possession of a firearm — a firearm that was never found on his person or in the search of his home.

And, they argue, that calls into question the legality of the process leading to the cocaine charge laid at the station.

'There are people after me'

Mork's cocaine charges from the day of the raid were withdrawn, along with nine other cases that Hansen had been involved with. (None except Mork's were found to have any suggestion of misconduct in a police review.)

In the months following the raid, police investigators talked to talk to Mork at his home. They were looking into Hansen's actions.

He talked with them willingly. It wasn't until he started seeing Hansen's name in the media coverage of the perjury trial that he realized what had been going on behind the scenes.

But, he says, other cops came by, too. And they came to his parents' when he'd be there eating dinner. It got to be too much.  He felt like he was being harassed. He decided to leave Hamilton.

"I don't know why they were there, but they were there," he said.

"And I was contacted constantly by friends saying to watch my back. That, they argue, there are people after me. I honestly wanted to protect my family so there I had to leave."

'The steps that we are taking forward'

The raid and its aftermath were "a very rough time for me," Mork said. But, he said, he found some ambition and started cooking in restaurants, took some college culinary management classes.

Mork has worked as a cook and in management at restaurants in recent years. He's also trying to carve a new role as a motivational speaker for younger people who graduate high school without direction beyond violence and drugs.

He's working on motivational messages like, "The footprints that we left behind do not direct us on the steps that we are taking forward."

He's publishing some of those thoughts on social media, hoping younger people and maybe some old friends from his east-end neighbourhood will see them.

"I just want to show them, like, there's a better way," he said. "People like me, growing up with the same background as I have, they feel like that's the life that they're going to live."

"But there's bigger things that can happen if you actually try."

kelly.bennett@cbc.ca | @kellyrbennett