There were close to 900 telephone calls, text messages and meetings between accused drug dealer Alexander “Sandro” Lisi and Mayor Rob Ford or members of his staff during the six-month Project Brazen 2 investigation, an analysis of police search warrant documents reveals. 

Between March 18 and Sept. 19, Ford and Lisi alone had approximately 711 telephone calls, including those that were not completed or went to voicemail.  The mayor was found to be using five numbers: his cellphone, the OnStar hands-free calling system in his Cadillac Escalade, two residential lines and a number for “Deco Adhesive Products.” 

The call data was gleaned from Lisi’s cellphone records by police carrying out surveillance on Lisi and Ford this summer. 

On Tuesday, Ford stunned Torontonians and media outlets around the world with his admission that he had smoked crack cocaine “about a year ago.”  While he apologized for past “mistakes,” the mayor defiantly vowed to stay on the job “for the sake of the taxpayers.” 

Early last month, Lisi — the mayor’s friend and part-time driver — was arrested and charged with drug trafficking and possession of marijuana, among other things.  He was arrested again last week and charged with extortion for allegedly trying to intimidate two accused gang members in handing over a video of the mayor appearing to smoke from a crack pipe and uttering homophobic and racist remarks.  He was released on bail. 

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The police documents — filed as part of a search warrant application for Lisi’s home and released last Thursday — detail six months of surveillance of calls, meetings and package exchanges between the Ford and Lisi, among others.  About half of the nearly 500 pages of the application are blacked out.  The Star is fighting in court to get the censored material released. 

In addition to the more than 700 telephone “points of contact” between the mayor and his occasional driver, the documents also detail 23 meetings between Ford and Lisi observed by police, many of which involved the exchange of small white plastic bags or manila envelopes. 

One day that stands out in the phone records is May 25, when Lisi and Ford exchanged 18 phone calls — one of the calls coming from the mayor’s office at city hall.  May 25 was the day after Ford, following seven days of silence, first offered a response to the crack video story, standing in front of reporters and saying: “I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine.” 

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Phone records also reveal that several members of Ford’s city hall staff had contact with Lisi a total of 139 times during the police investigation. 

Topping that list was Tom Beyer, Ford’s executive assistant, who had 73 phone contacts — calls or text messages — with Lisi between April 20 and Sept. 19, according to the search warrant documents.  Beyer was also observed by police meeting Lisi on June 15 in the parking lot of the Metro grocery store on Royal York Rd.,  just north of Trehorne Dr. The two were seen getting into Beyer’s car, which drove a short distance to Lisi’s vehicle. 

Beyer did not respond to an interview request Wednesday, but late last week he told the Star that he was not aware of Lisi’s alleged criminal behaviour.  Beyer said he did not set up meetings between Ford and Lisi, except for the occasional football game, and that his relationship with Lisi was based on a mutual love of dogs. 

He said his June 15 meeting with Lisi in the Metro parking lot concerned Lisi’s dog, which at the time was dying. 

David Price, Ford’s director of operations and logistics, exchanged 50 phone calls with Lisi during the investigation: more than half occurred between March 18 and June 24. 

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Records indicate most of these exchanges occurred on May 17, the day after news broke of the crack video.  On that day, Price contacted Ford’s then-chief of staff, Mark Towhey, to ask “hypothetically” what the mayor’s office would do if Price had been told where to find the video.  The Star has previously reported that police were investigating attempts by Price and another man to retrieve the video. 

Neither Price nor Ford responded to the Star’s interview requests Wednesday. 

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Two other Ford staffers, Chris Fickel and J.C. Hasko, had telephone contact with Lisi 16 times between them. 

In total, Ford and his staffers exchanged telephone calls and text messages and met with Lisi a total of 874 times, according to the surveillance records. 

The search warrant documents note that the numbers are approximate and “may be lower than represented” because the system used to log the calls — the “dialed number recorder” or DNR — does not filter out duplicate calls, non-completed calls and voice mails.